Page 4 of The Viking Blues

He had a sure thing waiting for him inside, but here he was, in the January heat and humidity with a drunk woman he didn’t know clinging to him like a lifeboat. What the hell had he done to deserve this?

“For fuck’s sake,” he grumbled under his breath, then turned to Dave. “Call Scott and Marie. She needs help. Proper help.”

In a display of strength he hadn’t expected, the woman shoved out of his hold and began patting down her pockets. “Where is it?” she muttered quietly, and something about her voice pulled at him. Something old and remembered.

But before he could think too deeply on the matter, Dave growled at him.

“What the bloody hell do you think Scott or Marie can do for her that you can’t? I just want to make sure she gets home safe and unmolested. And it’s not like you have anything better to do.”

Ollie’s dick would disagree. “Did you not see the blonde I was sitting with?”

“Sure did.” Dave lit up a cigarette, drew the smoke into his lungs, then raised one brow and exhaled through his nostrils, making him look like an annoyed dragon. “And I’ll give you free chips and beer for a month if you can tell me her name.”

Ollie narrowed his gaze and glared at the old man, then admitted defeat. “Shut up, Dave.”

The publican grinned. “That’s what I thought.”

"It's not like she cares what my name is either, you know," he said, a resigned frown pulling at his mouth. "They never do."

The woman wandered away from the two men, her muttering voice teasing Ollie’s senses again. It was so familiar, and yet… not. “I just had it. What did I do with it?” She kicked the milk crates out of her way.

“We can debate your dating practices another night. Right now I just—”

“Dave!” One of the cooks popped her head out the kitchen door. “We need you. It’s getting crazy in here. Oh, hey, Ollie,” she added with a little wave, a bright smile lighting up her face when Oliver waved back.

One of the downsides to living in a small town: single men were at a premium, and everyone seemed to have a daughter or niece or cousin they wanted him to meet, even with his reputation as an unrelenting man-whore. But reputations aside, Ollie was also one of very few single blokes in town who had a steady income, and it never ceased to amaze him what people were willing to overlook when money was involved.

“I’ll be there in a sec, Tammy,” Dave said, stamping out his smoke, then waited for the girl to leave before continuing. “Listen, I know you’ve got a girl waiting for you inside, but you and I both know you’ll be sitting on that same stool at the same time with a different blonde next Friday night.”

He nodded towards the woman who’d wandered into the garden, still searching for whatever it was she thought she’d lost. “Here and now you have a friend in need, and I asked you to help her because you’re a good man, Oliver. I know you two had a falling out, but I also know I can trust you to do the right thing and take care of her.”

Ollie stared at Dave like the crazy person he obviously was. “What are you talking about?” he asked, then gestured to the woman. “I haven’t got a clue who she is.”

Dave’s weathered face stretched into a look of disbelief, his bushy eyebrows shooting into his receding hairline. “You don’t recognise her?”

Watching her as she walked back towards them, he took in her unflattering outfit, the way her clothes hung off her—probably two sizes too big—and how she kept the hoodie pulled low over her eyes. She was taller than average, but so were a lot of women he knew. And while the brown hair escaping her hoodie had a distinct wave to it, that didn’t help narrow it down either.

Her voice, however…. He knew that voice. Didn’t he?

Caution tempered his words. “Should I recognise her?”

The publican sighed wearily as he moved to stand beside the woman and, against her drunken protests, yanked back the hoodie, revealing Ollie’s former best friend.

The only person outside his family he’d do anything for.

“Mia.”

Chapter Two

The blood drained from Oliver’s face as a whirlwind of emotions gripped his spine and squeezed it like a vice. Shock, disbelief, anger, lust, longing, hurt….

There was a lot of hurt.

But all that took a back seat to the concern flooding through him at the sight of Major Emilia Caldwell in her current state.

Drunk.

Since when did Mia get drunk? But then he remembered he hadn’t seen her in eighteen years, and all that anger and hurt came roaring back.

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