Finders Keepers (3 page)

I couldn’t catch a break with Josie to save my life. “You
said I needed medical attention. If something isn’t gaping on my face, you’re
the one exaggerating, not me.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus. You are the most exasperating person I’ve
ever known,” she said around a sigh, reaching for another alcohol swab. “For a
man who doesn’t seem too picky about his alcohol, you wouldn’t think he’d turn
his nose up at the rubbing kind.”

“Let’s get something straight. You, princess”—I lifted a
brow until the pain registered. No raised brows for me for at least twenty-four
hours—“are the most exasperating person
I’ve
ever known. And if it has
the audacity to call itself alcohol and put a warning on itself saying not for
personal consumption, then hell yes, I’ll turn my nose up at it. Calling
something alcohol when you can’t drink it is kind of like Colt Mason calling
himself a cowboy. It’s heresy.”

Josie knew from enough experience with me that I would never
forfeit an argument. It just wasn’t in my nature. To start an argument with me
was to lose an argument with me. So instead of going a few more rounds, she
gave close to her dozenth head shake before lifting the swab to my other
eyebrow. “Brace yourself, you big baby. I’m about to
douse
your
gaping
wound with the redheaded-stepchild of alcohols.”

I still flinched when she pressed the pad into my skin, but
at least I didn’t act like a cat on a hot tin roof. I bit the inside of my
cheek and blew out a slow breath.

“Big baby,” she muttered before moving closer and blowing on
the spot she was dabbing.

Shit, that felt good. If I had a tail, it would have been
wagging. No one had to tell me twice that Josie leaning in, that damn
coconut-scented hair brushing my face, and softly blowing on my battle wounds
was probably the worst thing that could happen to me. One step above the
apocalypse. No one had to remind me that I needed to keep as much distance
between her and me as space would allow. Hell, I was reminding myself of that.
But when Josie broke through my walls and got close, physically and every other
way she could, I was incapable of pushing her back out. No, nobody needed to
tell me how fucked up that was. I reminded myself of it every day.

“This is one deja vu moment getting doctored up by you,” I
said to distract myself from my thoughts.

She tore into another alcohol pad and blew on the next patch
of face even before pressing it against it. “After these past couple years, I
actually regret that day on the bus.” Her eyes looked everywhere but into mine.

I pulled out the knife she’d just lodged my chest before
replying. “I guarantee you not as much as I regret it.”

Josie was a tough girl, one who I’d seen cry about as much
as I did, but when her face broke, I was reminded for the billionth time what a
dickhead I was. My default when someone hurt me was to hurt them back. It was a
reflex, but it was one I wished I could turn off with people like Josie. She
tore the next alcohol swab package open like it was to blame instead of me.
Even though my words had cut her, she still dabbed my face gently, blowing the
entire time.

I sighed. “Shit, Joze, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be such a
dick but—”

“Something about me brings out the dick in you?” She tilted
her head and waited.

“What? No. Not even close.” I shook my head. “Being around
me
brings out the dick in me.”

It was Josie’s turn to shake her head. “Sucks to be you.”

“Especially right now.” I held back the wince when she
dabbed some ointment on my left eyebrow. Colt must have split that sucker right
open.

“This one needs stitches, Garth. Some gauze and a Band-Aid
just aren’t going to cut it.” Josie bit her lower lip, studying my eyebrow.

I snorted. “Yeah, right. There’s no way I’m going to let
Colt Mason brag about giving me a good enough beating to require stitches. No.
Way.”

“You don’t think he’s already bragging to his brothers about
how he kicked your ass?”

“He might be bragging about it now. But once word gets
around that I let him take his best shots with my hands all but tied behind my
back and he
still
couldn’t manage to land a solid enough punch to
require some stitches,
I’m
going to be the one with bragging rights.”
Another eye roll from Josie. We had to be nearing the half a dozen count. “I’m
made out of fucking steel. There isn’t a man alive who could hurt me.”

