Mended Hearts (New Beginnings Series) (4 page)

The bartender caught his eye and Sonny ordered a Heineken. There was a group of women next to him who were trying to catch his eye too. He pretended not to notice. He paid the bartender for the beer and turned around on his stool to watch the band.

Gracie had segued into a duet with the lead guitarist . . .
Meet Me in Montana
. The band played another two or three songs as Sonny watched the crowd. The dance floor was full. Obviously the band drew a large weekend crowd and he could see why. He knew Gracie hadn’t been with them long, but you wouldn’t know that by watching and listening to them. They had really seemed to gel in a short amount of time.

He’d been there for about a half-hour when the guitarist announced the band was taking a break. The jukebox kicked on as the band members trooped off the stage. Sonny watched Gracie to see how he might be able to get her attention. He wasn’t the only guy in the room trying to
catch her eye, though. As she skirted the dance floor several men spoke to her. She smiled and spoke to them all briefly, but never stopped moving—directly toward where he sat at the near end of the bar. Good, he thought, he wouldn’t have to clumsily cut her off at the pass on his crutches.

Gracie was cute from a distance but, as she came closer, he realized she was beautiful. Long
, dark tousled hair fringed around her face, making her warm brown eyes look enormous. She was short, probably just an inch or two over five feet. She was wearing a short denim skirt with flat-heeled western boots. She had on a tightly fitted cotton western shirt with pearl snaps down the front. As she moved toward him, he could see small glimpses of her midriff peek out periodically between her shirt and the skirt’s waistband—sexy in an innocent sort of way.

She
glanced up as she came closer and caught him studying her. She jerked her eyes away and continued on to walk around behind the bar. She slid her right hand across the granite of the bar as she skirted around it. Her nails—not too long, but not too short—were painted the color of dark, dark grape juice, almost black. He noticed a delicate lacy-looking silver ring with tiny diamond chips winking in the bar lights on her middle finger. She stopped at the closest cooler and pulled out a bottle of water as the bartender walked over and handed a glass of ice to her, a lemon wedge dropped inside. She smiled up at him.

“Thanks, Will!” Her voice sounded a little husky and Sonny didn’t know if
it was strained from singing, or if she naturally had one of those “late night phone call” voices.

She stood not ten feet away from him, her back turned toward him as she poured the water into the glass.
She was looking down, so her hair was obscuring his view of the side of her face.

He decided to just jump in.
“Gracie Laurent,” he said quietly.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Gracie was trying her hardest to ignore the guy at the end of the bar. Something about him made her nervous. She’d noticed him struggling with his crutches as he walked to the end of the bar. He’d sat down, propping his leg on the crutches where they rested against the bar.

He looked dangerous, dressed in a tight black t-shirt
, stretched over his muscular chest, and black jeans with a scary looking brace strapped around his left knee from mid-thigh to his calf. She wondered if he’d banged himself up wrecking his Harley. He probably wasn’t more than seven or eight inches taller than she was, but he seemed larger than life for some reason. He had long dark hair almost brushing his shoulders and a face that was almost too pretty—like a fallen angel. He probably hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, though. That scruff kept him from being blindingly pretty. His eyes were the color of amber and he seemed to be studying her way too closely. She wondered why. Then she heard him say her name . . .

“Gracie Laurent.”

And he’d pronounced it correctly too . . . the nasally French way—
Law-RAW(NG)
, not the wrong way most people pronounced it—
Law-RINT
. She jerked her head around and found herself staring into his amber eyes.

“Yes?” She didn’t know what else to say.

Humor glinted in his eyes. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

She felt sure if she’d ever seen him before, she would
have remembered. “Sorry. I don’t think so. When did we meet?”

He grinned—and
now
he was blindingly pretty, even
with
the scruffy beard. “Well, now . . . the last time we saw each other, you were probably about ten years old. That would have made me fourteen.”

It clicked then. She’d only seen eyes
that color on one person—Mathias’ best childhood friend. “Holy cats! Luca Ionescu!”

He threw his head back and laughed. “The one and only.”

She swung back around the bar to hug him. She was laughing, relieved that he wasn’t some crazy stalker. “I can’t believe you recognized me!”

He grunted as she bumped his injured leg.

“Oh, gosh! I’m so sorry!” She stepped back quickly.

“That’s okay. It’s fine.” He was sorry the hug was so short-lived and cursed his knee for the millionth time.
“Well, to be honest I came here looking for you.”

Gracie wondered if she should reconsider him being a crazy stalker after all. “Really?” She looked puzzled.

“I was talking to your brother the other day and he mentioned you’d moved to town and were singing here. I thought I’d drop by to check out the band and say ‘hi.’”

Halfway through that declaration, she started looking suspicious.
Sonny guessed she
was
pretty smart and had already figured it out.

“I see,” she said doubtfully. “You just happened to talk to Matty and he just happened to mention I was here. Huh! What a coincidence!”

Sonny nodded, and tried to look innocent.

“Bull,” she declared.

He lost it then, and burst out laughing. “Matty said you’d figure it out.”

She blushed and took a step back. “I’m so sorry, Luca. He shouldn’t have put you up to this. I’m so embarrassed.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What’s the matter? Why would you be embarrassed?”

“Look, my family has been hovering over me for
the last two years. They want to keep me wrapped in cotton and closeted away from the world. I’m trying to step out on my own and show them I can make it out here fine, and they drag you—a virtual stranger to me—in to do their protecting for them.” She took a deep breath. “I really am sorry, Luca.”

