His laugh was humorless. As if the situation could get any worse. It had taken him twenty-four hours to absorb the shock wrought by the letter sent by River’s brother, Sarge. Twenty-four hours he couldn’t really afford, considering the damn piece of correspondence had been sitting in his PO box for months, collecting dust. Although, what was one more day compared to four years, right?
Still numb head to toe, he’d managed to phone his employer for whom he worked as private, armed security detail, relinquishing the steady job he’d fought to procure. The job that allowed him to maintain his empty, colorless lifestyle in Baltimore, nursing whiskey and haunted by memories in a functional one-bedroom apartment overlooking a rail yard. The kind of place he belonged.
After quitting, he’d been on the road within the hour, driving back to Hook, crossing the town limit he’d never thought to darken with his shadow again. Now he sat in the parking lot outside the Kicked Bucket, mere moments from laying eyes on River again, and…fuck. Fuck. After not allowing himself to feel anything for so long, after self-medicating with liquor every time the pain got too intense, there was no easing into the idea of being close to her again. Just knowing the filthy stucco structure in his rearview mirror had the nerve to contain River, he could feel the dangerous heating of his blood.
She shouldn’t be in there. She shouldn’t be in this shitty goddamn town at all. Unknowingly, he’d left her without a choice, though, and now nothing would stand in the way of him repairing the damage, starting with entering the lounge and calmly asking River to speak with him in private. He could handle that, couldn’t he? Could manage the task of entering the premises and conducting a reasonable conversation, even though a primal roar had been building in his throat since he’d opened the letter from Sarge.
His River. A mother…an abandoned single mother.
And therein lay the reason Vaughn couldn’t make himself leave the truck. Because she had to hate him. Hell, she had every right. But living with the memory of her crying on their motel bed—the same bed where he’d taken her virginity—had been painful enough to live with. Adding hatred to heartbreak might just kill him.
No choice, De Matteo. Move.
If Vaughn’s reluctance to respond even to his own command wasn’t a testament to his passionate dislike for authority, he didn’t know what was—one of the main reasons he hadn’t been a good fit for the army, no matter how often his superiors had attempted to tell him differently.
“Enough stalling,” Vaughn said to his own reflection in the driver’s side window, before pushing open the door and exiting. His boots weighed seven tons apiece as he traversed the trash-strewn parking lot, gazing out at the surrounding high-rise apartment buildings. The Kicked Bucket was in a shitty part of town, the nearby residences lacking care. But hey, at least those people could afford a place to raise a family, right? At least they were trying. More than he could have done for River, that was for damn sure.
A few yards from the entrance, he was brought up short when one of the vehicles caught his eye. River’s red Pontiac. She still had it? Why did that make him feel as though his intestines were being sucked out through a straw?
Probably because he’d made love to River so many times in the backseat, her tight body riding him, those bee-stung lips wide open as she moaned, they’d happily lost count. Ungrateful for the punishment of his memory, Vaughn slapped the lounge door open with more force than intended. He gave a humorless laugh when none of the regulars so much as flinched. Even though he’d walked in out of the dark, Vaughn’s eyes had to make a different kind of adjustment. Smoking might have been outlawed in New Jersey, but the owner had apparently thrown out his ability to give a fuck along with the state regulated No Smoking signs.
Vaughn peered through the white haze to the stage beyond, where a man performed with an exhausted voice, singing about small town love affairs and tragedy. Tables were scattered in no apparent pattern throughout the joint, filled by amorous couples, or by groups of men, most of them ignoring the musical act in favor of playing cards. Or just plain getting drunk, if the number of empty shot glasses rolling around were any indication.
Shot glasses slowly being collected…by River.
Forty-nine months and three days.
That was how long it had been since he’d seen her.