Tragic: Chapter 8

Two weeks later, I was perched on a stool at the Lark Cove Bar with a paper boat of peanuts by one hand and a seasonal wheat beer by the other. Thea and Jackson were both working behind the bar, and I was here to hang out with them and Willa.

“How much of a pain in the ass is it to clean up all these peanut shells?” I asked Thea as I shucked another and let the shell fall to the floor.

She shrugged. “It’s not so bad. At first, I tried to sweep them up all the time. I was so used to Manhattan bars where fingerprints anywhere were a capital offense. It made me twitchy to see them pile up. But then I got used to it, and now I just wait and sweep them up after closing.”

“I love it.” I popped the peanut into my mouth, crunching away. “It’s so . . . chill.”

She smiled just as a man walked up to the bar to order a pitcher of beer.

This entire place was relaxed. The Lark Cove Bar was maybe my favorite place in the entire town. It was unique because of its owners and their flair for charm.

Compared to most bars in the city, it was actually kind of dingy—but in a good way. The bar itself ran in a long L along the back and side walls. The booths by the front windows had been beaten and battered from years of use. The pool table had been re-covered recently, but the legs showed where it had been kicked or scratched throughout the years. There was even a legitimate jukebox that played country music so twangy it was like stepping back in time forty years.

The high ceilings were open, and the iron beams running from one side to the other were exposed. It had a rustic, industrial look, thanks to the scuffed wooden floors and the walls paneled to match. The barstools were all different, and the one I was sitting on wobbled slightly to the right.

Shelves of liquor were loaded against a mirror that stretched along the back wall behind the bar. The footrail my purse was sitting on had visible grooves from people resting their feet in the same place, year after year.

The walls were covered in neon and metal signs as well as numerous framed pictures. My first visit here, I’d spent almost thirty minutes inspecting them all. It was like staring at a living timeline, one that had been started by the original owners and continued by their daughter, Hazel, when she’d taken over the bar.

And now, this place was run by Thea and Jackson—Hazel’s children for all intents and purposes. She wasn’t their biological mother, but she’d been their role model for so long, they looked to her like a parent. And though they weren’t related either, Thea and Jackson were basically siblings.

At least, they argued like brother and sister.

Being around them made me miss my own family, especially my younger brother Owen. The two of us had grown apart, like adult siblings do, but as a kid, he’d been my best friend.

I made a mental note to call him tomorrow. Then I added my parents and grandparents to my call roster too. Maybe if I was better about calling my family, the physical distance between us would seem like less than thousands of miles.

I’d go home to visit. Eventually. But not until Adam had more time to come to terms with our divorce.

What would he think of this place? I laughed to myself, picturing his look of horror.

Adam and I ran with a certain crowd of friends in New York, none of whom would be caught dead in the Lark Cove Bar. Our evenings out had always been spent in the same type of establishments. They were all clean and upscale. They were all on the cusp of the latest trends.

We went to the bars and restaurants so Adam could be seen.

But the Lark Cove Bar wasn’t about being seen. It was about seeing people and friends and neighbors. This place was as much of a cornerstone of this community as the Statue of Liberty was a symbol of America.

Every time I came here, I noticed something new. That was just how much stuff was crammed into the nooks and crannies. My eyes snagged on a set of antlers in one far corner off to the side of a large flat-screen TV. A bunch of trucker hats hung from its horns and at the very back, I could make out a scrap of lace.

“Oh my god.” I choked on my peanut, coughing and hacking. I grabbed a swig of my beer, chasing down the bite that had tried to murder me. My eyes were watering as I looked at Thea and then back at the antlers. “Is that a bra?”

Thea and Jackson both laughed, then shared a look before Jackson jumped in to explain.

“There was this woman in here about five or six years ago who was coming on to me,” Jackson said.

“This should be enlightening,” Willa muttered from the stool at my side.

