For You (The 'Burg Series) (23 page)

“Dee –”

“She lived her life with Colt in your shadow. She wanted a baby that bad to stake him to her, ‘cause no way a woman could live her life knowin’ she wasn’t her other half’s true other half. She had to find a way to
make
him stay and Colt would stay, no matter what, for family. She couldn’t give him that and she couldn’t live under that cloud, wonderin’, each time you came home, when his head would turn.”

I didn’t want to be talking about this. We were treading on dangerous ground.

“He’s a man, Dee, but he wouldn’t step out on Melanie.”

I said it even though I couldn’t be certain it was true, not because of me but because Colt had a dick and that was, in my experience, the bottom-line truth of it for all men.
 

“Don’t matter he wouldn’t, she
thought
he would. She got out from under that cloud and I don’t blame her. I don’t know why she stepped under it in the first place. Made her miserable and she made Colt watch her fade away.” I opened my mouth to say something but Dee waved her hand in my direction and continued. “I like Melanie, don’t get me wrong, she’s a good gal. But she didn’t do right by him. He felt it, her leavin’ him, and that was cruel. She wanted something she couldn’t have, knew it and reached out and grabbed it anyway but he paid the price.”

Again.
I knew was what she left unsaid and that unspoken word cut through me like a blade.

“Dee –”

“Everyone wants to see you two happy, Feb, together, apart, it don’t matter. Just happy,” she leaned in, “but neither of you are happy, girl, and we all know why. It’s tearin’ both of you apart and all of us right along with it.”

“I love you, babe,” I said quietly, “but with all the shit’s that’s going on, I don’t need this.”

“With all the shit that’s goin’ on, girl, you need this more than you ever did.”

“There’s things you don’t know.”

“Yeah, I know, but they happened
twenty years ago
, Feb.”

“But –”

“Alexander Colton touched my hand, watched my ass while I moved, got that smile on his face when he saw me laugh, especially when I was going through all kinds of hell, I’d learn to get passed whatever it was that happened twenty years ago and grab onto happiness.”

I started to say something, I didn’t know what, but I didn’t get it out.

This was because I heard an angry, male voice shouting, “You
cunt!
”

My head came around and every fiber of my being froze when I watched Loren Smithfield stalk across the room.

“You, fucking,
cunt!
”

He was talking to me. I knew this because his eyes were on me, not to mention the fact that he was pointing at me.

“Lore, what the fuck?” Al asked loudly from the pool table but his cue was at a slant at his side, held in his fist and he was starting to move closer.

Lore ignored Al, he had his target in his sights and not even Al was going to make him lose sight of that target. He made it to my end of the bar and smashed a fist into it, making a loud noise that caused me to jump. “Point the finger at me for killin’ Angie! What the hell is
that?
”

Oh Lord. I didn’t figure this was good.

“Lore, calm down, man,” Jimbo said, also moving in close as did Dad and, I was surprised to note (vaguely, because I was scared out of my mind at the fury twisting Lore’s face), Joe-Bob.

Dee sat frozen on her stool, her eyes locked on Lore, and Mom, Meems and Jessie stayed back.

So did I, holding my position by Dee with the bar a safety barrier between me and Lore’s rage.

Lore jabbed a finger at me. “I got kids, they hear this shit… a job, a reputation, a life in this town, people think this shit about me,
you
think this shit about me. Jesus, you
bitch!
” He leaned in, his whole body a threat, still pointing at me. “I should hack
you
up, you crazy
cunt!
”

That was all he said because suddenly he wasn’t there. Instead he was five feet back and still sailing, bumping into chairs, arms wheeling and Colt was stalking him silently, calmly, his movements slow and economical, his eyes on Lore like Lore was prey.

Lore gained control of his limbs, locked his eyes on Colt and took a stance that was defensive at the same time it was threatening. “Back off, Colt.”

“You need to go somewhere and calm down, Lore,” Colt advised stopping, not taking a stance, just standing there loose-limbed but looking alert and at the ready.

“Fuck that! She told you I killed Angie,” Lore shouted.

“How’d you hear that?” Colt asked softly.

“Marty, we were havin’ beers at Josh’s place.”

Colt shook his head in an unhappy way that I reckoned Marty just caught himself some trouble.

“She’s helping with the investigation at my request,” Colt told Lore.

“Yeah, and she fingered
me!
”

“February never said you did it.”

“Yeah, if that’s true why’d Chris come ‘round yesterday, askin’ my whereabouts?”

“Procedure.”

“Bullshit.”

“Chris came to you in plainclothes and asked you some questions, Lore. Don’t you get why he did it like that?” Colt didn’t wait for his answer and finished. “It’s done, let it go.”

“Fuck that, Colt, my kids hear about this –”

“They wouldn’t of, if Marty had kept his fuckin’ mouth shut and you’d kept your fuckin’ cool and didn’t come tearin’ into this bar and makin’ an ass of yourself. Now the whole town’ll know and you got no one but yourself to blame.”

“Yeah, and Feb.”

Colt’s body went from loose but alert to hostile.

“I’ll repeat, Feb was acting on a request made by me.”

