Free The Old Man's Back in Town by Ann Charles Page B

to him just like old times.
    “Can it, Buffalo.” I moved behind the bar, pouring myself a shot of whiskey, my trembling hand itching to throw the amber liquor in Joel’s face. How dare he just show up on my doorstep after months of silence? Months! He could have at least sent a postcard. Or called to let me know he was still alive.
    Hold up. Maybe Joel was the heavy breather who had kept calling me this past week.
    I glared at him. “If you’re the jackass who’s been harassing me on the phone, you can knock that shit off.”
    His brow wrinkled. “Harassing you how?”
    After several seconds of staring him down, I bought into his innocence. “Never mind.”
    “Have you told the sheriff about it?”
    “She refuses to tell your brother,” Buffalo answered for me. “She’s still more stubborn than smart. That hasn’t changed since you left.”
    “She never has liked change much,” Joel said, watching me like I might drop my glass and draw on him. “That’s why it took so long to get her to stop thinking of me as just an old friend and go out on a date.”
    And look what happened when I did. My heart had been flattened like road kill.
    That was enough reminiscing for a Christmas Eve. Next they’d want to start singing Bing Crosby and Danny-freaking-Kaye tunes. “You both need to get out of my bar before I fill you full of holes.”
    “She’s bluffing,” Buffalo said. “She just told me her shotgun is at home.”
    “How about one drink for old times’ sake?” Joel suggested, leaning his elbows on the bar. His grin said good times, but his eyes warned of something darker.
    I slammed back the shot, thunking the glass down on the bar. The whiskey burned a trail all the way to my boot heels. “There. Consider that drink done had. Lock the door on your way out.”
    Without another word, I pushed through the swinging half-doors that led back to my office where I planned to hide until Joel went back to Vegas and took his heartbreaking eyes with him.
    The bastard didn’t let me make it that far.
    “Montana,” Joel said from behind me, his tone no longer full of jest. “I need to talk to you.”
    “I’m busy,” I called over my shoulder without slowing. “Stop back next year sometime.”
    He caught my arm. “This can’t wait.”
    “Really?” I whirled on him. “After months of dead silence, you suddenly feel chatty? I don’t think so. Go home to your fancy Vegas condo and leave me be.”
    I tugged my arm free, stormed into my office, and tried to slam the door behind me. But his foot screwed up my grand exit, sneaking in between the door and frame, keeping me from locking him out of my office and my life.
    He shoved his way inside, closed the door, and leaned against it.
    Crossing my arms over my chest, I hit him with a double-barreled glare. “We have nothing left to say to each other, Joel.”
    “I’m not here because of us.”
    I took a step back. Damn, that stung. If there was one thing I could always count on from Joel, before and after we’d started having knock-my-boots-off sex, it was his brutal honesty. “Yeah, well, there is no ‘us’ anyway, so that point is moot.”
    “You are such a lousy liar,” he said, his smirk making a show. “But we’ll get to that later.”
    There wasn’t going to be an “us” involved with “later” as far as I was concerned. My heart was still duct taped from last time.
    “You’ve got trouble coming your way,” he said, all serious.
    “Yeah, I’m looking at it.”
    “You’re going to wish it was just me.” His face hardened. “Your ex-husband escaped from prison a week ago.”
    What! “Are you serious?” He nodded and my knees wobbled. “Oh, shit.”
    Joel grabbed me as I started to fold, leading me to the old silver couch I used as a bed when I was too tired—or drunk—to make it home. He kneeled in front of me, pushing my long bangs out of my eyes. He smelled like the desert, all fresh and spicy, yet sweet and earthy—his