“Well, I hope I’m more
of an old friend than a ‘virtual stranger.’ I know we weren’t close as kids, but I did consider your family to be my second one. Mathias was like a brother to me.” He looked confused. “I know there’s a lot more to this story than you’re telling me. And Mathias didn’t say anything except that you’ve had a rough time of it lately. I admire you for working so hard at building a new life here. But, Gracie, everyone can use a friend. I want you to be able to call me if you need anything. Maybe on those days you feel alone, you could call me up.” He shook his head and snorted. “Things aren’t going too well for me lately, either. Maybe on those days
I
feel alone I can call you up too. I might need a friend more than you do right now. Most of mine are on the other side of the world.”

Gracie opened her mouth to speak, but just then Colby walked up to them. “Ready to go, Gracie?” He glanced curiously at Sonny.

“Um . . . yeah. Colby, this is an old friend, Luca. We just bumped into each other. Luca, Colby.”

Colby stuck out his hand and Sonny shook it.

Gracie looked at Sonny. “Are you going to stay around for awhile?”

“I can. Do you want me to, or should I just get lost?”

“Well, since it seems you need a friend, you’d better stay. That way you’ll owe me when I need one.”

Sonny smiled at her. She stepped up on the rung of his chair and leaned over the bar to pick up her
water glass. Then she headed back toward the stage with the rest of the band. Sonny ordered another beer and settled in to enjoy the show.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Sonny stayed through the last set and the bar would be closing in another hour. He’d switched to drinking water after his second beer, and got away with it—probably because he seemed to be a friend of Gracie’s. This was the first time in a long time he’d closed a bar down. He couldn’t remember the last time. But after Gracie had gotten skittish about him coming in to see her, he thought it was important to stress that he was interested in renewing their friendship instead of checking up on her. They’d chatted on a superficial level during her breaks, but he could tell she was wondering about his injury, how it had happened, and what he meant about his friends being so far away. Her manners wouldn’t let her ask flat out, though.

Gracie walked over and reached around the end of the bar to grab her handbag. “Well . . .
that’s it for tonight.” She said to Sonny.

“It was great. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d been with the band for years.”

She stood in front of him, her bag slung over her shoulder. “Yeah, it’s been working out well. Colby and I have worked together before . . . at a recording studio in San Francisco. It helps that I already felt comfortable with him before I got here.”

Sonny slid off the stool and pulled his crutches into place. She glanced down at his knee brace, then back up into his face. He looked tired. She could see pain lines around his mouth and eyes that weren’t there a few hours earlier.

“You shouldn’t have stayed so late, Luca. Your knee is really bothering you, isn’t it?”

“It’s fine. I’ve been on it a little more today than I have been
lately.” He smiled. “I’ll go home and ice it down . . . take an anti-inflammatory.”

“What about pain medication?” she asked.

“I hate that stuff.” His mouth quirked up on one side as he watched her shake her head at him. “If it hurts enough to keep me from sleeping, I’ll take something . . . Mom . . .” he snickered.

“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. I’m feeling guilty here. My brother makes you come down here and then you sit on
that stool all night . . .”

“It was fun. And he didn’t
make
me do anything. It’s been really nice to see you, Gracie.”

“It’s been really nice to see you too. Let’s go.” She turned and started walking toward the door, calling
over her shoulder, “See you guys tomorrow!”

Colby turned from where he was talking with a group of bar patrons. “Wait, Gracie . . . do you want me to walk you out?”

Sonny was glad to see that Colby was apparently watching out for her here. He called over to him, “I’ll make sure she gets to her car, Colby. Good to meet you.”

Colby waved them on and turned back to his friends.
They stepped out into the warm night air and headed down the sidewalk that led to a parking lot next to the building. As they got to a beautiful classic Mustang Cobra II, Gracie stopped.

“This is mine,” she said as she unlocked the door and threw her handbag inside.

“Nice!” Sonny exclaimed as he examined the electric blue vehicle. “What year?”

“Seventy-six. It was one of my dad and Matty’s project cars. They always had one they were refurbishing. They gave this one to me as a gift for
my high school graduation and w . . .” She trailed off and some unnamed emotion passed through her eyes.

“It’s a beauty.” He didn’t know what to say to bring the smile back to her eyes.

That apparently worked, because she smiled again. “Thanks.”

She leaned back against her car and looked into his face.
“Would it be rude to ask about your knee? My initial guess was that you wrecked your Harley.”

Sonny shook his head. “Don’t own one. Sorry. Second guess?”

“You really don’t want to talk about it, huh?”

“It’s just not a fun ‘we’ll-be-laughing-about-this-for-years’ kind of story, Gracie.” He took a deep breath. “I had a
close encounter with an RPG in Afghanistan a few weeks ago.” He could see the shock in her face.

“But . . .
wait . . . you’re
still
in the
Navy
? I assumed you were out . . . I mean . . . you don’t look military at all.”

“Navy SEAL.
Military haircut rules don’t necessarily apply. We have to blend in, and Afghanis are pretty scruffy-looking. I was there for six months, so the hair’s a lot longer now than when I first got there.” He sighed, “Now that I’m on medical leave, there’s no need to fuss with it.”

“Wow. An RPG? That’s an explosive, right?”

“Yep.”

She glanced back down at his knee. “Is it going to be okay? Do they expect a full recovery?”

“That’s the million dollar question.” He looked bereft for a moment, and she was regretting bringing it up. “Anyway . . . My team is still out there without me and that’s killing me. And I’m here with all of their wives fussing over me and that’s sending me on a long and winding guilt trip.” He sighed. “It is what it is and, I guess, I just wasn’t prepared for it.”