Page 3 of Taking Root

Chapter Two

The last thing Adrian Dukas wanted to do after a twelve-hour shift was head to the Gin Mill. However, Lex had asked him to pick up her last paycheck from Mitch, and he needed the guaranteed bait in order for his sister to show to the next family dinner.

She’d been avoiding all of them since she got out from her six months of jail time following a protest that had gotten way too Mad Max to be contained. The tipping point in her case was assault on an officer, since they’d obtained visual proof of Lex screaming like a banshee as she slung the first punch. Typical. Cal offered to pick up her check even though the last time they’d talked, she called Cal an unprincipled shit. However, Adrian was the oldest—if anyone could deal with Alexis, he could.

He sure as hell hadn’t expected to walk into the middle of a standoff between a big bruiser and a short redhead who prepared to slurp the guy’s spine through a straw.

And when she’d punched the big bruiser square in the jaw?

Well, he just might’ve fallen in love.

“Here for Lex’s paycheck?” Mitch asked, bringing a rag over to polish the drops of beer spilled onto his countertop. When the pissed-off bruiser stormed out of the bar during his adult-sized temper tantrum, Mitch poured the pint of Coors down the drain.

“That obvious?” he asked, tapping a finger against the side of his gin and tonic. After the hellish shift at Hampton General today due to the flu outbreak bringing elderly patients to the ER left and right, he would’ve preferred to wind down with a beer and some chicken lo mein at his house—skip the how-ya-dos of going out in public.

“You’re too much of a recluse to come out here unless Lex or Matty are involved,” Mitch said, slapping the rag over his shoulder. “How are you doing post-Betty?”

Ouch. Apparently, his patch job on that old wound sucked. Six months ago, a relationship that survived med school and hurtled toward swapping vows ended in her ditching him to run off a week later with his former best friend. Most of the family swore up and down she’d been cheating on him, and he could admit the evidence existed even if he didn’t want to scrutinize. His life was the worst sort of cliché, and he’d been throwing himself into longer shifts by the day.

“I’m just dandy,” he responded, the words coming out more caustic than intended.

Mitch lifted a brow but left well enough alone. “Tell Lex to shove her pride and get her ass back in this bar. If she wants shifts, they’re hers. And even if she doesn’t, she better stop being such a shit friend.” He sauntered to the back to rifle for Lex’s paycheck. Apart from incarceration, she didn’t leave the Gin Mill on bad terms, but Lex would choke on her pride until it killed her.

Danny’s intense stare made his skin prickle, as if he should know her from somewhere. Except he would’ve remembered meeting a firebrand like her, so she must’ve had one of those faces. Damn, though, he wanted to know her. Her heart-shaped face, emerald eyes sharp enough to slice, and rose lips born for smirking drew his attention like a fool to the flame.

“Either I’ve got something on my face, or you’re plotting out a dozen ways to kill me,” he broke the quiet between them, drawing her attention.

A startled laugh erupted from her, surprising him too. He stood upright on an IV of coffee and his mother’s guilt alone, so he wasn’t a fountain of witticisms here.

“My last attempt to relax at the bar with my drink didn’t go so well.” Danny’s lips curled into an adorable, lopsided grin. Even from here, she smelled like fresh earth and lavender. “Consider me a little gun-shy.”

“Never fear, I’m just sitting drink adjacent,” he responded, lifting his gin and tonic. “I came here to pick up my sister’s paycheck, not harass newcomers.”

She tucked a strand of her rust-orange hair behind her ear, ducking her head for a moment. “Well, damn, did a memo go around I wasn’t aware of?” Her raspy voice oozed seduction, and he was sure as sin hoping she made an appearance in his dreams tonight.

“You’ve got an accent, darlin’. Makes it easy to deduce.” He ran a hand through his hair, thick enough to break cheap combs.

“Get a degree for those fancy words?” she teased, an impish smile sneaking out again.

“Several, in fact.” He traced the rim of his gin and tonic over and over again, staring into the drink so he wouldn’t get caught gawking at her like he was in high school. “They ensure I’m in a job more demanding than my family. Being a workaholic has its perks.” Christ Almighty, he needed to get out more often if he passed this drivel off as conversation. After barking orders at the hospital and wrangling the bag of cats known as his siblings, he’d somehow lost the ability.

“Come from a big family?” she asked like she already knew. The more he talked to Danny Reynolds, the more he wandered down a familiar trail of sharp turns, fallen trunks, and tangled honeysuckle bushes he had memorized.

“Too big,” Adrian grumbled, taking another swig of his gin and tonic. “Want a few siblings?”

Even as she grinned at him, shadows deepened her green eyes. The stark flash of loneliness seared him like a hot iron. “I’ll take a few off your hands,” she responded. “I can put them to work at the gardens.”

“So that’s where the grass stains came from?” he asked. A slight flush reached her cheeks, and he realized how his comment came off. He lifted his hands in defense. “Not like I’m judging in the slightest. I just finished a shift wearing scrubs covered in vomit and too many other unidentifiable fluids. I’d much prefer grass stains.”

Mitch stepped to him, checks in hand, which he splayed across the surface of the bar. “Take your brother’s too. Every time I try to remind Matty during the shift, he always forgets his check by closing time.”

Adrian thumbed through the stack of at least five different checks. It’s not like Matty didn’t have tips to float him, but his brother operated on the same level of unconcern as Lex, and that wasn’t a compliment. Mom and Dad’s lectures over the years had fallen on ears stopped up by stubbornness. He heaved a sigh, slumping forward along the smooth surface of the bar. “Thanks for putting up with their shit.”

Mitch tossed him a casual salute. The guy had been gatekeeper of the misfits for years, and when they’d first met Mitch, he wore so much metal in his face he could’ve been part robot. After a while, he’d ditched the eyebrow piercings along with a couple of others, but the tattoos stayed. Lex had befriended him at Inkspiration where she’d been apprenticing, and they’d been friends ever since. At least, until her stint behind bars.

“This part of the sibling wrangling?” Danny asked, pointing at the paychecks in hand.

“It’s my primary position,” Adrian said, offering a half-smile. “The doctoring thing’s a side gig.”

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