Josie pressed the alcohol swab back into my eyebrow but
stopped blowing.

“Ow.” I snapped my head away from the swab. “That hurt.”

The corners of her mouth twitched before she blew on my
eyebrow again. “There might not be a man alive who can hurt you”—she arched an
eyebrow at me—“but I’m no man.”

I chuckled. “You’re a bruiser, Joze. A regular killer.
Remind me to never pick a fight with you if I don’t want to get my ass beat.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you got your ass beat
by me, would it?” The corners of her mouth twitched up again.

“No need to bring up bad memories. I’m not drunk enough for
that.”

“I thought the first week of kindergarten when I socked you
in the jaw for pulling on my pigtails was a repressed memory, not a bad one.”

“A repressed memory and a bad memory are one and the same.
If you had enough of them, you’d know that by now.”

“Spoken like someone who has a few . . .”

I closed my eyes as she continued to work on my eyebrow. One
eye was about to swell shut anyway. “Spoken like someone who only has those
kinds of memories.”

“Exaggerate much?” Josie muttered.

“Only about the things that are important.”

That made Josie laugh. Her laugh started off small and got
bigger until it almost rocked her entire body. That laugh had been one of the
few constants of my past. I loved that laugh.

I shouldn’t love that laugh.

“Okay, last call for stitches. Anyone? Any takers?” she said
once she’d stopped laughing.

I sealed my lips and shook my head, but Josie was already
grabbing a thick Band-Aid from the kit. She knew me about as well as I knew
myself.

“You’re impossible.” Sliding my hair back from my forehead,
she tore open the bandage.

“Are you just figuring this out now? That I’m impossible?
Because I would have thought by now, you especially would realize what an
impossible, stubborn ass I am.” My fists curled around the chair-arms as Josie
settled the bandage into position.

“I know who you are, but what happened to the guy who made
me believe he’d walk through fire rather than hurt one of his only friends?
What happened to the guy who punched Roy Watkins at recess for calling me a
prissy little bitch?” Josie leaned back, looking about as exhausted as I felt.

She was waiting for an answer, so I gave her one. “Someone
he cared about fucked him up good.”

Josie’s hands balled in her lap. “I know your dad’s hard on
you. Why don’t you move out already? Get away from that toxic environment.” She
grabbed the ointment again and dotted it on a few other areas on my face.

“My dad wasn’t the person I was talking about.” Why in the
hell did I say that? I couldn’t even blame the alcohol for my momentary lapse
into opening up like a goddamned pansy. When Josie’s eyebrows came together as
she worked out who I was referring to, I gave myself an imaginary beating. I
was already bleeding; no need to spill my guts all over the damn place too. I
needed to change the topic. And the mood. I didn’t do vulnerable for a mountain
of reasons.

So I slid that lazy smile of mine into place. The carefree,
I-could-give-a-shit one that drove girls wild. Well, every girl but the one
sitting a foot in front of me. It drove her wild, I guess, although in a
totally different way. “So? You and Mason, eh? How’s that working out?”

“Better when some asshole in a bar doesn’t pick a fight with
him.” She shot me an accusatory glare as she capped the ointment.

“Whatever. Getting in a bar fight will be the single most
exciting thing that ever happens to Colt Mason.”

“Yeah, because being with me or potentially marrying me one
day wouldn’t even register.” She tossed the stuff back in the first aid kit,
still taking out her irritation on something else instead of me.

“I guarantee if that son of a bitch even thought he had a
chance at marrying you one day, that would be the highlight of his life.” I
leaned forward, waiting for her to look at me. “But that douche has as much a
chance with you as I do.”

She grabbed my hat and settled it back on my head, adjusting
it until it was right how I wore it, just a hair off the brow. “He’s an awful
lot like Jesse. What makes you think I’d never marry him?”

