Escaped to Death by Vanessa Gray Bartal

Author:Vanessa Gray Bartal [Bartal, Vanessa Gray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dry Creek Press
Published: 2020-01-09T22:00:00+00:00

Beau saw Sadie emerge from the bathroom and come at them like a steamroller. If he didn’t know better, he might believe her to be furious. As it was, even though he knew she was acting, he stood stock still, frozen in place, as Sadie reached out a hand, grabbed a hank of Miranda Taggart’s hair, and tossed her halfway across the bar.

“Stay away from my man,” she screamed.

Miranda stared up at Sadie for approximately three seconds in stunned surprise, and then she leapt, tackling Sadie to the ground beneath her.

They fought, and Beau had never quite seen anything like it. It was sort of like seeing a nature special with two mountain lions going at it, attempting to rip each other to shreds. Miranda was bigger, but Sadie was strong, scrappy, and not afraid to fight dirty. The gallant part of Beau, the part that sounded a lot like his mother, said he should step in and try to separate them before Sadie actually got hurt. The other part of him, the one that was winning, was enthralled and secretly placing bets on which one would win. Sadie, his mind automatically supplied. Sadie always won, would always win, and his money would always be on her.

Even as he thought this she gained the upper hand, sat on Miranda’s chest, and pinned her arms to the floor. “Now you listen here,” she roared in an accent that sounded disturbingly close to his. Before she could finish whatever she was going to say, the woman who had poured their drinks came over, hauled Sadie by the scruff of her neck, and held her aloft.

“Get out, we don’t allow no fighting here,” she said.

Sadie squirmed in her clasp like a wet cat. “What about her? She fought, too.”

The woman regarded Miranda. “You too, Miranda. You’ve been warned before. Go sober up.”

Miranda shoved off the floor, grousing mutinously. She kept the complaints under her breath, however, because she seemed scared of the bartender, or maybe she was the owner, Beau had no idea. He started to follow Sadie outside, but she wheeled on him.

“You stay. Don’t you ever come near me again. It’s over this time, for real. I hate you.” Her face was red and angry as she screamed at him. He stumbled back against the bar, stunned by her apparent rage. And then at the end, so quick he couldn’t be sure he actually saw it, she tossed him a little wink.

Beau perched on a stool, trying and failing not to resent the fact that he now had to wait for Sadie to come retrieve him like a disobedient child.

“Man, that was something,” the guy beside him said. “Your girl a mean drunk?”

“Nah, she’s always like that,” Beau said.

“How do you handle her?” the man asked.

Beau laughed humorlessly. “I don’t.”

“I ain’t never seen anyone take Miranda Taggart down like that,” the guy mused.

“You know the Taggarts?” Beau asked.

The man’s friendly face closed slightly. “Everybody knows the Taggarts.”

“I work for them,” Beau said.

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