Rome (Marked Men, #3)(6)

I took my sunglasses off the top of my head and hooked them in the collar of my T-shirt.

“I picked a fight with the wrong pixie and she poured her drink on my head. I’m straight.”

The guy gave me a once-over and must have deemed me okay because without my asking a tankard of beer was set in front of me along with a shot of something amber and strong. Typically I was a vodka drinker, but when the burly brute poured himself one and wandered back over to where I was seated, I didn’t dare complain.

He lifted a bushy eyebrow at me and touched the rim of his shot glass to my own.

“You army?”

I nodded and shot back the liquor. It burned hot all the way down. If I wasn’t mistaken it was Wild Turkey.

“I was. Just got out.”

“How long did you serve for?”

I rubbed a hand over my still-short hair. After wearing it cropped close to my head for so long, I really didn’t know what else to do with it.

“Went in at eighteen and I turn twenty-eight at the end of this year. I was in for almost a decade.”

“What did you do?”

It wasn’t a question I normally answered because frankly the answer was long and anyone that hadn’t served just wouldn’t get it.

“I was a field operations leader.”

The bear of a man across from me let out a low whistle. “Spec ops?”

I grunted a response and picked up the beer.

“I bet they were sad to see you go.”

The thing was, I think I was sadder to see them go. I wasn’t cleared for active duty anymore. My shoulder had taken a beating when we rolled over an IED on my last deployment and there were all kinds of shit rattling around in my head, constantly taking me out of the game. Sure, I could have taken a desk job, stepped down, and trained the generation coming up after me. But I wasn’t the best teacher and being tied to a desk was the same thing as retirement to me anyway. So I got out and now I had no f*cking clue what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

“What about you?” I motioned to the tattoo on his arm. “How long did you put in?”

“Too long, son. Way too long. What brings you in here today? You aren’t one of my regulars.”

I cast a look around the bar and shrugged. For now this place was a perfect fit for my mood.

“Just out having a drink to celebrate America like a good patriot.”

“Just like the rest of us.”

“Yep.” I had to fight the urge to chug the beer down and order him to keep them coming.

“I’m Brite and this is my bar. I ended up with it when I got out and started spending more time in the bar than I did at home. I’ve been through three wives and one triple bypass, but the bar stays true.”

I lifted the eyebrow that had the scar above it and felt the corner of my mouth kick up in a grin.

“Brite?” The guy looked like Paul Bunyan or a Hells Angel; the name didn’t really fit.

A smile found its way through that massive beard and pearly-white teeth that were the only bright spot in the dim bar.

“Brighton Walker, Brite for short.” He extended a hand that I shook on reflex.

“Rome Archer.”

He dropped his head in a little nod and moved down the bar to help another customer.

“That’s a good name for a warrior.”

I closed my eyes briefly and tried to remember what it was like to feel like a warrior. It seemed like it was a million miles away from this bar stool. The music switched to AC/DC and I decided this was my new favorite place to hang out.

I was on my Harley, so I should probably cool it with the booze. A DUI would just be the icing on the crap cake I was currently being served on a daily basis, but as the beer mixed with the potent bourbon from earlier, none of that seemed to really matter anymore.

At some point I did another shot with Brite and the bar stool next to me was abandoned by the grizzled old man that had been complaining about his wife and his girlfriend for the last hour and quickly occupied by a redhead with too much makeup on and too little clothes. Had I been three less beers in, I would’ve seen her for the trouble she was. As it was, Brite told her to scram, advice she promptly ignored. She was cute, in that I’m a good time take me home kind of way, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had randomly picked anyone up from a bar. When I was overseas there had been a female intelligence officer who’d been down to be friends with benefits whenever we were in the same place at the same time, but it had been months since I had seen her. Maybe a quick, sleazy hookup was just what I needed to break through the black cloud that had been hovering over me since my return.

“What’s your name, sugar?”

Her voice was squeaky and hurt my head but I was loaded enough to ignore it.

“Rome.”

I saw her heavily made-up eyes dart back to someplace over my shoulder and that should have been my first clue that this wasn’t going to end up all fun and games.

“That’s a different name. I’m Abbie. Now that we’re friends, why don’t we get out of here and get better acquainted?” She ran a painted fingernail over the curve of my bicep and for some reason the bloodred color of it made other images of things that same color start to flash behind my already hazy vision.

I started to pull away, to get those hands that were making bad things happen in my foggy brain to let me go, when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder from behind. I was a trained soldier, but more than that, I was a man who had a brother born and bred into trouble. I knew what trouble looked like from a million miles away. I knew what trouble felt like, what it moved like, how it sounded, and yet I had kept right on drinking and ignored all the signs as it built up around me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Brite frown at whoever was standing behind me, and even in my stupor of bourbon and beer I knew this wasn’t going to be good.