Page 6 of The Bad Brother

“ J ENSEN… OH, GAWD…” THE SOFT CURSE is followed up by a quick, hard smack delivered to the inside of my bare thigh.

I come up swinging, fists raised, eyes wide open.

Curtains no longer cracked, they’re yanked open.

The hot Texas sun streaming through the uncovered glass, stabbing into my eyes so hard all I see is a burst of white.

Blinking rapidly to clear my vision, I see River, standing on the other side of my bedroom by the door, hand slapped over her eyes. Face as red as a beet.

“What the hell, Riv—” I drop my gaze to assess the damage done to my inner thigh and end up staring at my own dick.

Shit, I’m naked.

“ What the hell .”

This time it has a panicked edge to it as I scramble over the side of my bed and snatch up the towel that I fell asleep wearing and has obviously come loose.

“I’m sorry.” Face still beet red, River shakes her head. Hand still clamped firmly over her eyes, she turns in the direction of my voice. “I tried calling but you didn’t answer and then I came up here and knocked but you still didn’t answer and I got worried so?—”

“Worried?” Wrapping the towel loosely around my waist, I make a beeline for my dresser and yank open the top drawer.

“Why the fuck would you be worried about me?” I don’t know what time it is but I know I haven’t been asleep more than a few hours.

Snapping a pair of boxer briefs out of the drawer, I pull them on under my towel before letting it drop completely.

Junk secured, the panic starts to fade. “What time is it?”

River must hear it because her shoulders relax, even though her hand stays covering her eyes. She’s not going to drop it until I give her the all clear. “Which question do you want me to answer first?”

Opening the middle drawer, I pull out a pair of jeans. Bending slightly I feed one leg in and then the other. Pulling them up, I give them a zip. “What time is it, Riv?”

“Just after three.” Hearing the zipper, the hand over her eyes loosens but doesn’t drop. “Can I look? I’m getting a little dizzy.”

Barking out a laugh, I turn toward my closet to get a shirt. “Yeah,” I tell her, flipping through my meager collection of T- shirts, I find one I don’t mind getting blood and beer on. “You can look.”

Dropping her hand with a sigh, River’s cheeks pink up again when she sees me, standing here without a shirt.

“The Ladie’s Auxiliary is here,” she tells me, gaze averted while I finish getting dressed.

“They brought the local boy scout troop over to clean up the parking lot after last night.” Her face loses some of its color when she says it, a reminder that the accident, and what we were witness to, had been hard on all of us—but undoubtedly more so for her.

“Shit.” Pulling my shirt hastily over my head, I close my closet door before making my way toward her. Reaching out, I wrap loose hands around her shoulders and turn her while angling myself into her line of sight. “I’m sorry, Riv. Things were so fucked last night, I didn’t even think about?—”

“I’m okay.” She offers me a bright smile I’m not sure I believe.

River lost both of her parents in a car accident when she was thirteen.

Without family, able or willing to care for her, she ended up in the system.

By the time she was seventeen, she was a full-blown addict.

As if to convince both of us that last night’s accident didn’t trigger the start of some sort of relapse, River shakes her head. “Seriously, I’m fine.”

Yeah. Still not convinced.

“If you start to feel un fine?—”

“I’ll call my sponsor and get my ass to a meeting,” she finishes while the too bright smile starts to fade. “Look, I’m not saying last night didn’t suck but?—”

“Riv—is he up there?” Cade shouts up the stairs, his muffled tone reminding me that River came up here looking for me because she was worried about me.

Dropping my hands away from her shoulders, I move for the door. “What’s going on?”

Crossing my cramped living room in a handful of long- legged strides, I head out my open front door to the top of the stairs to find Cade standing at the bottom of them.

When he sees me, he lets out a long, relieved breath.

Aiming an over the shoulder look in the direction of the bar’s backdoor, he lifts his fingers to his mouth to let out a loud, shrill whistle.

“He’s here,” he shouts before looking back at me with a frown.

“What the fuck, Jen—you forget how to answer your phone?”

My phone?

I used it to call 911 last night but don’t remember where it went after that.

Shit.

“I don’t know where it is,” I admit, coming down the stairs, River hot on my heels. “Now, someone want to tell me what the fuck is happening?” When I say it a little louder than necessary more than a few disapproving looks turn in my direction.

“And what the hell are they doing?” I whisper yell while flinging an irritated arm in the direction of the bar because there are about thirty middle-aged women in rubber gloves, scrubbing tabletops and sweeping up glass.

“They heard what you did for the crash survivors over at Dave Gaston’s place and?—”

“ Jesus ,” I bark out before I can stop it, swiping a rough hand over my face to smother the curse. The last thing I need is to incur the wrath of the Barrett church lady brigade. “Sorry…” Offering a grimace to the few who heard me, I drop my hand on a sigh. “Well, make them leave.”

“The fuck I will,” Cade refuses, making no attempt to curb his language or his volume.

A decade ago, he was Barrett’s golden boy.

Now, you’d be hard pressed to get any of them to even look at him.

He’d have to do a helluva lot more than drop a few F-bombs to get them to acknowledge his existence.

“This place hasn’t been deep cleaned in years —you did a nice thing. Let them do a nice thing back.”

“I didn’t do it to be nice,” I gripe back while bending down to snap a wad of bar napkins off the floor.

“Then why did you do it?” Cade counters, arms crossed over his chest.

Because people died and those lucky enough to walk away had had their entire lives ripped apart in the blink of an eye. Someone had to do something and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be that cheap bastard, Dave Gaston.

“Because he’s a good guy,” River says, from her perch on the stairs behind me. “Whether he wants to be, or not.”

I’m really not.

Instead of arguing, I drag a slow, deep breath in through my nose before letting it out. When I’m relatively sure I’m not going to knock their heads together like a pair of coconuts, I open my mouth and try again.

“Whatever—someone want to tell me what’s goin on?

” Catching a flurry of motion in my peripheral, I turn toward the bar’s open back door to see Austin, a lone giant, in a sea of Boy Scouts, clustered around Barrett’s only tow truck and its driver.

“What’s Billy doing back here? I told him his bar privileges were suspended for the weekend.

” When he doesn’t answer me, I turn my gaze toward Cade to find him watching me, mouth clamped shut, arms still crossed over his thick chest. When it becomes obvious he has no intention of answering me, I turn around to look at River who’s looking at me like someone just kicked my puppy.

“Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”

When River’s eyes go round and wide, Cade sighs behind me. “Someone put your truck in the Barrett last night and we were worried because we thought maybe you were in it.”