Page 47 of Chasing the Other Woman

I look down at my arm. It wasn’t that the grip caused physical damage; it was the violation of him putting hands on me to force a conversation. My skin still burns where his fingers clamped down. I shake my head once, not trusting my vocal cords to hold.

Petra plants herself between Tony and Luci, her arm extended toward the exit. “Both of you. Get the hell out of my bar.”

Luci recoils, looking offended. “I didn’t even do anything⁠—”

“You’re under the mistaken impression that I care. Out.”

Tony looks over at Luci. She stares straight ahead, completely refusing to meet his eyes.

A flash of sharp resentment cuts across Tony’s bruised face. He wipes his mouth, gives Petra a curt nod, and shoves his way through the door.

Luci follows a step behind him, soaked in stale beer.

Petra turns her glare on Brooks. “That goes for you, too.”

Brooks doesn’t offer an excuse. He accepts the dismissal, his jaw clenched, and gives me one last lingering, shattered look before turning toward the exit.

“Wait,” I call out.

He freezes in his tracks.

I catch Petra’s eye, then look back at him. “We need every available hand for the search grid.”

Brooks turns slowly, his chest rising and falling as he gives me a quiet nod. There is an ocean of unspoken grief and anger between us, but this isn't the place to bleed out. And I’ve had enough public drama for one day.

“Whatever you need, Sam,” he says softly. “I’m here.”

He nods, then makes his way out of the bar, leaving me wondering what in the hell just happened.

Twelve

BROOKS

By the time The Funnel Cloud finally goes quiet, it feels like my body has been pulled apart and restitched together with rusty nails and carpenter's glue.

I'm covered in dirt. My shoulders ache like I've been carrying the whole town on my back for hours. Somehow, I've managed to split my lip and have no recollection of how as I don’t recall Tony being the one to split it. And I'm sitting here staring at the bar top as if years of scratches and dents can give me the answer to all the questions that are currently plaguing me.

Fat chance.

Most of the volunteers have gone home or at least found a corner to sleep in. Deputies come in searching for coffee and Petra provides. There's a lineman passed out in a booth with his arms folded under his head. I don't know the man, but I can clearly imagine what he must have looked like as a kid. Outside, the generator keeps humming.

The most important part of this tableau is what's missing.

Sam.

I've only seen her once since the fight with Tony.

She'd been standing beside the SAM rig with a tablet in her hand and that battered notebook that I've almost come to think of as part of her person. She was talking to a deputy, then to Hershel. And I resented every person who got to talk to her without two years worth of baggage between them. She looked beautiful. Dirty, windblown, exhaustion coloring the skin beneath her eyes.

And yes, every part of me wanted to remove her from the grief of the scenario and put her somewhere safe.

Flexing that muscle has left me bone weary and tired, but I'm still determined to work it into shape.

Her ring sits in the pocket of my jeans. I've reached in, checking to see if it was still there all throughout the day.

What haunts me isn't the image of her pulling it off her finger, though my mind's been running through that one plenty.

It's what she said just before she pulled it off.