Free Jeannie Watt by A Difficult Woman

caused solely by losing his job or having his nose broken. No. She suspected that anger was part of his personality, simmering just below the surface, and that it was a part of himself he hid extremely well. He had to. He was a Somers with an image to uphold.
    Thinking back, though, she could see that she’d had glimpses of the anger during their relationship, culminating on the night they’d finally slept together, when he’d lost both patience and control. But at the time she’d thought it was the situation. Now she suspected it went beyond that. He seemed more volatile than before, possibly because he blamed her for his being back in a hick town like Night Sky, essentially on his father’s payroll.
    She was going to have to be more careful around the man. That didn’t mean she was going to let him push her around.
     

    T ARA WAS GOING to work his butt off.
    In the three days since he’d kissed her, Matt had cut and hung the doors, finished and painted the side porch and started replacing parts of the gazebo, all in virtual silence. Tara wasn’t talking to him, except when giving orders, but she did feed him well. The woman had a knack for cooking, which worked well, since he had a knack for eating. He was wishing he had a knack for conversation, because, surprisingly, he found himself wanting to coax Tara out of her silence. He wanted to find out more about her, more about what had happened with that guy who had wanted to make her cry.
    As if she would tell him.
    Tara kept her secrets. If anything, she was as guarded as he was.
    And he wondered why.
    That night Matt had the dreams, and they were the worst ever. He jerked awake in a cold sweat, his heart hammering. Adrenaline continued to pump through his body as he sat up in bed, making his breath come in rasping gasps.
    He was never a hero in his dreams…he never saved anyone’s life. Someone always died, and most of the time it was Matt. His father was usually the one who pulled the trigger. To see his own father raise the gun, to watch the bullet enter his flesh in slow motion, to see the small, deadly hole in his chest, the blood and bits of tissue fly in full Technicolor. To lie on cold pavement, feeling life trickling away, wondering why…
    Matt knew he had to move, had to do something until he calmed down.
    He swung his legs out of bed, sat on the edge, pushing his hair back from his forehead. The clock read 3:30 a.m. He wouldn’t be going back to sleep before he drove to the Sullivan house at 6:15 a.m.
    He walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Twenty minutes later he let himself out his back door and crossed the alley to where the twenty-four-hour fun of the Owl Club beckoned. The fat cat followed him as far as the gate, then sat, apparently winded by the long walk from the porch.
    It was a Monday morning—a very early Monday morning—and business was pretty slow. Matt sat in one of the booths near the bar, thinking that he might try that notorious breakfast special—available twenty-four hours a day—again.
    There were two small groups of people at the bar and he could see a few miners eating breakfast in the restaurant, either before or after their shift. Deputy Sanchez was also eating breakfast. Matt knew he could probably join him, talk shop, but right now he just wanted to concentrate on…nothing.
    “Hey, sweetie.” Pink trousers appeared in his line of vision. Matt raised his tired eyes.
    “Hi, Ginny.” He knew all the waitresses by name now. There weren’t that many of them. Jack kept a skeleton crew.
    “A little early for you, isn’t it?”
    “Trouble sleeping,” Matt said truthfully.
    “Want anything?”
    Matt thought. “Tea,” he finally said.
    Ginny’s eyebrows went up. “Tea?” she asked dubiously. “Okay. Want a shot in it or something?”
    “No. Just the tea.” He stared down at his blunt-tipped fingers with their woodworking scars after Ginny left. He liked carpentry, but he was committed to police