Breakfast at the Honey Creek Café Page 27

  He just stood there, his fists on his hips like he was a warlord bothered to have to drop to earth.

  Among the drunks, Joey found his nerve first. “You better back down, Brand, unless you got a gun. There’s five of us.”

  Brand set his hat on the truck. “I don’t need a gun. Which one of you men wants to go first?”

  Joey laughed. “How about we all go at once? We’ll beat you so far into the ground, folks will use you as a hitching post.”

  Brand didn’t move as they all started toward him.

  Marcie watched from the tiny window in the door. With the truck’s light she saw the first two men rushing Brand. A heartbeat later their bodies were flying in two directions.

  One drunk hit the trailer so hard he probably did damage. Another hollered something about his mother as he sailed through the night air. When he wrapped around a pine, he melted silently to the ground. Brand was out of the light’s beam, but every man that went after him came out in pain.

  When Joey lowered his head and rushed into the fight like a bull, he boomeranged out faster than he went in. On his second try, he rolled out like a soccer ball and hit the concrete steps of her home.

  The last man standing, a bald guy too old to still be running with the others, had enough sense to raise his hands and back away. He bumped into Joey and they both tumbled over her trashcans. The man picked up a lid and started beating Joey on the head for tripping him.

  Brand finally stepped in front of his truck’s headlights and asked almost politely, “Anyone else want to continue this conversation?”

  Joey’s voice was high when he yelled for everyone to stop. “My arm’s broke, damn it, and one of you drunks has got to drive me over to Honey Creek to the clinic.”

  “It’s closed until six in the morning,” the man in the dirt cussed between every word. He seemed in no hurry to get up.

  Joey cussed the world for a while then seemed to give up. “Just take me there. I’ll sit on the porch and cry until it opens. I got to see a doc before my arm falls off.”

  Marcie watched as Brand moved to her door and the men slowly crawled away. No one tried to help Joey. The gang had become each man for himself. They all complained. One limped. One held his gut, another his head. The one who hit the side of the trailer had to be kicked awake.

  As soon as they were gone, she ran out to Brand then stopped a foot away from him. This cowboy had just proved he could be violent. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get closer.

  “Thank you,” was all she could manage. “I . . . I . . .”

  “You’re welcome,” he said as calmly as if he’d just pulled out her chair.

  “Why did you come back?” She stared hard at his eyes, but she saw no anger in the man.

  “I forgot to get your guitar out of the back of my truck.” He patted her awkwardly on her bare shoulder. “You all right?”

  She was shaking at the thought of what could have happened but she couldn’t speak. Slowly she looked up at him and shook her head. She wasn’t all right. She hadn’t been for a very long time.

  Brand pulled her gently against him. “It’s all right now, Marcie. No one is going to hurt you.”

  She couldn’t stop crying. She didn’t want to think. Five drunk men and a throwaway woman no one cared for. If Brand hadn’t come back, she knew what would have happened.

  She also knew Brand was lying. There was no “all right” in her world. Everyone hurt her.

  He didn’t say another word. He just held her. She could hear his heart pounding and feel his rough hands on her bare shoulders. The warmth of him finally calmed her as she melted against him.

  Brand gently pushed far enough away from her that he could see her face. “Come home with me tonight, Marcie. You’ll be safe, I promise. I’m just offering you a place to sleep. I’m not trying to pick you up. ”

  “You keep saying that.” She wiped a tear from her cheek with the palm of her hand. “I’m starting to believe you.”

  Without another word, Brand walked her to his truck, opened her door and helped her in as if he’d been doing it all his life.

  Photo courtesy of Portraits by Tracy

  With millions of books in print, Jodi Thomas is both a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 50 novels and more than a dozen novellas. Her stories travel through the past and present days of Texas and draw readers from around the world. Jodi has been inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. When not working on a novel, Thomas enjoys traveling, renovating a historic home, and “checking up” on her grown sons and four grandchildren.