Finders Keepers

  FINDERS KEEPERS

  Copyright © 2013

  Nicole Williams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events of persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without express permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  Cover Design by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations

  Editing by Cassie Cox

  Formatting by JT Formatting

  Find more titles by Nicole Williams on Amazon

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  This one’s for the book bloggers.

  For making this series what it is, and for reading and spreading the word in ways I never could have imagined. For helping me title this one (thank you, Natasha!), and for pushing a square sort of series through the round hole of the present book market. I love you all.

  Keep on, keepin’ on . . . because the world needs more lovers of books.

  TRYING TO IGNORE her was like trying to ignore a bull charging me. Especially when that was her fifth fake laugh in fifteen minutes. How did I know that laugh, along with the smile and the whole damn act she’s trying so hard to put on, is fake?

  Simple.

  I’ve known Josie Gibson since before I figured out girls like her were disastrous to guys like me. Girls who could give a boy one look and make him feel it all the way into his boots were ones for me to avoid at all costs. Girls who could give a boy a look and make him feel equal parts irritation and infatuation were ones I didn’t only need to avoid but have permanently erased from my mind.

  Girls like Josie Gibson spelled one thing for me: doom. The only thing I was more sure of was that I spelled even more doom for her. Doom was too soft a word, actually.

  I would infect Josie like a virus, spreading until I’d done so much damage it went way past the point of repair. That was more like it. I was a virus to Josie Gibson. A toxic one.

  I tried to ignore that for too many years. After the past couple years, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Josie and I should stay on opposite corners of the planet. Unfortunately for her, we lived in the same state. In the same region. So we’d just have to figure out how to live in opposite corners of Missoula County.

  Sitting across the bar from one another wasn’t exactly staying in opposite corners.

  I’d had too many drinks, and she’d thrown too many glances my way, for me to stay quiet any longer. “You might want to step it up a few hundred notches, Mason, because you’re exciting Josie about as much as cow shit on the bottom of my boots.”

  When Josie’s eyes flickered to mine, they narrowed into a glare. “Control yourself, Black.”

  “I might if I could, but since I can’t, it’s kind of a moot point.” Lifting my once-again full shot glass, I downed it in one easy drink. I could hold my liquor—kind of a side effect of drinking like a fish since age thirteen—but when whiskey tasted like water, I knew I probably had enough alcohol sloshing through my bloodstream to kill me.

  The Jack had started tasting like water three shots ago.

  When Colt Mason finally noticed who was propped into the bar stool across from them, he bristled. “Come on. Let’s just go, Josie.”

  Hell, I would have bristled too if I’d seen me sitting across from myself. I had something of a reputation for getting into bar fights, and the only reason Brandy still let me in her joint was because I was her best customer. Plus I gave her a little after-hours action when she was feeling lonely and I was feeling drunk.

  “No.” Josie shook her head emphatically. When it came to me, she did everything emphatically. It was my curse. “If I left every time Garth Black started running his mouth, I’d never have a chance to get comfortable. He can leave.”

  If I’d had a dozen shots less, the look on her face would have made me squirm. “No can do, sweetheart. You see those bottles?” I waved my finger in the general bar area. “They’re still full, and I’m not leaving until a good bunch are empty.”

  “Your liver must be jumping for joy right now,” she snapped before grabbing Colt’s shot. She downed it in one drink, but to Josie’s light-weight credit, her whole face puckered up.

  “Come on. We’re leaving.” Colt nudged Josie and slid out of his stool.

  She shook her head and lifted her finger at Brandy. Like the bar-tending elite she was, Brandy had another shot in front of Josie in under ten seconds. Josie downed it, her face grimacing less that time. I didn’t miss the lingering look Colt gave her chest while she was mid-whiskey wince.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  I might have felt my anger flaring when he’d run his eyes all over her, but when his hands moved to her, that anger exploded. I was out of my seat and moving toward them before Colt noticed me coming. Josie knew enough to expect my next move. The rule was simple: whatever normal, sane people did, I went with the opposite.

  Anyone else would ignore the couple across from them and let them get on with their Friday night. Me, on the other hand? I was less than a foot away and ready to break the guy’s jaw if he didn’t stop tugging on her arm. Anger management candidates had nothing on me. “I don’t normally give warnings, Mason, but you’re with my friend whose judgment in people, up until recently, I’ve never doubted. So I’m going to give you the benefit and issue one.” I tried to ignore the look of horror on Josie’s face. “Take your hands off of Josie, or you’re going to be slurping your steak through a straw from tonight on.”

  That horrified look on Josie’s face? Just went up a few notches instead of down.

  “Get lost, Black. Josie isn’t your daughter, your sister, or your girlfriend, so you have no place to order me about what I can and can’t do.”

  He was right. And he was wrong. I wasn’t a blood relation, and I sure as shit wasn’t her boyfriend. The man applying for that position was the one who couldn’t look me in the eyes. Since her dad wasn’t there to see Colt Mason all but manhandling her out of her stool and her only brother was on the opposite side of the country, I was temporarily filling both positions.