“And I’ll repeat, doin’ that, she fingered me for hackin’ up fuckin’ Angie. Shit, I didn’t even dip into that dirty twat, who knows what she had swimmin’ up there after the whole town had their dicks in her? And
I
get blamed for killin’ her?”

“You’re talkin’ about an innocent woman who was brutally murdered.”

“I’m talkin’ about
Angie
.”

Colt moved and therefore so did Lore. It wasn’t exactly a surprise attack but still, Lore barely got a chance to throw up a defense before Colt had him flying through the air, one fist at his collar. Lore landed on his back on top of a table and Colt leaned over him.

“This’ll get messy, you keep talkin’ about Angie that way and you’ll be breathin’ through a tube I
ever
hear you talk to Feb that way again.”

This was not an idle threat and everyone in that bar knew it. Lore stared up at Colt and wisely kept his mouth shut.

Colt yanked him off the table by his collar and then with a shove sent him flying. Lore righted himself and went back on the defense, no threat this time, he was scared. I didn’t blame him, with one hand Colt had sent him flying through the air.

“We ask a citizen to help with an investigation, we do it with purpose,” Colt told him, his voice pure ice. “They think there’ll be retribution, like you just dished out or worse, they’ll hesitate or not help at all. Means we’re fucked. I don’t like to be fucked, Lore. I do the fuckin’, you got me?”

I heard Colt’s ass ring but he ignored it as he faced down Lore.

After what took way too long, Lore mumbled, “I got you.”

“Now go somewhere and calm the fuck down. You come back in here, you do it to have a drink and you have that drink after you apologize to Feb. We clear?”

Lore’s gaze slid in my direction but it went right through me before he looked back at Colt.

“Clear,” Lore said.

“You see Marty, give him fair warnin’, he better avoid me for awhile.”

“Marty’s fucked,” Al muttered to Jimbo.

Lore stared at Colt for awhile before he jerked his chin, his eyes moved to Dad and his expression turned hangdog as it hit him he might have just made enemies of Colt and my Dad, not enemies you’d want to have especially since they were your friends and you liked them. The circumstances were admittedly extreme but Lore realized then that he hadn’t thought this through. The way he treated women, he didn’t care about me. But his actions had shown disrespect to two men who deserved it and no one in that bar, or any of the folk who would undoubtedly hear about this by morning, would give him an inch, not for awhile. You didn’t call Jack Owens’s daughter a cunt no matter what she might have done and you didn’t get in Alexander Colton’s face and make him lose control and Lore understood, just then, he’d given his own reputation a hit he wouldn’t live down, not for a good long while.

Not to mention he made an ass of himself and got bested without even lifting a fist.
 

After dropping his head, Lore hit the exit with all due haste.

Colt’s ass rang again and he cursed under his breath, his eyes locked on the closed door before he yanked out his phone, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Okay, is it me, or is anyone else having a problem with deciding whether to have a heart attack or an orgasm?” Meems asked.

“Orgasm,” Jessie said instantly.

“Yep, same here,” Dee put in.

“Fuck,” Al muttered.

Jimbo shook his head but grinned at his wife.

“Well, that was a buzz kill,” Morrie noted.

It was then I realized I was shaking.

“Got it, later,” Colt said into his phone as he walked up to the bar, his eyes on me, he flipped his phone shut and shoved it in the back pocket of his jeans. “You okay?”

“Lore just called me the c-word,” I told him.

“I know, you okay?”

“He said it more than once.”

Colt bit his lip then let it go. “All right, but you okay?”

“He said it
loud
.”

“Feb –”

“I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“I’m okay.”

Or as okay as anyone could be who was called the c-word more than once.

“You’re not gonna go half-cocked on me?” Colt asked.

I sighed before I repeated, “No, I’m okay.”

“You’re not gonna get a wild hair and haul ass?”

I rolled my eyes, leaned forward and said slowly, “Colt, I said, I’m oh… kay.”

He grinned. “Last time you rolled your eyes at me, baby, I kissed you.”

I sucked in breath and if I wasn’t mistaken so did Dee, Meems, Jessie
and
Joe-Bob.

I thought it best to quit speaking and just remain silent maybe for the rest of my life.

Colt turned to Dad. “I got work, Jack, callout. I’m not done, you’ll stay in the house with Feb?”

“Absolutely.”

Colt looked at Dee. “Sorry to miss the pizza.”

“I’m sorry too,” Dee whispered, her eyeballs darting back and forth between me and Colt so fast it was a wonder she didn’t give herself a seizure.

“We’ll save you a slice,” Morrie offered, slapping a hand on Colt’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze at the same time he tugged it back and forth.

“I like it hot,” Colt replied, aiming another grin at me. “Feb ‘n me’ll order another one on her night off.”

I sucked in breath again and considered throwing my drink at him but he said, “Later,” and was walking out of target distance before I could put my thought into action.

As I glared at the door, Morrie walked around to the back of the bar and slid his arm around my shoulders, tugging me into his side.

“Family’s here, Feb, friends, it’s all good. You ready to talk about Colt yet?” Morrie asked.

I looked up at my brother. “Fuck off.”

Al guffawed and I looked at him.

“You can fuck off too.”

Al, Jimbo and Morrie burst out laughing.