“Come on, babe.” Jackson came down the bar, leaning across it to give her a soft kiss. “Don’t get jealous.”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t fight her smile. With her delicate frame, striking blue eyes and long blond hair hanging in waves to her waist, Willa was more angel than human. Or maybe that was because of how Jackson looked at her.

Thea had told me stories about Jackson, how he’d been a playboy for years. It wasn’t hard to believe since the man was as handsome as his wife was beautiful. He had eyes the color of a cloudless Montana sky and the frame of a star quarterback.

His wicked grin and charismatic personality could have attracted any woman in this bar, but he was all Willa’s. The day he’d noticed the shy woman who’d always had a crush on him was the day all other women stopped existing in his life.

She might grumble at old stories of women hitting on her husband, but we all knew exactly who owned his heart.

Those two were making gaga eyes at each other, so Thea jumped in to continue the story of the bra.

“So this woman was all handsy on Jackson. But he wasn’t paying her any attention.”

Jackson shrugged, still leaning on the bar in front of Willa. “It was a busy night. She was too drunk.”

“Drunk?” Thea scoffed. “That is putting it lightly. We cut her off but she didn’t leave. She just kept hanging around the end of the bar, waiting for Jackson to walk past. Every time he went to clear a table, she’d follow him around and try to grope his ass.”

Sweet, gentle Willa let out a sound that could only be considered a rabid growl.

Jackson just chuckled and leaned over to give her another kiss.

“I can’t remember exactly what happened, but this woman . . .” Thea rolled her eyes. “She was relentless! She followed Jackson around all night like a little puppy, trying to nip at his heels and hump his leg.”

Jackson’s face flushed as he shook his head. “What happened next was not my fault.”

Thea laughed. “She was so sad that he wasn’t paying her any attention. So she decided to make a scene. She walked up to this group of guys who’d just ordered a pitcher. She swiped it off their table, shouted ‘Wet T-shirt contest, woohoo!’ then poured it over her head.”

“Oh. My god.” I snorted, laughing along with Thea.

Jackson groaned. “So I bring her one of the bar T-shirts we used to sell.”

“Which happened to be white,” Thea added.

“I get the shirt pulled over her head,” Jackson continued. “And I’m thinking she’ll take the opportunity to wise up. Or at the very least one of her friends, who’d been sitting in the corner booth, would intervene. But they didn’t. Those bitches just sat there laughing and watching as this drunk chick struggled out of the drenched tank top she was wearing underneath the T-shirt I’d just pulled over her head. She threw the tank top across the bar—”

“And then came the bra.” Thea finished for him.

“Landed right on the antlers Hazel’s dad had hung up there thirty years ago.”

“Why didn’t you take it down?” I asked.

Jackson hung his head again as Thea kept laughing. “Things got worse.”

Willa giggled. “How?”

“There was still another pitcher on the table.”

My eyes widened. “Noooo!”

“Oh yes!” Thea nodded. “And that’s why we don’t sell white T-shirts anymore.”

We all laughed, even Jackson, causing a ruckus in the bar. None of the other patrons seemed to care, and a couple of the regulars were even listening in.

“She came in the next day and apologized,” Jackson said. “I’ve never seen anyone that green before. I asked her if she wanted her shirt and bra back, but she said she never wanted to be reminded of that night again.”

“Obviously, we never did take down the bra.” Thea shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I like it up there. It reminds me of all the fun times we’ve had in this place.”

Jackson moved closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “That was a fun night.”

“Sure was.” She patted his stomach, then stepped away, going around the bar to check on some customers in the booths.

Thea had told me that things were different at the Lark Cove Bar than they’d been years ago. It wasn’t just her and Jackson working as Hazel’s employees anymore. They’d bought her out a year ago, making sure she was set for retirement with her husband Xavier, the retired town sheriff. And because both Thea and Jackson had families, neither one of them wanted to be tied to the bar every night.