I wasn’t sure if she was intentionally baiting me, but it
was working. “First off, that little dick is nothing like Jesse. Nothing. Other
than wearing the same kind of hat, although Colt’s has never so much as seen a
speck of mud, Jesse and Colt are about as alike as Jesse and me. Secondly,
you’re not going to marry that boy because, well, you’re not going to marry
that boy.” I lifted an eyebrow and waited for her to argue. Josie might try to
deny it, but she couldn’t lie to herself. She was as likely to marry one of the
Mason boys as I was.

“How descriptive.” She leaned back and crossed her legs.
Damn Josie Gibson’s legs and that dress that barely covered them. It barely
barely
covered them when she went and crossed them like that. I tried not to stare
for too long, but when I did manage to shift my eyes back to hers, she was
giving me a look.

I cleared my throat and tried to forget about Josie’s bare
legs a few inches to the side of mine. “Fine. Here’s just one of the million
‘descriptive’ reasons I’ve got for you.” I leaned toward her until I could
smell her shampoo again, and I knew she could smell the whiskey on my breath.
And then, I leaned in closer. I waited until her eyes met mine. It took a
while, but when they did, my point was proven. “You look at me with more fire
in your eyes than you do him.”

Her eyes narrowed, but they stayed with me. Continuing to
prove my point. “That’s enraged fire, Black.”

Damn. At that proximity, forget the shampoo; I think I could
smell her strawberry lip gloss. Which, of course, made me remember the way it’d
tasted that night . . .

Get your shit together, Black. This is Josie.
Josie
Gibson. The girl I needed to stay away from for both of our sakes. When I
leaned back that time, I was sure to give my chair a good slide to put some
more distance between us. “It’s still fire. And if it isn’t there in the
beginning, it sure as shit isn’t going to magically crop up out of nowhere.”

“Says the love non-expert.”

“I’m the expert because I’m the only person on the face of
the planet smart enough to know better than to fall in love. That right there
is the reason I’ve earned my expert badge in love.” I glanced toward the bar,
hoping to catch Brandy’s attention, because a few shots right about then would
really dull the pain. Both kinds.

“You’ve got one warped view of love.”

“Why, thank you. That’s the best compliment I’ve heard all
week.”

Shaking her head, Josie stood, grabbing her purse and first
aid kit. “You want a ride home? Now that I’m dateless and covered in your
blood, this girl’s Friday night is a wrap.” Josie smiled at me, that same
gentle ghost-of-a-smile she’d given me the second day of kindergarten when I
realized I was either going to marry her or no one. It took me until the end of
the school year to realize I’d never marry Josie Gibson. For all of the reasons
I was being reminded of.

Just like that, I dropped the curtain on those memories and
the small part of me that didn’t feel permanently hardened. It had become like
second nature over the years. I gave Josie a slow, crooked smile. I don’t know
why I even gave her that smile anymore. She’d seen through it the first time
I’d tried it on her. She was immune, unlike the rest of the girls. “What kind
of a ride are you asking about?”

“When you find that guy who had my back instead of plotting
for ways to get into my panties, let me know okay?” I was still in my seat, but
she gave my chest a solid shove. “I’m sick of being treated like the other
girls you’ve banged. I might have made a mistake, but I still deserve your
respect. Until you figure that out, I don’t want to be around this new Garth.
I’m not so hot on him.” Sweeping her eyes over me, she shot me one last glare
before marching toward the door.

“You call the sex we had a mistake? Because the first word
that comes to my mind is mind-blowing,” I called after her. I was partly hoping
she’d come back and give me one more shove and partly hoping she’d keep on
marching. “The kind of sex that makes a man keep his fingers crossed for an
encore production.”

That stopped her in her tracks. She spun around, crossed her
arms, and lord . . . If I thought I’d seen fire in her eyes before, I’d been
wrong. “It wasn’t just a mistake. It was the biggest one of my life. I lost two
of my best friends in exchange for the asshole with his nostrils packed with
tissue in front of me now.” She didn’t give me the chance to reply before
shoving through the door and out of the bar. Which was good, because I didn’t
have a fucking clue how to respond.