  Moving in front of him, I butted my chest into his. “Josie’s been my friend since before you and your Hollywood family moved out to Montana and insulted us all with your flashy trucks and poser-itis. That gives me the right to put you in your place when I see you put a finger on Josie.”

  Josie whipped in front of me, butting her chest into mine. If I hadn’t been so shocked, I would have been turned on. “Leave me alone and go ruin someone else’s life.”

  “Spoken like a woman who doesn’t want a man like you putting anyone in their place for her.” Lifting his eyebrows, Colt steered Josie and himself away from me.

  They made it a few steps before I slid in front of them again. I wasn’t letting them leave with Colt’s hand still wrapped around Josie’s forearm and with her a few drinks in and wearing that dress Colt had been eyeballing all night. I knew what had happened the last time Josie got drunk when a snake was around, and I wouldn’t let it happen again when
I could stop it.

  “Fuck off, Black.” Colt’s ever-cool facade was finally crumbling. I was getting under his skin, and when a normal person would have backed off, I kept going.

  “You want to hit me?” I said, lifting my arms. I almost wavered in place—probably because I was swimming in whiskey. When Colt shook his head, I cut him off. “Of course you do. You’ve wanted to hit me since the first day of high school when all the girls were more interested in me than you and all your money.”

  “I don’t want to hit you.” Colt had managed to collect his cool again, although Josie was picking up where he’d left off. If she could level me with one punch, I didn’t have any doubt that I’d already be horizontal and blacked out.

  “You might not want to—which I don’t believe for one goddamned second—but before we part ways tonight, you’re going to hit me.”

  From over Colt’s shoulder, I noticed Brandy mouth Take it outside. We weren’t going to make it another step if he didn’t take his hands off of Josie, let alone outside.

  For the second time that night, Josie got in my face. Instead of a punch, she almost leveled me with her expression. “Why don’t you stop pretending to be the hero and own what you really are? The villain. Go villainize someone else’s life. You couldn’t possibly do anymore to mine.”

  Josie Gibson had just gotten under my skin. I should back up, raise my hands, and surrender, but I couldn’t. Something about having her under my skin, even though it wasn’t the way I might have liked, was a drug for me. One I couldn’t say no to. “How about this? I’ll stop pretending to be the hero when you stop pretending you’re actually interested in this eunuch in a cowboy hat.”

  “Ever heard the phrase ‘it takes one to know one,’ Black?” Josie crossed her arms and managed to narrow her eyes farther.

  “I have, but I don’t see how it applies. You ought to know, with our history and all, how much of a eunuch I’m not. I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure a eunuch couldn’t make a girl come the way I made you a while back.” That was when the slap came. I was braced for it—it didn’t surprise me—but it stung just the same.

  “Go to hell.”

  “I’ve been standing in it for twenty-one years, Josie.”

  Colt moved to her side, and when he grabbed her forearm, he gave it a good tug. “Come on. We’re out.”

  “Ouch,” she snapped, trying to pull her arm from his grip. “Ease up a bit, Hulk.”

  What I did next I didn’t think about. It was all instinct. When Colt Mason tugged on Josie’s arm, my fist driving into his jaw was my reflex. It wasn’t enough to land him on his ass, but that had less to do with Colt’s ability to take a hit like a man and more to do with the amount of whiskey in my bloodstream. Josie’s hands covered her mouth as she gaped at me like I was a monster. That was exactly what I was, but at least Colt’s hands were off of her.

  “What the hell, Black?” Colt spat, rubbing his jaw.

  I lifted my finger in his face and fought the urge to deck him again. “That was because you put your hands on Josie.”

  “I’ve put my hands on her plenty of times before and never got clocked across the face.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. Before I knew it, my other fist was driving into the other side of his jaw. That was my reflex to Colt Mason insinuating his hands had been on Josie in that way. The way that made me almost as furious as imagining them on her in a harsh way. “There! That’s for all the times you put your hands on her before.”

  Colt gave his head a swift shake and moved Josie aside as he moved closer to me. “I’m going to—”

  That time, my punch was planned. I knew what I was doing before my knuckles crushed into Colt’s jaw. “And that was because you irritate the shit out of me.” Spitting on Colt’s pristine boots, I shoved his chest. “Go back to California and leave Montana to the real men. Pansy-ass poser.”

  Judging from the look on Colt’s face, I couldn’t have paid him a greater insult. I moved Josie aside—who was in front of him fretting over him like he was dying—right before Colt charged me. It was about time I got a reaction out of him.

  Colt’s first punch landed square on my nose—a true cheap shot—and gauging from the crack, my nose had broken for the third time. Colt’s next punch sank into my stomach, and when I curled, he drove his knee into my jaw. I went down. I didn’t try to move or lift my hands to shield my face when Colt’s fists came at me one right after the other. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t protect myself. Not because I incapable of doing it, but because taking a good beating every now and again did me good. Some people prayed, some did a cleansing, some took a vacation. I did a solid beating. It reminded me I wasn’t invincible and somehow that reminder made me stronger.