They had another bartender who covered most of the later shifts. They put a heavier emphasis on food items, making it not only a bar but a full restaurant to rival the one other in town. They’d turned an old beer and whiskey joint into a must-stop attraction on the tourist route around Flathead Lake.

Thea and Jackson had somehow turned a bar in the miniscule town of Lark Cove into a raving success.

A huge part of that success was simply because it was fun. Pure, unbridled, laugh-until-your-sides-hurt fun.

A lot of my moments in Montana had been fun.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t had good times in the city. But things were different here.

There were no expectations to keep quiet. If I stood on my stool and did a happy dance, people would cheer me on. No one cared if you got too drunk and made a fool of yourself. A bra was left hanging on the antlers so patrons could share a laugh years later.

Would Kaine like it here? Would he ever want to come down and split a pizza?

He popped into my mind, like he often did.

In the two weeks since he’d surprised me with his first late-night visit to my camper, we’d fallen into a routine. Every other day, he’d come over after dark. We’d have sex until the midnight hours and then he’d return home.

Two days was as long as we’d go without seeing one another. Like clockwork, he’d knock on my camper door just before the forty-eight-hour timer would run out, shooting my three-day rule right to hell.

I hadn’t been back to his cabin or his shop in the last two weeks. We hadn’t shared a meal, or conversation for that matter, so at least our relationship was limited to physical closeness only.

But I’d taken to staying up at night, waiting for his faint knock. I sat on the couch even on the nights when he wasn’t due to come over, just in case. And during the day, he crept into my thoughts on an hourly basis.

Who was this man who’d swept into my life? What was his story? We’d agreed on casual, but feelings were beginning to stir.

Did he feel them too?

Spending time with him, kissing him and holding on to one another, was something I’d come to depend upon. I reveled in his company, his smell in my bed and his hands on my body.

Kaine chased away the homesickness. When he held me in his arms, I wasn’t alone.

When he was in the room, I wasn’t the loneliest person there.

He was.

Kaine never mentioned family or friends. I hadn’t seen another person come to his house except me. But something had caused him to retreat inside himself. Something had caused the severe pain that lingered behind his eyes.

What had happened to him?

I doubted I’d get the answer to that question. Kaine kept his demons locked up so tight they were silently wreaking havoc on his soul. He seemed determined to fight that battle alone.

My wish for him was to find friends or confidants, like the ones I’d found here.

“I’d better get home and check on Roman.” Willa drained the last of her water glass.

Her son was only seven months old and she was still nursing. Her mom had volunteered to watch the baby tonight so Willa could have a little adult time.

She’d come down to eat pizza with me and Thea—and because she liked to visit when Jackson was working. But dinner had long since ended and even with the fun we were having, I didn’t blame her for wanting to get back home.

“I’ll walk you out, babe.” Jackson rounded the bar. “Thea, you good for a few?”

“Take your time,” she told him. “I’ll hold down the fort.”

We all hugged Willa good-bye, and I waved as Jackson escorted her outside. As soon as the door closed behind them, Thea went back behind the bar.

She’d only come to the bar tonight for some girl time. It was technically Jackson’s night to work. But that didn’t stop her from serving customers or making drinks. Just like I couldn’t go into Logan’s office at their house and not jump into my work, Thea couldn’t be in this building without doing something.

“So . . . I did a thing,” Thea announced. “Made a thing, actually. In my workshop.”

“Yeah?” My shoulders perked up, excited to hear about her latest art project. She wasn’t just a successful business owner and wife to a billionaire philanthropist, Thea was also an incredibly talented artist.

If I didn’t love her so much, it would be easy to be jealous.

“Do you remember that day we went to look at your house for the first time? And we hiked the ridge?”

“Sure.” That was the day I’d seen Kaine for the first time.

“You know the man we saw up there?”

I nodded. Intimately.

