Page 3 of Mountain Grump Protector

My stomach turns, and I grit my teeth. I will not cry. I will not panic. Not here. Not in this bar.

I’m not known for my cool head. My temper never fails to get the best of me. But I will not lose control. Not now.

“You see, little lady, your brother didn’t just borrow.” Ronnie’s breath is stale beer and cigarettes, hot against my face. “There’s interest. There was the trouble he caused with the boys at the mill last week. There’s the damage he did to my truck when he peeled out of here last time.” He clicks his tongue and narrows his eyes. “Numbers add up real fast when a man doesn’t pay on time.”

It’s a lie. Most of it anyway. But judging by the way his cronies are smirking at each other, it doesn’t matter. We’re long past actual numbers, he’s making it up as he goes, and no matter what he decides, it’s still going to be more than I’ll ever be able to pay. And he knows it.

“So we’re looking at, what, boys? Five grand?”

“Six,” one of them calls out.

“You just said⁠—”

“Six and change,” Ronnie cuts me off as if he hadn’t just tripled the number. “Seems a little steep for a girl with two hundred bucks in her pocket.”

The room laughs, and I’ve never wanted to disappear more in my life.

A taller, skinnier man steps up beside Ronnie. I think his name is Dale. Not that it matters. “What did you say bout her being the right price, Ron? I could think of a few things she could do for me.”

Bile rises in my throat.

“You don’t have a stake in this, Dale.”

His eyes rake up and down me. “I could.”

I try, but fail at suppressing my shiver of revulsion.

“Let’s play for it.” Another voice pipes in.

Play?

“You don’t have a stake in this either, Paul,” Ronnie says, but he’s grinning, obviously enjoying my discomfort.

“I do what I want,” Paul says, joining the others. He holds out a handful of darts. “Let’s play. Closest to the bullseye gets the girl.”

Gets the girl?

“Oh no.” I shake my head and try to back up, but Ronnie grabs my arm. “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t think you get a choice, little lady.” Ronnie’s eyes narrow, and his grip tightens, telling me exactly what little choice I have.

Chapter Two

Cal

This place is full of assholes, the stink of stale cigarettes, spilled beer, and fryer grease.

I don’t know why I keep coming here.

That’s a lie.

I know exactly why, night after night, I step foot through the doors of the Rusty Nail, sit at this bar, and order a whiskey.

It’s not my cabin.

The cabin way up on the mountain should be my refuge. And for a while it was. But lately, the silence gets too loud.

Every creak of the wood, the way the wind shifts through the pines, even the birds that wake me up before dawn and sing their happy songs until way past sunset, aren’t enough to dull the echo of silence that permeates every inch of my home.