Page 19 of Thornhill Road

“Nope,” he answered simply.

I stared at him, stunned and intrigued.

There was a story there. There had to be a reason why this particular badass never drank. It made zero sense on its face. But I didn’t want to pry, which meant I wasn’t going to ask, no matter how badly I wanted to know.

The more I knew about him, the more I’d want to know about him.

It was a slippery slope—one I did not wish to traverse.

However, Mustang had no problem revealing the reasons behind his sobriety. As if he could tell I wanted to know even if I wasn’t going to ask, he explained, “Lived with an alcoholic the first sixteen years of my life. Just in case that shit’s hereditary,never touched the stuff. Can’t ride drunk. I’d rather ride free than buzzed or high.”

Just like that, one of the puzzle pieces he’d tossed at my feet the night before snapped into place.

Ed was an alcoholic.

Given the state of his liver, this was not startling news to me. He was sober now, though how long he’d managed to stay that way I wasn’t sure. Nonetheless, for sixteen very crucial years, he’d succumbed to his vice, and I suspected that was a major reason why Ed and Mustang were no longer on speaking terms.

There were definitely more pieces yet to fit into place, but this one revealed a whole lot.

Mustang never drank. Ever. Because of Ed.

“You work today?” he asked, changing the subject.

It was my turn to shake my head. “No. But I am on-call Saturdays and Sundays, so I’m just going to have the one drink.” I lifted a single shoulder in a shrug. “Hopefully no one needs me tonight.”

He propped a hand on the edge of the bar, pressing in a little closer. “How long you been a nurse?”

“Ten years,” I told him. I watched his eyes drop to my mouth as I went on to say, “I’ve been in hospice care for the last six.”

His eyes found mine once more before he asked, “You from around here?”

“I grew up in Casper, then left to go to school down in Greeley. I made my way back home right after I graduated. Or, close to it, at least.”

He jerked his chin in acknowledgement then I lost his eyes. The next thing I knew, he was lowering my drink in front of me. I took it, murmuring a thank-you I wasn’t sure he heard as I noticed his knuckle tattoo for the first time. He moved too quickly for me to make out what it said, but I made a mental note to keep an eye out for it at my next opportunity.

As I sipped my drink, my eyes drifted over the patches on the front-right chest of his kutte. I hadn’t noticed them the other day, too distracted by the rest of him. His patches were just like Bull’s, only the top one read,Mustang;and the one underneath,Sergeant-at-Arms.

“What about you?” I asked him, lifting my gaze in search of his. “How long have you been a Stallion?”

He reached up and raked his fingers through his hair before dropping his hand and shoving his fingers into the front pocket of his jeans.

“Officially? Eighteen years. Unofficially?” He jerked his chin toward my opposite side and said, “Bull took me under his wing a couple years before that. Looked out for me until I was old enough to earn the patches on my kutte. All in—twenty years. Makes me more Stallion than anything else.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Twenty years ago, I’d just lost my mom.

I was twelve. How old was he?

“How old are you?” I blurted.

“Thirty-six. How old are you?”

“Thirty-two,” I told him distractedly, still trying to piece together the timeline of his life.

I noticed as those hazel-blue eyes dropped down to my mouth again, and suddenly I lost track of my thoughts. I took a sip of my drink, scrambling to think of another question.

“So—what did you do before the bar?”

---