Garth Black. Brought to his legendary, come-back knees by a
few words from Josie’s mouth.

“It looks like you need another shot.” Brandy stopped beside
me and slid a glass in front of me.

“No, I don’t need a shot. I need the whole fucking bottle.”

HALF A BOTTLE of whiskey later, I’d
closed down the bar. After telling her three times that I didn’t want to pay
for my night of drinking with her in the back room, Brandy finally took my
money. She called me a name even I wouldn’t dare repeating that close to Sunday
and told me to get out and never come back.

I wasn’t planning on it. At least not until next Friday
night.

Brandy’s bar was a fifteen-minute drive from my place, but
it took a little longer since I probably had about as much alcohol in my
bloodstream as I did white blood cells. The general consensus was that a person
shouldn’t get behind a steering wheel after drinking a bottle—or was it closer
to two?—of whiskey, but I had a tolerance that would put the Irish to shame. I
wasn’t seeing double, my vision wasn’t blurred, and my reflexes weren’t
sluggish. I was good.

Of course, if I got pulled over and tested, I’d be up shit
creek without a paddle. The one and only positive thing about having Clay Black
as a father was that the cops and the law gave us both a wide berth. The cops
had had enough experience with my dad to know they didn’t want a repeat, so
they turned a blind eye on our minor law breaking and basically forgot the two
Black men were part of their jurisdiction.

I’d lost count of how many times that unsaid agreement had
kept me out of jail.

About the time I turned down the overgrown drive leading
back to the trailer, the alcohol had worn off just enough that thoughts of
Josie were returning. Well, they were flooding back. Whatever curtain I’d
dropped, whatever dam I’d built, whatever I’d constructed to keep her out of
the forefront of my mind crumbled. I was swimming in thoughts of her. The way
she’d chewed her lip as she doctored my face. The way she looked at me with
disappointment on her whole face before walking out. The way she’d felt that
night a couple years back.

After pounding the steering wheel with my palm, I slapped
both of my cheeks. Josie Gibson was off limits, and if I kept thinking about
her, I would have to find someone who could remove the part of my brain that
kept long-term memory in good working order. So what did my mind go and skip to
after issuing that ultimatum?

The last day of kindergarten. The bus had just picked me up,
and I was furiously wiping my nose with my sleeve, hoping my nose would stop
bleeding before my sleeve got soaked through. I’d accidentally woken Clay when
I’d been checking the cupboards for something that could constitute breakfast.
I’d finally settled on a dry package of ramen noodles. My punishment for
rousing the sleeping bear had been the backside of his hand across my face. It
had caused a bloody nose that wouldn’t stop.

The bus driver barely noticed. He’d grown accustomed to my
bloody noses and swollen lips, along with the rest of the kids on the bus. For
some reason, that morning, someone noticed and scooted into the seat next to
me.

“Here. Use this.” Josie, complete with her pigtails, had
pulled a napkin out of her lunchbox and held it out for me. A note was written
on the napkin, along with a few hearts. At the end, it said,
Love, Mom
.

“I’m not using your special note to wipe my blood off,” I’d
said, trying to will my nose to stop bleeding.

“It’s okay. She leaves me one every day in my lunch.”
Josie’d shrugged, holding the napkin out for me again.

I remember being shocked, floored by the fact that Josie had
someone who loved her so damn much that not only did they pack her a lunch
every day, but they actually took the time to write a note on the napkin. I
wasn’t familiar with that kind of love. It was a kind I didn’t even know
existed. That day, Josie had opened my eyes to the realization that love wasn’t
just a bullshit concept. To some people, it was so much more than circumstance
and disappointment.

After the napkin had remained in her hand for a few more
seconds, she lowered it to my face, holding it just below my nose. When my hand
replaced hers over the napkin, she leaned in and kissed my cheek.

