Page 4 of True North

Mom winked. “Knew you’d see it that way. Wear something low cut,” she called as I moved out of the sunroom toward the stairs. “And feel free to stay out all night long. No need to check in. Just make sure your location is on.”

“We’ve talked about it,” I shouted to be heard as I moved farther away. “You care way too much about my sex life. It’s not normal.”

“No, honey. What’s not normal is the length of the dry spell you’re currently suffering through.”

“Gah! No more, Mom!”

I rolled my eyes once more as I started up the steps. Leave it to my mother to go out of her way to try and get me laid. Even while she was in the middle of fighting cancer.

TWO

NORTH

I stared down at the amber liquid in my tumbler, watching it swirl around the sides as I spun it between my fingers on the scarred bar top. I sent up another silent wish that the liquor in that glass would help dull the pain that had taken up residence in my chest, but so far, it hadn’t done a damn bit of good.

Lifting the glass, I brought it to my lips and threw back the remainder of the whiskey inside before lifting a hand to flag the bartender down. As he poured another two fingers, the cell in my back pocket started going off, the vibrations raking up my body like I’d taken a zap from a stun gun.

I knew who was calling without having to look, and there was no way in hell I could handle a conversation with her. Not with the state I was currently in.

With a weary sigh, I pulled my phone out and silenced the call, sending my mother to voicemail for the third time that day. Did that make me an asshole? Yep. Did it fill me with so much guilt I could feel it gnawing at my insides? Absolutely. I just . . . couldn’t.

I knew that made me weak. My parents needed me, especially on a day like today. My sister’s birthday. She would have been forty-one today. If she had lived, that is. If she hadn’t been ripped away from us by a monster.

I knew all my mother wanted was to check on me. To make sure I was all right. But I wasn’t, and the last thing I wanted to do, today of all days, was put the burden of my feelings on her shoulders. So I did what I always do when I was in a mood like this. I shut her and everyone else out.

“You mind leaving the bottle?” I asked the bartender.

The guy arched a brow and leaned his tattooed hands on the bar top as he leaned in closer. “You plannin’ on driving anywhere tonight?”

I took a sip of my refreshed glass. “Nope,” I answered, popping the P loudly.

That was all it took. He plunked the half-full bottle on the scarred wood. “Then you got it. Rest is on the house, Chief.”

“Not the chief,” I muttered into my glass, letting out another heavy sigh before taking another drink.

“Not yet, anyway. But you will be.”

The certainty in the guy’s voice had me studying him for the first time. His thick arms were covered in ink. I didn’t see any of the familiar tattoos I’d seen on other guys in town, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. “You a Wraith?” The bar I was currently sitting in was known to be a favorite hangout for club members.

“Nah, man. Just friendly with a few of the guys.”

The Iron Wraiths was a local motorcycle club. Back in the day, they’d been outlaws, but that was before my time. From what I’d learned (or heard through the grape vine, seeing as this was such a small town), their current president, a man by the name of Courtland Pope Jr. had pulled them out of all that shit when he took over from his old man. To hear talk, they’d gone legit, but there were rumblings it wasn’t one hundred percent. Not that any of them had given me reason to pull them in on anything. If they got up to something on the opposite side of the law from me, they were damn good at hiding it, something that drove the current chief out of his goddamn mind.

And I would have been lying right to your face if you heard me say I didn’t enjoy watching that fucker chasing his tail, trying to nail something to that club that would stick.

The irony, it wasn’t the club that was my problem. It was my boss. Chief Toliver Brady. A motherfucking cockroach, was what he was. The man was as crooked as a fucking snake and just as poisonous, and he’d filled most of the department with men of his ilk.

“Appreciate the vote of confidence,” I muttered with more than a little doubt before lifting my glass his way in a half-hearted gesture of cheers. Any other day, this guy’s positivity might have helped cheer me up a bit. Not today, though.

“Not just confidence, man. It’s gonna happen.”

Given my mood, I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to be right or if I dreaded that he was. I’d moved to Ashland a few years back for a reason. It sure as hell hadn’t been the call of their police department, full of corrupt assholes. Though, joining had been the first step in my plan. Now that I was onto step two, for the first time since putting these wheels into motion, I was second guessing myself and my purpose. The whole fucking reason for being after my sister died.

“Either way, you got my vote, man. And bein’ a small-town bartender, I already heard from a shit ton of other people who plan to do the same as me.”

With that, he knocked his knuckles against the weathered wood of the bar top before moving down to help the other patrons scattered along the stools.

I went back to staring at my whiskey like it might hold the answers to all my problems. When nothing appeared, I threw it back and poured myself another two fingers from the bottle left behind.