I should have been giving thanks he was gone.
Instead I’d collided with a well of relief when I found him sitting there, the impact of it so strong it had nearly knocked me from my feet. Staring across at me, the expression on his face was as if he’d been suffering from the same affliction—his own skeletons that danced and taunted behind grey, secretive eyes.
The thing was, it’d pissed me off, because I hated feeling so vulnerable amid the overwhelming power of his presence, susceptible to all kinds of foolish things that would only hurt me in the end.
But no. This man—this mysterious, perplexing man—had saved me. He stepped in the line of fire and put himself on the line.
Now he raged, scraped-up knuckles clenched into fists in his hair, worry and hurt and fear seeping from his pores.
Tamar hustled back into the room, her expression sympathetic as she settled down on the floor next to Charlie and passed him the washcloth. “Here you go.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said.
Balling it up, he pressed it to my temple. I winced and moved to hold it to the spot that throbbed and ached. Mentally, I took inventory to find if anything else hurt.
“There you go,” Charlie whispered. His gaze tracked down my body, looking for injuries himself. “You sure you’re not hurt anywhere else? Can’t believe I let that go down in my bar.”
Smiling up at him, I attempted a nod, trying to quell some of the outright fear my tough-as-nails uncle was doing his best to hide. Charlie always worried about me and the events of tonight sure weren’t going to do anything to allay them. “I’m fine. Just shaken up and a little knot on my head. That’s it. I promise.”
Charlie huffed. “You just about sent me to an early grave tonight, Shea Bear. Second Tamar here started yelling your name…knowing you were in the middle of it.” The shake of his head was bleak. “Wouldn’t make it if I let something happen to you,” he admitted, a tremble running through the hand he had set on my cheek. “Especially under my roof.”
Through a grimace, I pushed up to sitting, ignoring more of Charlie’s warnings to sit tight. I combated a rush of dizziness that swirled through my head, straightening myself when it passed. “It wasn’t your fault, Charlie. You have to know that… This is a bar. Men are going to get grabby. It’s just part of the game.”
A snarl ripped from the other side of the room where Sebastian was still pacing. He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth as if he were wiping off a bitter taste, the sound a clear rebuttal to my statement.
Charlie looked toward him and lifted his chin in some kind of gratitude. “Thanks for being there for her…jumping in when she needed someone. Not a lot of people are willing to risk themselves for someone else.”
Baz shrugged through all the tension ringing him tight, the words barely skating through his clenched teeth. “It was nothing.”
It was everything.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you home.” Charlie looked to Tamar. “Can you take care of closing up? Make sure we get shut down early. No one needs to be hanging out tonight. Won’t tolerate that kind of garbage going down here.”
“Sure,” she said.
The bold clash of Baz’s voice thundered in the air, striking out her consent. “I’ve got her. I’ll take her home.”
A race of palpitations flapped through my chest, and dizziness swooshed again, though this time it had nothing to do with the blow I’d sustained, but completely due to him. Stormy, conflicted eyes fell on me as I peeked up at the man—this man I didn’t even know and wanted more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life, every risk damned.
Worry furrowed Charlie’s brow, and he looked to me, gauging my reaction.