Eva’s stomach fluttered at the sound of his voice, a deep timbre spoken softly, deliberately. She couldn’t believe herself, getting all worked up over some… well, what was he? He certainly looked dangerous, but she couldn’t place exactly why. Plenty of guys kept in shape and carried knives. Plenty of guys had scars on their arms, and their neck. It was something else in the way he carried himself. Whatever it was, it didn’t frighten her like it had with the strangers. Instead, Eva felt honest-to-god arousal in a way she hadn’t felt in months—maybe even years.

An unwelcome, paranoid thought protruded into her mind—that maybe this dark, handsome stranger was related to the earlier ones. Was he here to continue the work they had started? He didn’t look particularly agitated. She did hope he wasn’t with them. It would certainly tarnish his handsomeness.

Charlie served him and Eva heard the man ask, “You new here?”

“Yeah, there’s been a bit of an ownership shake-up. Temporary,” said Charlie, holding his hands up as he said the last word. He stretched one of them out to the man. “I’m Charlie Murdock. Owen had some family business to attend to. My sister and I will be running things in the meantime. Hopefully, you shouldn’t feel too much of a difference.”

The man looked at Charlie’s hand a moment before he shook it. “Will.” He took a pause. “You and your sister?” he added, trailing his gaze back over to Eva before Charlie could answer.

“Eva, over there,” said Charlie as he nodded toward her. Both men looked at her and Eva squirmed a bit in her chair. She raised a hand in an awkward wave, and then pretended to dive back into her book. She could feel Will’s eyes on her still, but she didn’t dare look up and confirm it. Laura’s gonna love this, she thought.

She didn’t hear Will say anything else, but she did hear the sound of both the shot glasses being put back on the counter, one after the other. Her gaze flicked up and over the book for another quick peek. The man was just sitting on his stool now, staring at some empty point behind the bar, lost in thought. And not a happy thought, if she had to judge. She didn’t envy whoever he must have been thinking about. There was an air about him that reminded her of a half-sleeping wolf.

The song on the jukebox changed to something from Jimi Hendrix and Eva started to try and get back into her book. She’d only read a few paragraphs before feeling compelled to pause for another glance up at dark, handsome Will at the bar. After a few minutes, she realized she wasn’t digesting anything she was reading. All she could think about was how strong Will’s hands would feel on her.

Eva cleared her throat and blushed to herself. She saw the stranger look up for just a moment and again, like before, his face softened just a touch when their eyes met. She took that as a sign that maybe he liked what he was looking at.

The door to the bar swung open again, and Eva heard the approach of multiple footsteps at once. Her heart dropped when she saw the familiar leather coats and dangerous faces of the Latino strangers who had threatened her before. She froze. The blood drained from her face.

When her gaze flicked back to Will, she saw something come over him, like he was reading the thoughts on her face. His back straightened, and the lines from his face disappeared as his expression became a blank slate of coldness. Something dark erupted in his eyes.

Oh, Christ, thought Eva. Was this Will’s cue to attack? Was he with them, after all?

From her left, she heard Charlie call out obliviously, “Afternoon, guys. What can I get you?”

Her eyes stayed fixed on the men as one of them stalked over to the farmers’ table and suddenly slapped the half-empty beer pitcher into one of their laps.

“Closing time, gentlemen! If you would be so kind as to collect your shit and get the fuck out of our bar,” shouted the man with the close-cropped hair, exaggerating every word and syllable.

The men groused and leapt from their seats, only to be shoved harshly for the door with cruel hands and threats of broken bones. The old barfly near the poker machine didn’t wait to be told; he lurched off his stool and bee-lined out the front door and into the sun. The man with the bun walked up to the bar.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” yelled Charlie, his arms up.

Eva held a white-knuckled grip on her book as she watched the man in the bun approach Will from behind. She waited for him to clap a trusting hand on his back, call him by name.

Instead, the man in the bun put one of his arms on the bar on Will’s left side. He leaned in to give Will the same threats the others had received.

“Did you hear that, asshole? Get on your fucking feet,” the man in the bun growled right near Will’s face.

In a flash, Will turned into an animal. He held the man’s wrist steady with one hand and lifted his thick, half-full stein glass with the other. The heavy stein came crushing down on the man’s forearm, filling the room with the sound of snapping bones and painful screams.

The man in the bun grabbed his broken arm to his chest and stumbled backwards into the wall and over a table only a few feet from where Eva sat. She leapt to her feet and scrambled out of the way, scared he would try and hurt her in revenge, but he only writhed on the floor, screaming in Spanish.

Breathing hard, Eva looked up. Will was on his feet, a deadly coldness in his eyes as he turned to face the other thug. Even though the Latino man had height and weight on him, Will looked like twice the force, standing there with his back straight as an arrow, his broad shoulders puffed out. He waited like a patient viper until the thug took a heavy swing at him. Will ducked quickly beneath the punch and came back up with his own, straight into the man’s nose. Blood gushed from the wound almost instantly and the thug howled in pain.

“You picked the wrong fucking bar,” said Will quietly to the man as he stumbled, bleeding, trying to fumble for the door. Will turned and grabbed the collar of the man on the floor and yanked him harshly to his feet. The man howled in pain, spitting at him and calling him terrible things. He pushed and shoved both of the injured men, one after the other, until he had them both out the front door and disappeared from sight. Eva and Charlie could only stand, frozen and staring, completely overwhelmed.

After a few tense moments, Will came back in, yelling at them with a fury that Eva had never heard from anyone. Even though it wasn’t directed at her, it terrified her just the same. “You tell whoever the fuck sent you that they just made the last mistake of their short, pathetic fucking lives!”

He slammed the door shut, the color in his face already making him look more alive. Without a word, he turned and locked it, pulling the chain on the neon Open sign. “Lock the back door,” he said to neither of them in particular.

Eva nodded, and scrambled to shut the back door that was still open to the drifting, quiet meadow. She clicked both the locks and returned to the bar room. Charlie finally began to move and react, talking to himself in speedy, curse-studded sentences as he paced behind the bar. Will put his hands on his waist and walked slowly back toward the bar, looking suddenly out of breath and tired. He reached to drain the tiny bit of beer left in the stein he had just used to break some guy’s arm. Even from a distance, Eva could see the blood on his knuckles.

She looked up at Will’s face, and he met her eyes. Her knees felt suddenly weak.

I guess he’s not with them…

 

 

~ SIX ~

As he put the stein back down on the bar, Will saw the faint stains of blood left over from where bone had pierced skin when he broke that motherfucker’s arm. He looked at his hand, fascinated to see that it was still. No matter how righteous the violence, he typically got the adrenaline shakes, even if they didn’t bother him. But not now. He didn’t feel his heart rate jump at all the entire fight.