Page 40 of Rescuing Mary

“I was so afraid you’d give up. That you’d decide you couldn’t handle this. That you’d think love wasn’t worth it.”

“I handled cancer. I can handle this. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. It won’t. And, Rayne, I know I’m going to need your help. But Truck didn’t fight to keep me alive, only to have me turn my back on him now.”

“Damn straight.”

“Damn straight,” Mary agreed.

The waitress chose that moment to return and put the plate of cheesy goodness down on the table. Rayne moved back to the other side of the booth and the two women proceeded to plot their plan of attack.

It wasn’t lost on Truck that Ghost kept looking over at the booth in the bar area where two women were sitting. He’d noticed them the second he’d walked in, but had done his best to look disinterested. He wasn’t here to pick up women; he was here to talk with his friends and to hopefully remember something from the last three years.

One thing Truck hadn’t forgotten was the way women sometimes looked at him. They either immediately wanted to jump his bones because he was a bad boy, or they acted as if he were a serial killer who was going to pull a knife out from behind his back and start slashing at everyone around him. His height, and the scar on his face, had turned more women off than he could even count. And the college-aged girl who’d led them to their table was no exception. She’d taken one look at his face and had immediately turned her eyes away and spoken to Hollywood instead.

But the woman sitting in the bar with short brown hair with the pink streak in it hadn’t looked away from him when he’d caught her eye. In fact, she’d stared at him with such intensity, he almost walked toward her to find out what was wrong.

When Ghost looked over at the other table for the fifth time, Truck asked, “You know them?”

It took his friend a while to answer, but Truck was glad he didn’t try to lie to him. “Yeah.”

“Hmmm.” Truck wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted to ask how Ghost knew them, but he had a feeling the other man wouldn’t tell him. It wasn’t hard to tell that his friends were watching what they said around him very carefully. They were treating him as if he were a ticking time bomb and if they said the wrong thing, his head would literally explode. It was beginning to irritate the fuck out of him.

Deciding to let it go for now—his head still hurt and he had an appointment to see the doctor on post before he could go home—Truck looked down at the menu. It was different than he remembered, but that wasn’t too surprising since he remembered a menu that was three years old.

He settled on a ten-ounce steak with a loaded baked potato and a salad. The waitress did her best to not make eye contact while he was ordering, concentrating on the notepad in front of her instead. Of course, she didn’t have any problem flirting with Hollywood as he ordered. Truck mentally rolled his eyes. That was familiar.

Their salads arrived after a while and the three men were talking about the PT session they’d had that morning. Ghost had just asked about his afternoon doctor’s appointment when his friend said “shit” under his breath.

Looking up, Truck saw the woman who had caught his eye earlier walking toward them. Her eyes were glued to his—and Truck stilled.

She had the most expressive brown eyes he’d ever seen.

He held his breath as she neared, forgetting all about Hollywood and Ghost sitting with him.

She wasn’t looking away. Wasn’t pretending she didn’t see the gnarly scar on his face. When she got close, her lips curled up in a slight smile.

Truck could feel his hands begin to sweat—what the hell?— but he couldn’t tear his gaze from hers.

When she got close, she said, “Hi,” in a low voice. Truck thought for sure she was going to stop and talk to them, but she continued walking, obviously headed for the hallway, which had a large “restrooms” sign above it.

Truck watched her ass as she headed away from the table. She was fairly tall…probably around five eight or nine, exactly the height he liked best in a woman, and slender. Almost too slender for his taste. She didn’t have much in the way of tits, but her hips were nicely rounded. Her hair was short, but the pink streak gave it character. It told him a lot about her. That she wasn’t afraid to go out on a limb. That she wasn’t so into societal norms. That she was a bit of a risk taker. He liked all of that.

But it was the fact that she wasn’t afraid to meet his eyes and truly look at him that really made him interested. Oh, he’d seen her eyes flick to his scar, but then she looked right back into his eyes. And that was truly unique. Most women either retreated, mentally or physically, or tried to check out his package. As if they thought they might be able to put up with his ugly mug if he had a big cock.

He did, but that was beside the point.

“What time is your appointment?” Ghost asked. “I can come with you if you want.”

Truck didn’t take his eyes off the woman until she’d disappeared into the restroom. Then, instead of answering, for some reason he turned his head and looked back at the table in the bar area where the woman had been sitting. He caught her friend looking in their direction, but she quickly ducked her chin and picked up a French fry from the almost empty plate in front of her. She was trying to look nonchalant, but he saw a blush work its way up her cheeks at being caught staring.

Truck wasn’t an idiot. He knew he fascinated women. Once upon a time, he’d been easy on the eyes. He’d had no problem picking up women when he went out. Sure, he attracted the freaks who wanted to get it on either because he was damaged or out of pity, but at least he’d been able to get off.

But he hadn’t seen pity in the woman who’d just passed their table. He wasn’t sure what he saw in her eyes, but it wasn’t pity or a sick kind of curiosity.

The throbbing in his head intensified as he thought about the woman.

“Truck?” Ghost questioned.

“Two-thirty,” Truck told his friend, answering his earlier question. “And I don’t need you to go with me and hold my hand.”