Thrown Down (Made in Jersey #2)(2)

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 f*ck 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.

Vaughn swayed to the right, his shoulder slamming up against the wall. Then he kind of just hung there, counting forward and backward from one to ten. Not helping. Not helping. His stomach pitched at the sight of River walking through the drunks, like a nurse walking among the wounded on a battlefield. She could still knock his lights out on sight. Not that he’d doubted it for a second. But God, if it were possible, she’d grown even more beautiful over the last forty-nine months. Her blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail, a pencil stuck through the base, in a way he remembered well enough to make his throat go raw. In a short black skirt and fitted white T-shirt, River tried to look the part of indifferent barmaid, but didn’t pull it off. Not by a stretch.

Eyes Vaughn knew were just a shade darker than cornflower blue flitted to each table, and her fingers tugged on the skirt’s hem self-consciously every time she approached a new one. When she fumbled with the notepad, recovering with a nervous laugh, a choked sound left Vaughn. “Riv,” he whispered.

She looked up so fast, he might as well have shouted. The sudden impact of having River’s focus on him after such an extended period of time without it released a rushing sound between his ears, blocking out the sad lounge act…and apparently someone asking if he needed a table. Because when Vaughn snapped back to reality, a man he towered over by at least a foot was in his face. Snapping his fingers.

“I wouldn’t…” Vaughn shook his head to clear it, experiencing a resurgence of anger, this time for having his attention diverted from where he needed it to be. On River. “I wouldn’t advise snapping your fingers in my face again.”

“Why’s that, huh?”

A toss of blonde hair snagged Vaughn’s gaze as his angelic ex-girlfriend zigzagged through the crowd, drawing more than just his notice. Ah no, quite the opposite. She was putting on an unwitting show for every man in the room, attracting lecherous looks by virtue of being her beautiful self, light in a dark tunnel, same way she’d always been.

Fingers snapped in front of his face. Again. “This is my place and I asked you a question.”

“This is your place?” Vaughn asked. God, one hour back in Jersey and already his accent had thickened from water to oil. “You hired River Purcell?”

“That’s right.”

Vaughn plowed a fist into the underside of the man’s jaw, watching him fall backward onto the sticky concrete floor with detachment that slowly morphed into satisfaction. So much for calm, he thought, shaking out his right hand. Within his chest, he could feel the familiar dark satisfaction that came from fighting. He’d always had it inside him, never gone a day without it. That born and bred edge—passed on by generations of De Matteo men—that should have repelled a young River back in high school.