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Listening to Billy Roy deny Travis made Bekah angry, but she curbed her anger with discipline she’d learned in the Marines. Arguing with Billy Roy was just a waste of time, and she wouldn’t give it another minute.

  Connie’s voice rose. “That’s a lie and you know it. Anybody with eyes in his head can see Travis is yours. Boy looks just like you.”

  “He’s got dark hair.”

  “He gets his hair from his momma’s side. The Shaws got Cherokee blood in them. Black hair is going to show up. That’s no more surprising than you having a redheaded son because your family runs to Irish.”

  “Well then, maybe that boy should have had red hair.”

  “You can’t just walk away from your responsibilities.”

  Billy Roy reached over his shoulder and snagged his beer with ease. He always seemed to know just where things were. And he knew where Bekah was right now too.

  “That boy’s not my responsibility. She had him while I was on the road playing baseball.” Billy Roy sipped his beer. “I wasn’t home to father a child.”

  Bekah regretted giving in to Connie’s invitation. Her private life was becoming a spectacle, a sideshow in Callum’s Creek, where such things happened a lot unless a person lived really small. Billy Roy didn’t live small. He loved the attention, and he counted bad attention just as worthy as good attention. In a town that ran on rumors and half-lies, a lively personal life made someone a rock star.

  “She had your son while you were on the road because you were out there cheating on her with every pretty little thing that looked your way.” Connie had her hands on her hips now, and Bekah knew her friend had lost it. “There’s a lot of girls out there that don’t have a brain in their pretty little heads.” She looked meaningfully at the bartender, who had backed off a little.

  Bekah silently turned and made herself walk toward the exit. There was nothing graceful about leaving, but staying was pointless. She told herself this was a parade drill at the Corps, that she was going to execute it and be gone.

  “You going to just sneak on out of here, Rebecca Ann? That how you going to do this while your friend runs her mouth and talks trash about me?” Billy Roy’s tone carried that old, familiar taunt. “Let your friend slander my good name while you walk out with your holier-than-thou attitude?”

  Don’t turn around. Don’t talk to him. He’s not worth it. You’ve already had this fight hundreds of times, and you can’t win. There’s nothing you can do tonight to change that. Bekah kept her focus on the door. It was less than ten feet away. She’d be gone by the time she drew another breath.

  Connie didn’t lighten up on her tirade. “You’re a loser, Billy Roy. You’re a wannabe baseball player, and you’re a no-account daddy.”

  Bekah had her hand on the doorknob when she heard the rapid footsteps behind her, the squealed curse from Connie, and the sudden scrape of chairs as the bar patrons cleared a path. Turning around, she fully expected to see Billy Roy making a beeline toward Connie even though she’d never seen him strike a woman in her life.

  Instead, Buck Miller stopped just in front of Connie, grabbed her by the wrist with one hand, and backhanded her across the face with the other. Buck’s face was florid, and Bekah knew the man had been drinking even before he’d come to Darlton’s.

  Blood sprayed from Connie’s nose and mouth at the impact, and she sagged to her knees on the floor. Buck kept hold of her arm and didn’t let her go. He leaned over her and shouted into her shocked, frightened face.

  The crowd drew back. A couple of men acted like they were going to intervene, but they easily let their friends haul them back. Buck Miller had a reputation as a fighter, and most of the crowd in Darlton’s that night probably hadn’t ever been in a real fight. One of the men protested and threatened to call the cops, but Buck glared the man to silence, then turned his attention back to Connie.

  “You never did know when to shut your mouth! That was your biggest problem! Always had to have the last word! Well, you ain’t getting the last word tonight!”

  Methodically, Buck slapped Connie in the face again and rocked her head back.

  By the time she realized that no one in the place was going to do anything to stop Buck, Bekah was already in motion. She stepped around the tables and chairs and made straight for the man.

  Buck saw her coming and grinned. He stood up a little straighter, putting himself a full head taller than Bekah. He was broader and heavier too, and that gave Bekah some pause, but she regularly trained with male Marines in hand-to-hand combat who were bigger and heavier than her. Granted, that was under the supervision of a sergeant who made sure things only went so far.