“What was that for?” I’d demanded, so shocked I almost leapt
out of my skin. That had been my first kiss, at least the first one I could
remember, and not the romantic kind a person means when referring to a “first
kiss.” My mom had been gone for too long to remember if she’d ever kissed me,
and the only affection my dad showed me was slowing his fist just before it
landed on me. It was the first time I’d ever been kissed, and even though I was
only six years old and I had a lot of life still ahead of me, I knew no matter
who or how I was kissed in the future, nothing would compare to that one on the
bus.

None never had.

“It looked like you needed one,” she’d replied before moving
back to her seat up front.

Slamming the brakes, I pounded my forehead against the
steering wheel. “Fuck me.” I’d turned into the bleeding heart, nostalgic chump
I’d had nightmares of becoming. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d managed to
repress all of those memories and feelings for so many years I’d almost
convinced myself I’d forgotten them. Boy, had I been wrong.

So why now? Why those memories? Why couldn’t I contain and
control them? The longer I thought about it, the more questions cropped up.
Loads of questions, zero answers. If Jesse wasn’t two states over, I might have
raced to his place and forced his ass out of bed to keep me company and get my
thoughts off their current track. But no, the pussy-whipped sucker was probably
cuddled up beside his girlfriend—correction:
fiancé
—having pussy-whipped
sucker dreams about white picket fences and honeymoon destinations. As much as
I wanted to tell him he was making the biggest mistake of his life marrying
Rowen Sterling, I couldn’t. Marrying the woman he loved at twenty-one wasn’t a
mistake for a guy like Jesse Walker. Shit, Jesse could have married the woman
he loved at any age and it wouldn’t have been a mistake. Jesse was the
marrying, loyal, loving type.

Me? It didn’t matter what age I was or how much I thought I
loved the woman. Marriage, rings, and vows were not created with people like me
in mind.

Other than Jesse, Rowen wasn’t bad to talk to, but since she
was where Jesse was—spooning two states away—she was out too. There was Brandy,
but she and I never did much . . . talking. At one time, Josie had been one of
my most trusted confidants. Given she was the one I needed to talk about, not
to mention the one I had to keep my distance from, I had to scratch her off the
list, too. After that, there was no one. I had three people—well, two—I could
talk to about things that needed talking out.

My dad had figured it out twenty-one years ago: I was a
good-for-nothing bastard.

Pounding the wheel one last time with my forehead, I was
about to punch the gas, hoping that Clay left a few swigs in his bottle before
he passed out, when something in the distance caught my attention. A bright
ball of color lit up the night. Almost like someone had started a huge bonfire
in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of nothing but hundreds of acres of
barren land and our trailer. Which meant . . .

I punched the gas so hard my truck fishtailed out of
control. I eased off the gas just enough to regain control then tore down the
bumpy road, watching that ball of light get bigger and brighter. I was still a
half mile back when I saw the actual flames rolling off of the trailer. We had
a not-quite-dried-up well, but it was clear by the time I slammed the brakes in
front of the lawn chairs that there was nothing left to salvage. The entire
thing was engulfed in flames, close to the point of being unrecognizable.
Everything was burning. Everything was gone.

“DAD!” I yelled, throwing the truck door open and leaping
out. Panic settled in my stomach. Dread soon followed. It was after two in the
morning, which meant he was passed out drunk. Since he only left the trailer to
restock his liquor supply, he couldn’t be somewhere else. His truck had been
repo’d years ago, his license revoked years before that, and no one in our
county or the next one over would loan him a car. As much as I wanted to cling
to the hope that he was somewhere,
any
where else, I knew exactly where
he was.

That was when an explosion rocked the trailer and vibrated
the ground below my feet. Probably one of the propane tanks. My body and mind flipped
to autopilot and, despite the beating I’d taken earlier, I sprinted toward that
trailer like I was good as new. I was still a good ten yards back when the heat
hit me. The fire was so hot it scalded my face. The bruises and slashes from
earlier probably didn’t help any. A few yards closer and even if I wanted to
breathe—which I didn’t because the air was so hot it burned my nostrils and
lungs—I couldn’t have. The fire had sucked all of the oxygen out of the air.

