Page 16 of Hard Knock Hero

The cold air braced me when I got back outside. It was a pleasant contrast, thin warmth from the sun peeking through the layer of clouds combined with the dry, pine-scented air. I took a sip of hot coffee, enjoying the flood of heat down my throat and the bitter tang on my tongue, before my cup was suddenly knocked out of my hand and my coffee splattered over the snow. Steam rose.

Mitch Rigsby stood next to me, teeth bared in a snarl.

I blinked at him. “Now that wasn’t nice. I was having a moment.”

He had a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, his overgrown hair sticking out from beneath. “What the hell are you still doing in Hartley? After the shit you pulled at the diner, anybody with sense would’ve been in Utah by now.”

Had he heard the news that I was Jessi’s brother? Probably not, unless Sheriff Douglas was the talkative type. I was sure Owen intended to downplay my presence here more than that.

I’d been up most of the night, but not because I’d been uncomfortable bedding down on the dining room floor. I’d kept my ears trained in case any other Rigsbys came near the diner, but mostly I’d been contemplating the woman asleep upstairs. And wondering if she was up too, thinking of me.

I’m the one who caused this situation, she’d said. I doubted she’d realized at the time how it sounded. Like she was the one to blame for her ex’s actions. It probably wasn’t something she believed on a conscious level. Maybe it had only been a slip of the tongue, a result of exhaustion after a long night.

But all the same, I hadn’t liked it. If Jessi believed her situation was her fault, then I blamed Mitch and Chester Rigsby and their band of lowlifes.

I glanced pointedly down at Mitch’s stomach, which was hidden within his parka. “How’s your tummy? Bothering you? It just seemed like a scrape to me, but I don’t know your pain tolerance.”

“Shut your mouth.” Mitch took a menacing step toward me. I didn’t move.

“You’re going to attack me in broad daylight with a hundred witnesses around?” I asked. “Keep in mind, most of them aren’t related to you. They’re tourists or travelers from other towns. I’m sure they’d be excited to post videos online of you attacking an unarmed guy who was just trying to drink his coffee.”

Mitch’s eyes darted to the coffee shop behind us. Like most of the storefronts on Main Street, it had a huge window, and I didn’t have to look to know at least some of the people were watching this confrontation with their phones at the ready.

Mitch seemed to be thinking along the same lines. He backed off by a centimeter. “I don’t know who the hell you are, or why you’d step in to defend a slut like Jessi Novo, but—”

I advanced on him fast, edging him backward toward the curb until he was teetering off of it. I grabbed a fistful of his parka. From a few feet away, it would look like I’d saved him from dropping into the street.

“See, that’s where you’ve gone too far,” I spoke in a near whisper, gathering myself to my full height and glaring down at him, though I probably only had an inch on the guy. I was tall and bulky, and so was Mitch Rigsby. But it was all about presence, and Little Mitch didn’t have it.

“You don’t talk about Jessi like that. Or any woman, for that matter. You don’t come near Jessi. You don’t look at Jessi. You don’t think about Jessi. And then I won’t have an issue with you. I’ll be generous and forget about your other bullshit. If you don’t? I’ll have to teach you a more vivid lesson than the one you and your brother already got.”

I let go of his coat, and his arms pinwheeled as he lost his balance, stepping hard into the street off the curb. I spun on my heel, continuing down the sidewalk. I’d have to get more coffee later because I wasn’t going to wait in that line again.

“Next one to be getting a lesson is you!” Mitch shouted after me. Not exactly eloquent. But what I’d expected. Jessi’s brother was going to have a cluster on his hands when he got to Hartley. But that would’ve been the case whether I’d passed through this town or not.

For now,Iwas in Hartley, and her brother wasn’t. So I was going to do my damnedest to stand in for him. I was going to do what a brother should for his sister, the same actions I would take if Madison or Regan had been in Jessi’s shoes. My sisters drove me nuts, but I would always have their back if they asked.

Chester Rigsby and his brothers were bullies. They liked to talk big. Show off. Smack around somebody who was weaker. But every bully had a pivot point. That moment when they thought better of it and backed off. Last night, Mitch had found it when I had the knife in my hand and his brother was bleeding on the kitchen floor. This morning, it had been all the witnesses.

The question was, what would it take for the Rigsby boys to decide Jessi wasn’t worth the effort?

With any luck, my next encounter with them would nip this problem in the bud. The sooner I could get that out of the way, the better. Because I had that nice, cozy cabin waiting for me and days of solitude to look forward to. I would clean up this little mess for Jessi, and then I’d be on my way.

* * *

After going a few blocks, I saw the sign for the county sheriff’s department on the next street over. I came through the front entrance, stomping my boots on the mat on my way in.

The officer on desk duty, a young woman with hundreds of tiny braids pulled into a ponytail, looked up. “Help you, sir?” She had big brown eyes, and her uniform identified her as Deputy Marsh.

“I hope so. I’d like to speak to Sheriff Douglas, please.”

“What about?”

The station wasn’t very big. There was an open door beyond the desk that I suspected belonged to the sheriff. Blinds were drawn over a window in the wall, but I spotted movement coming from behind it.

“Could you tell him Jessi Novo’s brother is here?”

Then Owen Douglas stepped into the open doorway, already frowning at me. “Is Jessi all right?”

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