  If Buck didn’t listen to reason, this was going to get ugly. But she was not going to stand by and let him manhandle Connie. She couldn’t respect herself if she did.

  “Let her go.” Bekah stopped just out of Buck’s reach. “You’ve already hurt her, and you don’t want to hurt her any more.”

  Buck laughed at her, then looked over his shoulder at Billy Roy to make sure he was laughing too. Billy Roy wasn’t laughing, but he had on that stupid, cocky grin that Bekah had come to hate. It had been cute when they’d first gotten together. Now the expression just made her sick.

  Laughing harder, Buck turned back to her. “The Army lets you give orders? Is that what’s going on here?”

  “The Marines.” Bekah kept her voice flat, neutral.

  Buck shrugged. “Whatever. Just because you get to tote around a rifle and sing songs while you’re marching don’t mean you got britches big enough to come up against me. Do yourself a favor. Tuck your tail between your legs and sashay right on out of here.”

  “Fine. Let Connie go with me.” All Bekah wanted was to get her friend safe. Nothing else mattered. She didn’t have to prove herself. She only needed to get her friend out of harm’s way. That was her job as a Marine.

  Connie sniffled at Buck’s feet and mopped at the blood streaming from her nose.

  “Me and her got a few more words to share, now that I got her attention for once. I’m gonna teach her a little respect and to hold a civil tongue.” Buck drew his hand back again.

  Without thinking about what she was doing, acting on instinct and fired by concern for her friend, Bekah stepped forward and turned sideways. With a quickness trained into her through hours of practice, she caught Buck’s hand and wrist as it came down. She added her strength to her opponent’s and torqued the captured arm around, down, and behind Buck’s back, missing Connie by inches.

  Propelled by the sudden motion and the leverage Bekah had, Buck squalled in pain and left his feet in a rush as momentum spun him into a flip. He released Connie and landed flat on his back on the floor.

  Bekah caught Connie under the arm and helped her friend to her feet. “Let’s go.”

  Connie nodded weakly. Her eyes were glazed and she looked half out of it. Bekah had guided her three steps toward the door before Buck shook his head, pushed up to his feet, and screamed in defiance. He came at Bekah at a dead run with his arms outspread.

  Moving quickly, Bekah shoved Connie out of the way and stepped in front of Buck. Again, she took a profile stance, and the movements came automatically from all the training she’d had. She knew she couldn’t meet Buck head-on. His size and strength would break through every aggressive defense she had to stand her ground. Speed and technique were the only skill sets that would help her. At the last minute she stepped to one side, to Buck’s right so that her left shoulder was toward him. Buck instinctively grabbed for her, as she’d expected, because most attackers coming at speed didn’t want their prey to get away.

  Bekah slapped down Buck’s arm with her right hand, then chopped him across the throat with the edge of her left hand. Buck lost his balance and started gagging, trying desperately to breathe. Under combat conditions, Bekah could have killed someone with the move, but she’d never used it with lethal force and she’d held back the strength of the blow now.

  Buck caught himself
over a table and stopped his forward momentum. Hacking and coughing, he turned around and screamed hoarse curses at Bekah.

  Unwilling to let go of the upper hand while she had it—and knowing from watching him in past fights that Buck wouldn’t quit—Bekah stepped toward him, spun, and kicked him in the chest. A shock ran up her leg as her boot made contact. Buck was solid, strong. The impact almost knocked her from her left foot, but she recovered and remained standing, fists raised in front of her. Ready.

  The kick knocked Buck back into the wall. A framed picture of Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty dropped to the floor, and the glass shattered. Buck grunted in pain, touched his chest with his right hand as if making sure nothing was broken, then pushed off the wall and came at her again.

  This time he was more wary. He put up his fists and pulled his chin down to his chest. He’d boxed some, but only with friends. Bekah saw immediately that his stance was too wide, something she would not have known without the martial arts training in the Marines.

  By now the crowd had gotten a taste of the bloodlust. A few of the less raucous patrons headed for the door, but the majority of them remained. A fight was just local entertainment. Callum’s Creek had a lot of UFC and WWE fans.