As I moved closer, I squinted and covered my nose and mouth
with my arm to keep the smoke from hitting me full force. The closer I got, the
more I realized nothing was left in that trailer to save. The man I’d lived
with for twenty-one years wasn’t going to be draped over his chair in the back,
snoring and unscathed. I knew that, but the autopilot I was on wouldn’t accept
it. I couldn’t have stopped moving forward even if I wanted to.

By the time I made it to the burning door, I was coughing so
hard I felt like I was expecting a lung to come up. I didn’t think—I simply
reacted. Grabbing the handle, I pulled on it as a scream ripped through my
body. White hot pain shot from my hand up my arm, so intense I felt close to
passing out. The only time I’d felt pain close to that had been when that behemoth
brahma down in Casper had come down on my shin a few years back, fracturing my
femur.

The smell hit me next. That acrid, metallic scent was so
thick in the air I could almost taste it . . . and I knew what it was. I didn’t
have to have smelled it before to know that human flesh was the only thing that
could smell as unforgettable as that. I reassured myself it was my flesh, my
palm, causing the smell. Nothing or no one else.

Setting my jaw, I cried out and charged for the door again,
not consciously recognizing why I had to get in. My hand was inches from
wrapping around the scalding doorknob again when a firm set of arms wrapped
around my chest and pulled me back.

“Garth! What are you doing, son? You’re going to kill
yourself!”

I struggled, but no amount of fight worked. “Let me go,
Neil! Clay’s in there! He’s in there!” The fight slowly faded from me the
farther Neil wrangled me away from the trailer. “My dad’s in there!”

Another explosion blasted from inside the trailer. Another
propane tank. That’s when I realized and accepted that the father I never
really knew I’d never know because he was gone. He’d been gone for a long time,
but his body had followed the rest of him.

“No, son.” Neil stopped pulling me away but kept his hold on
me. “He’s not in there anymore.”

E.R. VISITS HAD been a pastime of
mine for as long as I could remember. I was about as comfortable in a hospital
bed as I was in my own bed. Since my own bed was nothing but ash and soot, I
suppose the hospital bed was even more appealing than it had been before. The
fire department had shown up a few minutes before Neil got me into his truck
and booked it for the hospital. He was the second person that night to suggest
an E.R. visit, and since I was too exhausted and in shock to argue with him, I
went with it.

The nurse had fixed up my hand, and the doctor stopped in a
few minutes later to pump me full of pain meds. He’d seen me plenty of times
growing up. My dad had threatened him when he’d recommended I take the summer
off from bull riding after I broke my leg. The doc was a decent guy who seemed
that much more decent as the drugs worked their way into my system. I guessed
he’d given them to me more for the mental than the physical pain.

The benefit to having perfected repressing stuff was being
able to do it again. My dad had just been barbecued inside our “home,” and I
still hadn’t cried a single tear. I hadn’t broken down, punched a hole in a
wall, or dropped to my knees. I didn’t face it; I couldn’t yet. So I repressed
it. I didn’t think about what tomorrow would bring, and I didn’t think about
what the day after that would. I focused on my bandaged hand, still pulsing
with pain, the hospital bed I was curled on which, for all I knew, might be the
last mattress my body felt for a long while, and the antiseptic smell
surrounding me. Those were the realities I obscured real reality with. Those
were the things I centered my attention on when my father’s funeral needed to
be planned.

I was close to passing out in a drug-induced haze when the curtains
whooshed open and a figure slipped inside. “Garth? Oh my god . . .” A
sniffling, bleary-eyed person approached.

“Hey, Joze. What are you doing here?” Talking hurt, thanks
to the fire singing my throat.