Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(98)

The Brumble brothers always teased him. They liked to make up stories about who he was and where he came from.

Surprisingly, they hit the nail on the head about what he’d done across the last years of his life every time, which made him wonder how right they were about what could have happened before then.

Kill a man, check.

Steal, check.

Smuggle, check.

Land with the wrong girl, check.

A kid...check.

Arson, check.

“We have it down to those two, you have to square it,” Roman said.

“I rather liked the alien theory,” JR said with a tight grin as the whisky went down a little too harshly.

Norman reached under the bar and pulled out a flyer. “Bounty man is lookin’ for ya.”

“Do what?” JR asked, leaning forward. That was the last thing he needed to hear, any day of the week.

“No games,” Norman said, shaking his head. “Just tell us who’s right then hit the road. He’s been in three times. He’s got your trail.”

They’re just f*cking with me, JR swore to himself. “Who has what?”

“That copper head boy, biggin’, too. He’s either taking you to jail or he’s after you for crawling in the wrong bed—it was personal with that guy,” Roman said. “Personal says you were in the wrong bed.”

JR was dumbfounded as he looked down at the paper, but then he stood still with shock. It was like looking into a mirror but not...because he didn’t know this guy in the image. This James Nolan Rawlings.

“What—what did he say?”

“Just showed that, and a badge,” Norman said. He shook his head and kept to cleaning a spotless bar. “No one talked. It’s been a few months since we last seen him. All the same, you might want to get. He’s almost predictable now.”

“’Cause it was on the news,” Roman said.

Norman shook his head. “You’re confused, old man. That was something else. They found that kid, he’s gone. JR is right here, a criminal on the run, now pay up.”

JR lifted his hand. “When was it on the news?” He tapped the paper. “This is down in Georgia.”

“Yeah, you need to cross the border, stay over there.”

“I just got back,” he muttered.

Georgia...how did he miss something like this in Georgia? Half his operation was there.

JR looked down at the sheet again, at the image. “I need your computer...”

After the back and forth and the nagging JR ending up giving them both all the quarters he had on him, then he was firing up the desktop computer that was almost too big for the desk.

JR searched the name, and story-by-story, he read the articles, the news reports...he saw their pictures.

Rage hit him like a ton of bricks. This was not good. No. Not at all.

Hours later Norman came back to the closet of an office and sat another dram of whisky before him. “Who’d you kill,” he asked, somewhat seriously.

JR looked up at him. “I’m James Nolan...”

Norman lifted his bushy brow. “Sure about that, kid?” He looked him over. “Seems to me that whoever James Nolan is...is gone. Did he want it that way?”

JR shook his head—Nolan shook his head.

“He sure as f*ck didn’t want this life...”

All of what Nolan had read sounded like a fairy tale, the fiction where lives could be normal, not lethal at every turn, where you trust more than those who haunted your dreams. This was not his life now, not by a long shot—and going back? He had no idea if it were possible.

Was it fair to put the lives of people at risk he didn’t even remember? He doubted it.

Norman leaned forward. “Fifty cents if you tell Roman you’re getting locked up.”

JR—Nolan—made a face.

Flashes, dreams that were too far way to touch were making some sense. Still, the emotion—the connection—it was lost on him, for the most part anyway.

Four years ago he woke under water, then later just off the shore of the Savanna river. His clothes were ripped, he was banged up here and there, there was dried blood on his forehead. And he was dizzy as hell.

No memory, nothing.

He’d found a few supplies, put himself together, and did his best to remember, but all it did was aggravate him more, made the headaches come on stronger.

He was at peace out in the middle of nowhere and decided to make due until his head cleared, or the seasons changed one. Unfortunately, one day near the end of summer he woke a second too late and found three guns aimed at him.

It had been hell ever since.

Norman moved in his line of sight. “He never shuts up once he wins a bet. Do me this favor.” He walked at his own Norman pace toward the door. “He’s sure he’s right because your woman is out front. Just tell ‘em you wanted one last ride before they pinned you.”

Nolan’s gaze shot toward the doorway, then in a beat he was up and had made his way past Norman, hearing him yell. “Told you, Roman, he just wants to dip his stick before they come for ‘em.”

His old, crackly voice faded in the background as Nolan took the steps out of the tavern two at a time.

The storm was about there; the wind was nearly impossible, carrying thick drops of rain. The dark gray sky was flashing with lightning, glimmers he saw in her electric blue eyes as she moved her Harley under the cover of the dock.