  Fear thrummed through Bekah as it always did before an encounter, but she controlled it. She’d been in firefights out on the battlefield, had exchanged shots with enemy soldiers, had shot enemy soldiers, but she’d never been face-to-face with any of them during a struggle. Buck was up close and personal, and she grew even more aware of his size.

  He swung at her, and she easily dodged back out of the way. He punched at her again, grinning when she dodged away.

  “What’s the matter? Scared?” Buck licked his lips. “You ain’t begun to get scared yet. Just wait.”

  This time when Buck swung, telegraphing the effort, Bekah blocked the blow, catching his forearm against hers and stepping inside. She didn’t punch for his jaw or his chin or his forehead. Those would be too hard and could break her hand. Instead, she planted her feet, pushed with her knee, swiveled her hip to transfer her weight and strength to the punch, and hit him squarely in the nose. Blood gushed immediately and his head snapped back. Before he could react, she retreated.

  “This doesn’t have to go any farther.” Bekah was breathing easily now, and that surprised her. “I just want to take Connie to the emergency room and get her looked at. Just let us pass.”

  Surprised and hurt, Buck halted his advance and stepped back. He touched his bleeding nose, and his fingers came away stained with crimson. He snarled an oath. “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that, Bekah!” He came at her again, fists flying like a threshing machine.

  Bekah stayed ahead of him, dodging through the chairs and tables, and managed to get to the door. She kept going out into the parking lot, hoping she’d have the chance to get to her pickup truck and get away. She had her keys in her pocket. All she needed was an opening. As long as she could get Connie out of there too. She wasn’t leaving without her.

  Even as she was digging for her keys, though, the other guy with Billy Roy ran over to her pickup and took a position beside the door. The message was clear: she wasn’t leaving till they were ready for her to go.

  Loose gravel covered the parking lot, and potholes still held a small amount of rainwater and gray sludge from the rain yesterday. Fifty yards away, the two-lane highway sat dark and empty. Callum’s Creek lay at the west end of the highway, and the east end led back toward Oklahoma City, an hour away. Thready gray clouds covered the quarter moon.

  “Come back here and take what’s coming to you.” Buck roared like a bull and lumbered after her. Blood had leaked from his nose, down his face and neck, and was soaking into his shirt. “You’re gonna be sorry you ever started this.”

  I didn’t start this. Bekah thought briefly of trying to run to the highway. The first rule of every fight was to survive. But she knew that Buck would only pursue. She’d also be leaving Connie there. And one of Buck’s buddies might even fire up a pickup and follow her. That way even more people risked the chance of getting hurt.

  She stood her ground in the middle of the impromptu battleground. Gravel popped and crunched under her boots. She took in a breath and let it out, relaxing a little, feeling her muscles loosen. And she waited on Buck to make his move, determined to end the fight.

  3

  BILLY ROY LOUNGED on a nearby car hood. He’d pushed himself up and sat with his legs hanging over the side, like he was sitting at the drive-in waiting for the movie to start. A beer bottle dangled in his fingers. “You should have stayed home tonight, Rebecca Ann. What kind of momma are you to go off and leave your granny to watch your baby while you’re out on the town?”

  Bekah hated the sanctimonious tone in Billy Roy’s voice. But she hated it even more because it touched on the guilt that had been bubbling around inside her all evening anyway. Her granny had insisted she go out with her friends, but Bekah hadn’t felt good about doing it. Still, she’d wanted to know how much of a normal life could exist for her outside of being a momma and serving with the Marines. She’d joined up to hang on to her life and get in a better financial situation, but lately she felt like she was just losing more and more of her days. The two tours had chipped away six months each, and she’d come home to see Travis more grown-up every time.

  That bothered her. She should have been there. A hard knot formed in her stomach, and she knew it was more fear. But it wasn’t fear of Buck. It was fear of her boy growing up without her because wars seemed to be breaking out all around the world, and the United States government appeared determined to get involved in all of them.

