The Last Breath

But bravado can be a real bitch. In order for it to work, you have to be able to sustain it long enough to make your audience swallow it. Lexi’s wavers. She snatches her bag and bolts for the door, and I don’t follow. I don’t even turn my head to watch her go. Better to let Lexi wind herself down and try again later, in a less public venue.

I slump against the bar, staring with undisguised longing at the bottles lining the back wall. So this is my first night back. Cal deserted me, Bo ignored me, Lexi ditched me. My evening ends alone, in a bar filled with people I don’t know or don’t care to remember. I shrug off a surge of self-pity that threatens to knock me off my bar stool. My life is such a fucking fairy tale.

A figure steps up across from me with a slice of cake the size of a double-wide. Jake, of course. He wags two forks in the air. “Chocolate always helps.”

My stomach lurches at the thought of more food, and I wave his offer away. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

He slides the dessert three seats down, offering it to a bearded man in flannel and denim. “Knock yourself out, Wade. On the house.” And then he turns back to me, leaning across the bar on both forearms. “Bartenders are notoriously good listeners, you know.”

I know he means well, but right now talking about my problems is the last thing on my mind. The very last thing. Not when a mighty fine distraction is standing right here.

“How about drinkers? Are y’all good drinkers, too?”

“I can’t speak for all bartenders,” he says, “but I’ve been known to tie one on when necessary.”

One corner of his mouth lifts, and I watch for the other to catch up. Here it comes.

“Oh, it’s necessary. Because I hate to drink alone, and I’m sure as hell not going back to that house sober.”

And there it is. I free fall into Jake’s extraordinary smile.

6 (#ulink_1eb960b9-afc4-54d0-b0c6-3a5fbd908de1)

I WAKE UP the next morning in my bed, my tongue superglued to the roof of my mouth and my head clanging.

No. Not my head. Cal’s iPhone, on the pillow next to me.

I crack open an eye and squint at the screen. Both eyes fly open at the image of me and Jake, his arm swung over my shoulder, my head thrown back in laughter. I have no idea how it got on my phone. Hell, I have no idea how I got in my bed. On the fourth ring, I pick up.

“Good morning, sunshine.” Jake’s booming voice sets off a string of explosions in my head.

“Jesus.” I jerk the phone away from my ear. “What time is it?”

“Seven-thirty. You made me promise to give you a wake-up call at seven-thirty and not a millisecond later, remember?”

I trawl through my memories of last night, but things start to get fuzzy after the second cocktail. “Not really.”

“That bad, huh?”

I put a finger to my temple and groan. “A responsible bartender would’ve cut me off.”

He laughs. “I tried. Honestly, I tried. Has anyone ever told you you’re more stubborn than Curtis Cooper’s old mule? But I drew the line when you reached for your car keys.”

I would wince, but my face hurts. “Probably a good thing.”

“I thought so, especially after you challenged Sheriff Briggs to a game of quarters. But just for the record, you took off your jeans all by yourself. I had nothing to do with undressing you. And I didn’t peek, I swear.”

Now, if I was any kind of good girl, I’d be embarrassed and horrified by what Jake just told me. I’d be worried about the wanton impression the drunken me made. But the truth is, I’m not exactly a good girl, and last night wouldn’t be the first time I’ve tossed back one too many cocktails and shucked my jeans for a cute guy. At the risk of sounding like an oversexed trollop, I’ve kind of lost count.

Still. I really would’ve preferred remembering the experience. A quick check under the covers doesn’t solve the mystery. I’m dressed, but just barely, in last night’s panties and a white tank top. I chew my lip and wonder whether I should be relieved or disappointed I’m not naked.

Jake’s voice drops an octave. “You just looked under the covers, didn’t you?”

“Of course not.”

“Uh-huh.” I feel his smile clear through the line. “Nice tattoo, by the way.”

His words scorch a trail of heat from my cheeks down to my tattoo, tucked away under the lace of my panties on my right butt cheek. A spot Jake wouldn’t have seen, unless he’d been peeking.

“It looked like some kind of flowery tribal symbol,” he continues. “What is it?”

“A flowery tribal symbol.”

“No. I meant, what does it mean?”

“It means you were lying when you said you didn’t peek.”

He laughs, but he doesn’t deny it. “Your keys are under the welcome mat,” he says, right before he disconnects.

I throw back the covers, and the cool air in my bedroom practically hisses when it hits my skin. Jake neglected to mention where, exactly, he spent last night, and contemplating that answer makes me hot enough to fry an egg on my bare belly. Downstairs on the couch? Next to me in my bed? Almost certainly somewhere in this house. Town is exactly a two-point-seven-mile hike, mostly uphill, and Jake would be crazy to have walked back in the freezing dark.

I slither across the bed to the window and spot my car parked neatly in the driveway, its windows buried under a light dusting of snow, as is the driveway. No tire tracks either, which means my car has been there a good while. By the looks of things, most of the night.

At the end of the driveway, a red Jeep Cherokee slows to a crawl. The driver, a middle-aged woman with hair the color of traffic cones, stops to check the number on the mailbox against a piece of paper in her hand. She does a sloppy three-point turn and careens into the driveway, thrusting the gearshift into Park right before her bumper slams into mine.

I hop out of bed, scrounge around in my open suitcase for a pair of sweats and last night’s sweater and pull them on. By the time I make it to the front door, she’s standing on the welcome mat with a crate of medical supplies and a hurry-up-and-let-me-in grin.

“Lordy me,” she says, “it’s colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra out here.”

“You must be the hospice nurse.”

She doesn’t wait for an invitation, just barrels past. “In the flesh.”

And there’s plenty of it. Her curves have been stuffed into clothes that almost fit her, and her permed and pigmented hair has been teased to unnatural heights and sprayed into submission. Add to that shiny blue eye shadow, watermelon lips and eyebrows that look as though they’ve been drawn on with a brown magic marker. The woman is pure Appalachia in yellow-and-lilac nurse’s scrubs.

She thunks the crate onto the floor by the living room and takes a good look around. Her gaze lands on me, and she grins. “You must have had one wild night.”

“Oh! Um, no, I...I mean, we...”

Her laugh is more like a cackle. “Honey, it may have been a good spell ago, but I remember that look. Wild hair, even wilder eyes. Plus, your tank top’s on backward.”

Yeesh. I wrap the sweater tight across my chest and thrust out a hand. “Gia Andrews.”

“Fannie Miles.” She waddles off as if the house is her own. “Sweet holy Jesus, I need a cup of coffee.”

In the kitchen, Fannie gets the pot going with practiced efficiency. She digs around in the cabinets until she finds two mugs, then motions for me to follow her back into the living room.

“I’m gonna have to do some rearranging in here,” she says, taking in the hospital bed pushed to the corner. “You don’t mind, do you?”