  Josie tried to pull Colt off of me when I felt my left eye swell shut, and by the time my right was following suit, Colt’s punches had slowed. I could tell they were still a long way from being done though. The unexpected bonus of getting the shit beat out of me was that somewhere along the way, my whole face had gone numb. The hits didn’t sting anymore.

  “What the hell are you doing, Colt?” Josie grabbed one of his arms and tugged on it. “What the hell are you doing, Garth?”

  Josie had seen me in plenty of fights, but that was the first one she’d seen where I hadn’t come out the winner. She hadn’t seen when my dad used to lay me out with one strong backhand to the cheek starting when I was four. She hadn’t seen his backhands turn into fists as I’d gotten older. She hadn’t seen the guy I’d picked a fight with the night after she and I slept together. That was the first fight she’d seen where I just laid there and took it. I liked keeping those fights private, and Josie having a front seat to my twisted form of therapy was something I couldn’t decide how I felt about.

  “Stop it, Colt! You’re going to kill him!” Josie kept trying to drag Colt off of me, but he had her by a good seventy pounds and seven times that in the rage factor.

  I was close to blacking out when I heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being racked. Colt’s fists stopped instantly.

  “You better get off that boy now unless you want to see how we Montana folk use a shotgun,” Brandy ordered, inching the barrel toward Colt’s face. “And it isn’t to decorate our walls like some kind of fancy trophy. Around here, we shoot coyotes, wolves, and assholes. And it’s been a while since I’ve got to shoot an asshole. I’m going through withdrawals.”

  Colt lifted his hands and slowly lifted himself off of me. It was a smart move; I wasn’t afraid of most anything, but Brandy Hansen holding a loaded shotgun in my face was one of them. And yes, it had happened to me once before.

  “Now get out of my joint.” Brandy waved the shotgun at the door. “I’d recommend you not come back unless you want me to ask questions second.”

  Colt huffed but continued toward the door. “Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow learning your lesson finally, Black. Don’t mess with me.”

  I had to spit out a mouthful of blood before I could respond. “I learned my lesson all right. That you fight like a little girl.” Leaning up just enough to make eye contact with him, I raised my middle finger and blew him a kiss.

  Flames rolled through his eyes, and I could practically taste how badly he wanted to come take another swing—or ten—at me, but Brandy took a few steps in his direction and Colt kept moving for the door.

  “Josie? You coming or staying?” he called.

  I spit out another mouthful of blood. Good thing Brandy liked me because from the looks of it, more of my blood was splattered across her floor than I had left in my veins. “There’s no chance of Josie ‘coming’ if she goes anywhere with you, Mason.”

  Colt shot me a lethal glare. “Joes? What the hell kind of nickname is that? ” He shook his head before glancing away from me. “Josie, are you coming?”

  “I can’t just leave him, Colt. Not like this.” Josie had on a brave face, but her bottom lip looked close to quivering. She’d never been a fan of bloo
d, especially when it came to me spilling mine or someone else’s.

  “That’s exactly the kind of guy you leave behind.”

  I might have been beat to a pulp, but I didn’t like what Colt was implying.

  Crossing her arms, her eyes narrowed at him the way I was used to seeing directed my way. “Not to me.”

  “You’re actually going to stay behind with this loser?”

  Most days, I tried to convince myself I didn’t like Josie Gibson, and some days I failed. That was one of those failure days. I propped up onto my elbows. I didn’t want to admit it, but that small movement hurt like hell. Colt had done a number on me. “If I’m a loser, what does that make you? Oh, wait. Never mind. There hasn’t been a word created for that yet. Colt Mason is all we’ve got to sum up what a good-for-nothing prick your kind is.”

  Colt’s fists balled, but Brandy and her shotgun kept him from coming at me again. “Just what kind am I? The kind who doesn’t go home to a dad who’s the town drunk? The kind who doesn’t live in a ramshackle trailer that should have been condemned two decades ago? The kind who only has friends like Josie and Jesse Walker because they pity you? If that’s the kind I’m not, then I’m good with that.”

  I kept my face blank. I went to that place within myself that was always angry at the world because when I was good and burrowed down in that place, I didn’t feel anything. Least of all the words coming from the mouth of the jackass in front of me.

  Colt shook his head at me—sprawled out, broken, swollen, and bleeding—and the look he gave me almost brought me to my feet with both arms swinging. That look, a mixture of pity and disgust, far outdid his words. I didn’t take well to people pitying me. Despite Colt saying Jesse and Josie only hung around because they pitied me, that was bullshit. Jesse and Josie and I had history. We’d bled through life together. When people shared the kind of ups and downs the three of us had, the common denominator wasn’t pity—it was loyalty. But Colt Mason was looking at me with true pity. If I didn’t feel like I’d just been stampeded by a herd of cattle, I would have beaten his ass until he’d never even consider looking at me that way again.