  She hadn’t counted on being away from her son so much. It was just a part-time job. But the things she’d helped do were amazing. The lives she’d saved were precious. She hated being torn the way she was between the two.

  Connie stood out in front of the bar and grill. “She’s a better momma than you’ll ever be a daddy, Billy Roy.”

  Billy Roy scowled but didn’t even look in Connie’s direction. He sipped on his beer and stared at Bekah.

  “I gotta warn you, Billy Roy.” Buck wiped at his face but only succeeded in smearing more blood. “I’m gonna mess up your old lady now.”

  “She’s not my old lady.”

  Bekah stared at Buck and waited for the big man to make a move. She had to wait. She couldn’t be the aggressor with all the weight and size she was giving away. She was surprised at the calm way she could stand there. But she’d always stood her ground. That was one of the most important things her grandpa and granny had taught her: to stand up for herself and to do what was right. She’d stood quietly at her daddy’s grave when they buried him, and she’d stood holding her granny’s hand when her momma drove off in the rain two years later, fueled by alcohol and worn out by anger and betrayal and the need to be free of a child.

  “C’mon.” Buck waved for Bekah to come closer. “Let’s see what you have.”

  Bekah ignored him and kept her fists up. When Buck started circling her, she followed him with small steps of her own.

  “Go on, Buck. Step in there and paste her one. Knock some sense into her.” That came from the other man who had followed Billy Roy into Darlton’s. He still stood guard by Bekah’s pickup.

  At least two dozen onlookers stood out in front of the bar and grill, all of them up on the wooden boardwalk in front of the place. Shadows fell over them except for the soft light coming from their cell phones. Bekah would have bet none of them were calling the sheriff’s office and that all of them were texting neighbors and friends.

  For a moment, Bekah detested them all. She’d always known Callum’s Creek was small, but she hadn’t truly realized how cold the town could be till she got ostracized by Billy Roy’s claims that Travis was someone else’s son. Until that time Bekah had been the lucky girl who had landed the town’s baseball hero.

  Before that, she’d been a nobody, a kid who’d been orphaned by her pa
rents and taken in by her grandparents. Now she was the girl who had gone off with the Marines and come back a stranger. Most of the people she’d known didn’t treat her the same anymore. They were too afraid that she’d changed, that she now looked down on their small-town ways.

  “What?” Buck kept moving. He feinted a couple punches, but Bekah didn’t react because his footwork gave away the fake efforts. “You ain’t got nothing to say now?”

  Bekah kept moving as well, placing one foot at a time, never crossing a foot over the other, just like she’d been trained. Then, when Buck lunged at her, she gave ground, stepping back quickly, gliding her boots over the uneven surface and feeling the rocks shift. She set herself, ducked beneath his outstretched arms, spun, and stomped her right foot on the back of his right knee as he went past her.

  Off balance, flailing wildly, Buck smashed into the side of a large Ford F-150. The pickup’s security system screamed to life, and the lights flashed in stunning syncopation. Buck recovered faster than Bekah would have thought, though. He pushed off the truck’s side and came at her again. His boots dug into the gravel.

  Bekah tried to get away, but her left foot slid into one of the sludge-filled potholes. Buck was on her before she could slide out of his grasp. Triumphantly, he lifted her in a bear hug, threatening to crush her ribs. He rammed her back into a parked car and nearly bent her over it. Her head smacked into the hood. The breath went out of her in a rush as he roared victoriously.

  “Now you’re gonna—”

  Buck never got to finish. Bekah slammed the palms of both hands over his ears and sent shock waves through his eardrums. Head filled with exploding pain, Buck released her and staggered backward. Bekah slid to her feet and drew in a painful breath. Her senses spun from the impact with the car. Double vision threw her depth perception off.

  The crowd was yelling in a fever, but Bekah didn’t know whose name they were calling. She tried to focus and square herself up, but her legs felt rubbery. She rolled her hands into fists and watched in mixed disbelief and dismay as Buck reached for the knife at his belt. He brought the weapon out and flicked it open with a thumb. The blade gleamed sharp and strong in the red and blue lights streaming from the neon Darlton’s sign.