Silver Bastard (Silver Valley #1)(10)
Author: Joanna Wylde

As Eva started screeching at us to stop, Darcy grabbed me and jerked me out from behind the breakfast bar. Jake was shouting and clutching his hand, which dripped blood over everything. The big plastic sugar container with the funnel on top that I used to refill the sugar jars for the table went flying, showering all of us as Blake hurdled the counter to go after his former friend. Then Coop jumped Puck from behind and something inside me snapped.

This is where it’s worth mentioning that over the years I’ve developed a bit of a temper.

Okay, make that one hell of a temper.

Puck might be trouble, but he’d also saved my ass big-time and I didn’t want him getting hurt. Knowing he was around (Batman!) helped me sleep in a weird way. Nothing scares off a monster like a bigger, nastier monster, and every time I woke up screaming in the night after a dream about my stepdad, the memory of Puck beating his ass helped me keep it together. So long as Puck was in the region, I’d be safe . . . at least, I’d be safe from everyone but Puck.

I broke free from Darcy’s grasp and reached for a glass coffeepot that’d been left sitting on the counter. Then I brought it down over Coop’s head so hard it exploded, hot coffee soaking his shirt and coating his back. He screamed and fell down, so I kicked him in the nuts. Puck stared at me, obviously startled but impressed.

“Behind you!” I shouted, catching Alex lunging out of the corner of my eye. Puck ducked and spun around, punching the other man in the gut. Darcy caught me by one arm and Carlie grabbed the other one as an entire rack of clean water glasses crashed to the floor. Eva was shouting in the background and to my shock, I saw Earl lumbering toward the fight, a maniacal grin on his wrinkled face.

How did things get out of control so fast? And more important, where the hell was I going to work now? No fucking way Eva would keep me on after this.

Normal girls don’t start fights in restaurants! my brain hissed. Crapsicles. This was exactly the kind of shit my mom was always getting herself into. Generally I tried to look at any given situation, figure out what she’d do, and then do the exact opposite. My theory was that this would turn me from trashy to classy.

Someday I’d be classy if it killed me—probably not today, though.

Pisser.

The fight was spiraling out of control as a body hit the hostess table, sending it crashing over with a splintering, cracking noise. Jake and his friends were tough, no question. The mountains bred hard men, and the mines tempered them like steel. But Puck, Boonie, and Deep were hard men, too. And Blake? I had a feeling this wasn’t his first run-in with the boys . . . I’d always known he was a big, tough teddy bear, but suddenly he’d turned into a grizzly.

The crack of a shot cut through the air, followed quickly by a second and third. People started dropping to the ground and I heard Regina’s voice ringing through the room.

“You boys settle right the hell down! This is a restaurant, you idiots, not some damned bar where you can tear things apart and nobody even notices because it’s such a dump!”

Everything stopped, and I cautiously raised my head. Regina stood on a table in her purple track pants, chunky plastic jewelry, and tennis shoes, every gray hair on her head aligned perfectly. She looked like any other sweet old grandmother, but her eyes were like chunks of obsidian, sharp and brilliant.

Wowza.

“Now get out, all of you,” she said. “Boonie, Eva will be in touch about the damages. I’m assuming the club will be good for it?”

“But they didn’t start it!” I piped up, outraged. “Jake and his friends—”

“Let it go,” Darcy said, pulling me to my feet. I looked at her, startled to see her eyes were dancing with laughter. How she could laugh I couldn’t imagine. I was fucking pissed.

“It’s not fair!”

Boonie came up behind me, his hand coming down on my shoulder with a thump. I jerked—startled—and then the anger drained out, replaced with that old fear I felt whenever I got too close to one of the bikers. What was I thinking, arguing with these people over the damages? I needed to get out before Puck cornered me—I couldn’t deal with him. Not today.

“We got this,” Boonie said in a low voice. “Jake and his boys’ll pay, don’t worry.”

That sounded ominous. I swallowed.

“Go outside,” he said over my shoulder, talking to Darcy. “I’ll meet you in a few. Make sure Eva doesn’t follow her, got it?”

I closed my eyes as the full ramifications of the fight hit me.

This is what happens when you let your temper take over. I could actually hear the high school counselor’s words in my head, along with the smug, prissy tone of her voice. She’d been lecturing me about the way I’d coldcocked a guy who tried to cop a feel, but the same principle applied.

Hitting people rarely solved things.

I had a problem, but at least I’d stopped feeling sorry for myself over the years . . . Earl insisted this was a step in the right direction. Healthy, even. Looking around the trashed restaurant, I had to wonder if maybe he was full of shit.

So much for my job—I’d lost it for sure, or at least I would once the dust settled. Fucking sucked, because despite Eva’s nasty personality, I had the perfect schedule, allowing me to get in a full shift every day and still go to school.

School was my future—normal girls go to school and support themselves. I couldn’t afford mistakes like today, not if I wanted to make something of myself.

“This sucks,” I muttered, following Darcy out to the parking lot, where at least half the residents of Callup were milling around, anxious to see what the fuss was all about. Now that the fight was over, they weren’t leaving. Nope. They were standing in little clumps to whisper and point at me, and more looky-loos were pulling up to join them every minute.

News travels fast in Callup and this was the most exciting thing to happen since Regina and Melba had their confrontation in the beauty salon over who stole whose hairstyle.

Fuck, I hated it when people talked about me.

“You okay?” Carlie asked. I nodded, trying not to look at her. Carlie was everything I hated. She was tall, skinny, and gorgeous. Like a model. Exactly the type of woman who belonged with Puck, because they fit each other. Her eyes sparkled and her teeth were bright and straight and white. The only thing less than perfect about her was a tiny gap between her front teeth. Somehow that just made her look more interesting, though.

And she was nice.