time.” Ethan tossed a ten spot on the bar. “Tiny, get Paul whatever he wants and then maybe call him a cab.”
“You won’t raise a glass with me for Rick?” Belligerent, Paul turned to face Ethan.
Ethan tried to keep things light, even though inside, that burn that had been nagging him for days began to spread.
“Maybe some other time. I’ve got somewhere to be.”
“Right.” Paul pointed his big meaty finger Ethan’s way and moved forward, effectively blocking Ethan’s path to the exit. Then he thumped Ethan on the shoulder. Hard. So hard, Ethan rocked back on his feet.
The fuse was lit, and it was all Ethan could do not to throw a punch. “Back off, Davenport.”
“You’re a piece of work, you know that? You always thought you were better than me.”
“Not better,” Ethan replied, practically growling. “Just smarter.”
“I’ve got one question. Answer me that, and I’ll let you leave.”
Let him leave? The burn was red hot, and Ethan clenched his fists, his entire body strung tight and humming with the kind of energy that could hurt. Or break. Or destroy.
One of Paul’s friends, the smart one, pulled on his arm and tried to defuse the situation. “Come on, man. Let’s go have another beer and order us up some spicy wings and fries.” But Paul wasn’t having any of it. He yanked his arm away and rounded on Ethan.
“I wonder what Rick would think is all. What with you banging his wife and knocking her up less than six months after he died.”
The fuse exploded, and if it weren’t for Tiny, who appeared from nowhere with the kind of speed expected from a man half his size, Ethan would have clocked Paul Davenport and sent him well into next week. But with his arms effectively held back by Tiny, he couldn’t do anything. The man was a tank.
“He’s not worth it, Caldwell.” Tiny’s hands loosened a bit at about the same time Paul tried to sucker punch Ethan, though all he managed to do was graze Ethan’s forehead. It wasn’t hard enough to inflict a lot of damage, but there was enough force to cut flesh to bone.
Within seconds, Nash had hopped over the bar and had Paul in a headlock. He looked up at Ethan, who’d just shaken himself from Tiny’s grip.
“Son of a bitch,” he snarled, eyes on Paul
“You okay?”
Ethan didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself. He was too angry, at Paul and at himself…at the world, it seemed. He gave a curt nod and shoved his way past the crowd that had gathered, and didn’t stop until he got into his truck. He pointed it toward the lake and bypassed the town entirely. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind to see Emily. Couldn’t handle another polite night filled with covert glances and things unsaid.
Jaw clenched so tight pain radiated up his jaw, he swiped at the blood dripping into his eye and, with a curse, rooted through the glove box for a napkin or something like it while steering his truck at the same time.
Bad decision.
A large buck—big enough to do major damage—sprinted across the road, and Ethan barely had time to react. He yanked on the steering wheel—hard—but the back tires hit the gravel on the side of the road and then snow or a patch of black ice when he overcorrected, and he spun out. His truck ended up in a ditch, which was maddening, but a foot to the right and he would have hit a large oak tree head-on.
When it was all said and done, Ethan was lucky. Sure, he’d banged his head again and sprained his hand somehow, but other than a lot of blood that made things look worse than they were, he was okay. A little dizzy, but okay. Nate Edwards came upon him a couple of minutes after he’d ended up in the ditch and, even though Ethan protested, he’d called an ambulance. It arrived before the tow truck. Nate promised to stay with Ethan’s rig until it was towed.
The paramedic, Meredith Stanford, a former classmate of his, walked with him into the emergency room—he’d refused to ride in on a gurney—it went against hospital policy, but Meredith knew when to back off. She passed him off to nurse Lisa Booker, Nash and Cam’s mother, a woman he’d known his entire life. She clucked her way through an exam, checked his blood pressure and heart rate, and took some blood before taking a step back.
“You probably have