“I kind of couldn’t get the image of him out of my head. So I used it for a piece. I brought it tonight.” She held up a finger and hurried down the length of the bar to the hallway that disappeared behind the bar to her office and the kitchen. It didn’t take her but a moment to come rushing back out with an unframed canvas in her hands.

“I don’t know why.” She held the canvas back so I couldn’t see the front. “But I just had to capture him. He was so . . . raw.”

Raw. That was the perfect way to describe that moment.

She glanced at the painting again, worry settling on her beautiful face. For as talented as she was, she was oddly secretive about her art. There was no doubt she could make a killing, selling her unique pieces in high-end galleries. But for the most part, she did it for fun. It was her outlet. Even when Logan had offered to buy her a nice studio, she’d refused. She created her pieces in an old garden shed that was practically falling apart.

“Hand it over.” I motioned for the painting.

“I’m not the best painter.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re talking to a woman who can’t draw stick figures.”

She smiled and reluctantly turned the canvas. The painting stole my breath away.

Thea had captured Kaine’s pain and trapped it on that canvas. It lived underneath the oil colors, jumping off the painting to settle heavy on my heart.

“Wow,” I whispered, unable to blink or look away.

It was a stunning piece, but it physically hurt to look at. Just like the day we’d seen him on the ridge, I had the overwhelming urge to hold him. I ached to take some of his pain away, absorb it like a dry sponge.

I swallowed hard and forced a smile. I didn’t want Thea to think my shocked reaction was because it was a bad piece. It was beautiful. Achingly beautiful. “You did an incredible job.”

“You think?” She tapped her finger on the bar.

“It’s amazing. But I, uh . . . I have a confession.” I sighed. “I know him.”

I’d kept my casual relationship with Kaine a secret from everyone, mostly because I hadn’t known exactly how to describe it. And because I hadn’t known if it would last. But it had gone on long enough that I felt like I was keeping a secret from my friend.

“How?” Thea asked.

“He’s my neighbor.”

“Hmmm.” She nodded. “I wondered if he lived up there.”

“There’s more.” I set the painting down. “We’re kind of . . . hooking up.”

Her mouth fell open. “You are?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “It’s nothing serious. Just a casual thing.”

“Casual?”

“I’ve never done that before. Have you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if I’m capable of casual. I mean, look at me and Logan. I tried casual with him, got pregnant and basically thought about him every day for six years.”

Thea stared at me for a long moment before she smiled. “I think this is a good thing.”

“You don’t think it’s too soon?” I asked, voicing one of the many worries about my encounters with Kaine.

“You’ve been divorced for months. You and Adam were separated long before that. I think finding someone new is overdue.”

My shoulders fell with immense relief. I needed to hear those words. I needed to have someone I admired and trusted tell me it was okay to move on from Adam.

“Do you like him?” Thea asked.

“I do,” I admitted. “Neither of us is interested in anything serious. We don’t really know anything about one another, but that kind of makes it fun. It’s all different for me. But for the first time in years, I don’t feel like I need to act a certain way to impress him. It’s . . . freeing.”

Thea’s smile widened. “And he is not hard to look at.”

“No.” I blushed. “No, he is not.”

Her painting hadn’t captured the details of Kaine’s face, simply because his hands had been covering most of it. But during our nights together, I’d memorized some of my favorite features. Now that I knew what his nose looked like from all angles and how his mouth was ever so slightly off-center from his strong chin, it made the painting even better.

I couldn’t stop glancing at it resting on top of the bar.

“Keep it.”

“What?” My gaze shot to Thea. “I can’t keep this.”

“Why not?”

“Well, what if he sees it? He might think I’m a crazy stalker who painted him.”

Thea waved me off. “Tell him I did it, then draw him one of those stick figures you were just bragging about.”

I giggled. “Good point. He’ll know right away I couldn’t make this.”

“I’m glad for you. I think a casual fling with a handsome man is just what you need.”

Handsome was an understatement. Kaine didn’t have a classically perfect face like Logan. He didn’t have a charming, playful appeal like Jackson. Kaine was too serious. But he was better looking than either of them in my opinion, especially when he smiled.

