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“I’ve noticed,” Carter told him, not glancing over his shoulder.

“And not the friendly kinda fans either.”

“Noticed that too.”

People didn’t watch you intently in a public place unless you were famous or they were looking for trouble. Carter wasn’t worried about them, to be honest. If they wanted to start trouble,they would either find the balls to approach him or wait until he left. Hell, maybe he’d get lucky, and they’d leave him alone to enjoy his night of drinking in peace.

Yeah, right.

The bartender grimaced. “No offense. I don’t mind having you fort boys in here. But we’ve been havin’ a lot of trouble.”

“I’m not causing trouble,” Carter told him easily.

“Not tryin’ to, maybe,” the bartender said, looking over Carter’s shoulder again. “But you seem to be attractin’ it.”

“This your way of telling me to get out before they break up your bar?” Carter asked, looking at the dirty, cracked bar top.

The critique wasn’t missed, as the bartender’s face fell into a frown. “I don’t want any more trouble in here. Had enough of that shit as it is. Don’t need anything else broke.”

Carter snorted. “I wouldn’t worry about your stuff getting broke in here.”

“Hope that wasn’t meant to make me feel better because it didn’t.”

“Trust me, I wasn't trying to.”

But he knew what the bartender would say even before he said it. Carter had been thrown out of bars more than a few times. He could only shrug and drain the rest of his bottle, thumping it onto the bar top with more force than the last time.

“Don’t bother,” Carter told the man as he opened his mouth. “I know how this goes. Let me guess, they’re regulars, and you don’t want to piss them off. Yeah? Yeah. So, why don’t you cash my bill out, and while you’re back there, you can try to find your balls.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, but Carter stared back impassively. He didn’t give a shit if the man behind the bar had suddenly taken a strong dislike to him. Carter had grown up with trouble. He was used to it. It seemed only fitting that he foundhimself in a career that also allowed him to be in the thick of trouble, until it had been ripped out from under him anyway.

They’d started by calling what they’d done to himleave,but after that hadn’t worked, they’d started calling itprobationinstead. Of course, that had been his fault. Thrown from base to base across the States, he’d found himself friendless and without direction or purpose, which meant a lot of drinking and a lot of fighting.

Apparently, the people in charge didn’t like it when their men went off base andstarted trouble. Carter hadn’t found any trouble that wasn’t brought to his doorstep, but there was no telling the suits in charge that. All they saw was a potential weapon that wasn’t obeying orders, which he could sympathize with. He was far better when he was given a chance to use his skills and training. Yet, without the safety net of a team or a purpose, he found he was perfectly content to drift and take whatever fight came his way.

Was it self-destructive? Probably, and he knew it, but he couldn’t summon the will to care. He’d watched as half his team had been torn apart by gunfire and then had to fight with the other half to get back to safety. Then, they’d been torn apart in a different way, through bureaucracy and choices made by men and women who hadn’t seen the field in years or their entire lives. So what did he care what he did? He was useless, after all. He might as well have fun while he was still around.

Carter paid his tab and pushed away from the counter. The world swam before his eyes, and his legs felt wobbly. A grin spread over his lips as he effortlessly regained control, allowing the warm fog of alcohol to settle into his brain but keeping his limbs steady. There was something liberating about the haze, the looseness, and the control he could exert over himself.

Striding out into the night air, he took a deep breath. The air tasted of gas, oil, and something he couldn’t place. Cartershrugged the strangeness off, accepting it even as he despised it. Strange was a part of his life that he had long since learned to incorporate. Strange places and people had been his life long before he came to Port Dale.

Walking along the sidewalk, he ignored the glances from the few people out and about. He knew full well what he looked like, and he had no problem using it to avoid dealing with others. He was strong, and he was tall and his height alone gave him the chance to intimidate others, add in the bulk he’d earned from years in the field, and he was an impressive figure.

With his dark hair still shorn to his skull and the darkness of his hazel eyes, he imagined that in the dim light of the rundown street, he was an intimidating figure. Not that he was one to hurt anyone unless they started something, that was. Which was part of his problem. There always seemed to besomeonewho wanted to start something. So long as hebehaved,maybe he might get more than being shipped all over the country for someone else to deal with.

As he rounded the next corner, he stopped—a trio of laughing guys and one barely conscious woman. At first glance, he might have assumed they were helping her into the car, the woman drunk enough to have a hard time finding her legs.

A more attentive glance, however, showed Carter what he had suspected. The men’s laughter raised the hair on the back of his neck, and even in the dim streetlight, he could see the smirks and knowing smiles. The woman might have been too drunk to stand and, from the sounds of it, talk clearly, but he could see she was pushing one of the men trying to get her into the car.

“Not your problem,” Carter muttered, glancing at the other side of the street.

And it would be so easy. Walking away and pretending he’d seen nothing. The image would be burned into his brain for a few days, and he would wonder, perhaps with a stab of guilt, whathad happened to the woman. Carter also knew he could probably count on his mind eventually shoving it away, leaving him to go through life with no mental glimpses back to the moment. The human mind was a wonder and could ignore the most horrific scenes.

People did it all the time. Blocking out the horrors and ugliness of the world, keeping their little bubble safe. There was a lot of talk about confronting the world's evils, but when faced with it, most people bowed their heads and moved on. And honestly, who would blame him? Putting himself in a position to find trouble again was precisely what he should have avoided.

“Quit,” he heard the woman mutter, voice faint and slurring.

Carter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Goddammit.”