Whispering Rock. Робин Карр
Читать онлайн книгу.
“Husband?” one of them chortled. “Damn, my hunting sucks no matter where I go.”
She instinctively retreated a step and the man reached for her hand, pulling her back. “You can get rid of the husband, can’t you, sweetheart?” His buddies laughed at his brazenness and Mike thought, shit. This is not a good thing; you don’t want to mess with Preacher’s woman. He looked across the bar at Jack’s narrowed eyes. Oh, boy.
Paige simply pulled her hand back, smiled politely and didn’t grapple with them any longer over food. As she would have gone back to the kitchen, Jack stopped her and asked her to take David. He slid the backpack off his shoulders and into her hands and one of the hunters yelled over to Jack, “That the wife, buddy?” And Jack’s mouth curved in a slow smile as he shook his head—no, you don’t really want to meet her husband.
Now, what none of these idiots knew was that Jack hadn’t had a nice summer. His sister’s trauma was not that long past and he’d been in a real mood. There was a side of Jack that was all soft, crushed concern and a side that wanted to kill someone. This was not a great time to screw with him. Since Jack had shed the baby, a telling move, Mike thought it might be worth it to try to head this off. He stood up from his meal at the end of the bar and walked over to their table. He flipped around a chair from a neighboring table and, straddling the back, he said, “Hey, boys. You have a good hunt?”
They eyed him suspiciously. One of them said, “One buck—young. Not much to brag about. Who are you?”
“Name’s Mike—how you doing? Listen, I just thought I’d mention—you don’t want to overdo it. Especially if you’re driving out tonight.”
They started to laugh, meeting eyes with each other as though sharing some kind of private joke. “That a fact?” one asked. “And who put you in charge?”
“I’m not in charge of anything,” he said. “But gee—I’d hate to see anyone get hurt. These roads,” he said, shaking his head. “Sometimes pretty tight around the curves going down. And real, real dark. No lights. No guard rails.”
Right then, Mel came into the bar, hung her jacket on the peg inside the door and jumped up on a stool in front of her husband, elbows on the bar, leaning toward him for a kiss.
“Holy shit,” one of the men said. “Look at that one. Talk about a doe I’d like to bag.”
Jack straightened before meeting his wife’s lips. The look on his face wasn’t a pretty one.
“You know,” Mike said, laughing uncomfortably, “about our women. You boys don’t want to be giving the women around here any trouble. Trust me on this, okay?”
That set up a round of hilarious laughter at the table of hunters and one of them said, unfortunately too loudly, “Maybe the girl wants to get bagged. I think we should at least ask her!” But oops—glancing over his shoulder, Mike saw Jack had heard that. And probably so had Mel. And after what those two had been through earlier in the summer, comments like that were not taken lightly.
And that’s when Mike became convinced that these guys had been pretty well oiled before they hit Virgin River. They had absolutely no judgment. Hunting and drinking was a thing he disliked—frowned on by him and his brothers, both the Mexican brothers and Marines. Drinking after the hunt—that was another story. Especially if the shooting was done, the guns unloaded and stowed, and all you were going to do was walk out back to your camper.
He looked back over his shoulder in time to see Jack whisper something to Mel. Mel jumped off the stool, disappeared into the back and Mike thought, oh fuck. He stood. “Okay, boys. Settle up for your drinks and hit the road. While you can still see straight. Okay?”
“Relax, chico. We’re not quite done here.”
Chico? He hated it when people did that. You don’t want to call a Mexican man a little boy.
Out of the corner of his eye Mike saw him. He’d known he would. Preacher had come out of the kitchen and stood behind the bar next to Jack, arms crossed over his massive chest, those big, black eyebrows drawn together in a frown that only Preacher could effect with such a look of menace. The diamond stud in his ear seemed to twinkle. Jack had sent Mel for him. They were ready to mix it up with these guys, defend the place.
Mike absently worked his shoulder a little bit, loosening it up. He couldn’t remember hearing about a bar fight around here. Certainly not since Preacher had come on full-time. You’d have to be drunk and stupid to get into it with him.
These guys looked pretty fit. Lots younger by average than Jack, Preacher and Mike. But they’d been doing a lot of drinking, whereas that evening shot before closing had yet to be poured for the crew running the bar. The home team had been on coffee.
As Mike knew, Jack hated it when his bar got messed up. It was a sacrifice he’d make if threatened, but it made him very unhappy. Maybe he’d stay behind the bar and just let them wander off. Or maybe he’d enjoy a little fight, having had the kind of summer he’d had.
“Come on, boys. Get going. You really don’t want to mess this place up.” Mike said.
The hunters exchanged looks, then slowly stood. They began to move away from the table, having left no money to pay for their drinks, which was a sure clue trouble was coming. The one in the group closest to Mike whirled suddenly, landing a blow right to Mike’s face. It sent him skittering backward, his hand to his lip, ending up against the bar. He said, “Oh, you’re going to hate yourself.”
He wound up and hit back, left-handed, sending his assailant flying into his boys, knocking two of them off balance.
It started. Preacher and Jack were around the bar before Mike even delivered his first blow. Preacher knocked two heads together, Jack landed a blow to one gut, another jaw. Mike grabbed up his attacker, decked him again and then sent him into another guy, downing them both. Someone came at Jack with a ready fist, which Jack caught easily, twisted his assailant’s arm around his back and shoved him into his boys. In less than two minutes, six partially inebriated young hunters were on the bar floor, spread over some broken glasses and amidst toppled chairs and two tables. All of them were moaning. Besides that first blow to Mike’s face, they hadn’t even managed contact. The heartiest of the bunch got back on his feet and Preacher grabbed him by the front of his jacket, lifted him off the floor and said, “You really wanna be this stupid?” He instantly put up his hands and Preacher dropped him.
“Okay, okay, we’re out of here,” he said.
“It’s too late for that, guys,” Mike said. He yelled, “Paige!” She stuck her head into the bar. “Rope!”
“Aw, come on, man,” someone said.
“Just get ‘em the hell out of here,” Jack said, disgusted.
“Can’t,” Mike returned. Then to the hunters, “Hell, I tried to warn you. You don’t want to mess with the women. You don’t want to fight. Not around here. Jesus,” he said in disgust. “Shit for brains.”
Mike explained to Jack that not only were these boys too drunk to drive down the mountain, they might get down the road and claim they’d been jumped. Since they had all the bruises and the home team had only sore knuckles, it just wouldn’t be smart to take that kind of chance. Better to let the police handle things now. Fifteen minutes later each one of them was tied to a porch rail out front, and a half hour after that three sheriff’s deputies were standing around the front of the bar, assessing the damage.
“Merciful God,” Deputy Henry Depardeau said. “Every time I turn around, somebody’s getting beat up or shot around here!”
“Yeah, Henry, we’re awful sorry,” Jack said. “We hardly ever have any trouble.”
“And what was it this time?” he asked impatiently.
“That one,” Jack said, pointing. “He threw the first punch. That was so frickin’ rude, don’t