The door behind me opened and Jackson came back inside. His eyes didn’t shine as bright now that his wife had left. Behind him, the evening light was fading through the windows.

“Okay, I’d better get going.” I downed the last of my beer and fished out some cash from my purse. It was only eight thirty but I wanted to stop by the grocery store before going home, and they closed in thirty minutes.

But before I could pay, Thea waved it off. “Family discount. And I’d better go too. I want to catch Charlie before Logan tucks her in.”

“Have a good night.” Jackson waved to us both as we walked out the door. Thea and I exchanged a quick hug before she got in her car to go home, and I climbed into mine.

Then I drove the two blocks down the highway to the grocery store, rifling through my purse for the list I’d made earlier as I walked inside. I gave the owner stationed behind the one and only register a quick smile and kept on digging.

“Seriously?” I grumbled. Why did my purse always eat my grocery lists?

It was nowhere to be found, so I gave up the search and plucked a basket from the stack next to the pushcarts. With it resting on my arm, I went through the small produce aisle first, collecting a bunch of bananas and a bag of baby carrots. Then I went up and down each of the other aisles, picking things that I remembered writing down and a plethora of items that I hadn’t.

By the time I made it to the second to last aisle, my basket was getting heavy, and I cursed myself for not getting the full-sized cart. I turned down the baking aisle to get some brown sugar but froze when I saw the man standing in front of the Betty Crocker boxed cake mixes.

Kaine was glaring daggers at the box in his hand.

I grinned, walking as quietly as I could in my cork wedge sandals down the freshly waxed floor. “White cake? If you’re going to go for something other than chocolate, at least get the rainbow chip.”

His face whipped to the side, the scowl disappearing as he recognized me. Kaine was wearing a navy baseball hat, pulled low on his head so you could barely see his eyes. The light sporty jacket he wore was zipped up all the way to his neck.

“Is there a reason why you’re standing in the baking aisle looking like a criminal in hiding?” With a quick flick, I tipped up his hat, knocking it back so I could see his eyes.

His frown returned as he put the cake mix back on the shelf and mumbled, “I was goingtoaskyou . . .”

“Huh?”

He shuffled down a few steps, grabbing another box and studying it like it was made of pure gold. He wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t speak up. Was he nervous?

Yes! He was totally nervous. It was strange and oddly sexy to see Kaine Reynolds, the man who preferred to speak in three-word sentences, jittery because I’d surprised him at the grocery store.

“What was that you said?” I pressed.

He shrugged those broad shoulders, huffing as he swapped out one yellow cake mix for another. “I was going to ask you to dinner.”

That was when I noticed the contents of his own shopping basket. He had two pork chops and a tub of macaroni salad. There was also a bowl of precut watermelon and a bag of dinner rolls.

I held back a smile, wanting to play with him a little. “I already ate.”

“Tomorrow. I was going to ask you to dinner tomorrow,” he grumbled, swiping a can of vanilla frosting off the shelf.

Yellow cake and vanilla frosting? Eww.

My face soured and he took it as a no to his invitation. With an angry huff, he shoved the frosting back on the shelf. But before he could walk away, I grabbed his arm.

“Wait. I’d love to go to dinner.” With one hand restraining his elbow, I reached for the right kind of frosting for yellow cake. Chocolate. “But only if you make that cake with this frosting.”

His frame relaxed. “Okay.”

The reality of what had just happened sank in, and my heart beat double time. Kaine had just asked me over for dinner. Was it a date? Did he want more than just casual?

I took a breath, not wanting to get ahead of myself. This was casual. We were casual. This dinner invitation didn’t have to be anything other than pork chops shared between neighbors.

“Can I bring anything?” I asked.

“Dinner.” He chuckled. “I’m a shit cook.”

“Just don’t mess up the cake and we’ll be fine.”