His cougar chuckled. Of course, that is a much more plausible explanation. Our mate isn’t waiting for us in the bar, we’ve been drugged by some unknown person for some unknown reason.
But maybe there were reasons, O’Malley thought as he reached up and opened the door into the bar. As a member of an elite Special Forces team, he’d brought down his fair share of bad guys. Sure, that was a decade ago, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been targeted. He could be at the end of a long list of people someone wanted to take revenge on.
“Hello. O’Malley?” The woman standing in front of him looked vaguely familiar, but he could not recall ever meeting her and if he had met her, she would have been indelibly etched onto his memory.
“Yes.” He pushed himself upright and straightened his shirt, wishing he weren’t dressed in work-worn jeans and a T-shirt splattered in cobalt blue paint. He needed to appear normal. Failing that, he needed to at least appear as if he wasn’t drunk. Or high.
Even if he was kind of high. The image of his mate in front of him had done something to his brain. It was as if he was alive and seeing things clearly for the first time.
“I went to your bar in the city…” She paused, her gaze shifting to the polished wood floor before she raised it to look at him again. “They told me I could find you here.”
“And they were right.” He swallowed hard as he tried to keep a hold on his emotions which threatened to spiral out of control. If this woman, his mate, needed help then he had to focus. Focus on her face, focus on her voice, on her lips as she nervously ran her tongue over them.
He wanted to rush forward and pull her into his arms and kiss those lips so badly he had to grip the counter to stop himself.
“I know it makes me sound like a stalker or something.” She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “I need your help.”
O’Malley arched an eyebrow as he stared at her. He was about to say, hey, yeah, I’ll help you, whatever you need. But he didn’t know her, he didn’t know why she was here in his bar. Why she’d gone to a lot of trouble to find him when he had no idea who she was.
Had fate slipped her a note that said, if in trouble, please find O’Malley at O’Malley’s Bar?
“I’m sorry, have we met before?” he asked diplomatically.
Her cheeks colored and she took a jolting step forward with her hand held out in front of her. “Sorry, stupid me. I’m Hannah. Hannah Norton.”
O’Malley turned his head to one side and looked at her carefully while he slid his hand into hers. A jolt of recognition struck him, and his eyes widened. As he watched her face, the same shock played out across her features, but she quickly smoothed her expression.
“You’re Norton’s sister.”
She nodded and it was as if her facial features shifted a little and he could finally see the resemblance to one of his fellow soldiers from his days with Special Forces. “I am.”
So why is she here? his cougar asked. We were not exactly friends with Norton.
No, we were not exactly friends. O’Malley and Norton had clashed on more than one occasion,
“I haven’t seen or spoken to Norton for years. The last I heard, he’d gone backpacking around the world. I often wondered if he ever made it back or whether he set down roots in some distant land. I always thought maybe one day he’d walk into my bar and tell me about all the adventures he had and all the places he’d seen.”
You mean boast about all the adventures he’d had and places he’d seen, his cougar said sourly.
O’Malley’s eyes narrowed. “Instead, his sister walks into my bar asking for help.”
“He talked about you a lot. Which is why I thought…” Her eyes misted with tears and she rubbed her hand over her face before she continued. “I couldn’t think of anyone else I could ask for help.”
“He talked about me?” He motioned to one of the tables as he hid his surprise. “Shall we sit?”
She nodded and sat down at the table, her hands clasped in front of her. “I’m sorry. For just showing up like this.”
“No problem at all.” How could it be a problem when she was his mate? However, she had no idea what she meant to him and no idea that he would do whatever she asked him to do.
I sure hope it’s not illegal, his cougar said.
I sure hope the guy isn’t setting us up, O’Malley added. But the woman before him seemed totally genuine. The fear and worry in her face were real, he was sure.
But why would Norton’s sister come to him? They were not friends, they barely kept in touch after they both left the Army, only seeing each other at reunion dinners when they often traded barbed remarks.
“Coffee? Something stronger?” O’Malley asked before he took his seat across the table from her. “If you’re hungry, I could rustle something up in the kitchen.”
“Coffee would be fine, thanks.” She smiled at him, looking relieved.
“No problem.” He put his hands up and pointed his index fingers at her. “Stay right there, I’ll be back with the coffee.”
As he left his mate, he slid around the bar where the coffee machine stood empty. He only hoped by the time he returned with fresh coffee, his mate would not have vanished from his life as her brother had.
Chapter Two – Hannah
When O’Malley had told her to stay right here, was she fooling herself to think that he was scared she might run out on him? Like really scared?
She shook her head and reminded herself he’d been best friends with her bother when they served together. O’Malley was scared something had happened to her brother, Karl.
“Here.” O’Malley returned with two cups of hot coffee and set them down on the table before he slid into the seat across the table from her. He’d also brought a plate of cookies. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” She took one, needing the sugar rush. “Homemade.”
“I’m not responsible.” He grinned as he waved his hand at them.
“You have a wife? Or a girlfriend? Am I keeping you from them?” Why did she feel the need to ask? Why was she hoping the answer would be no? She was here about her brother, not to find the husband who had eluded her so far.
She longed to settle down and have a family, but she always seemed to get caught up in worrying about her brother or her father. Since her mom had passed when Hannah was barely in her twenties, she’d taken on the role of housekeeper, and more often, peacekeeper. Her father and brother had a volatile relationship and often argued over the stupidest of things.
Add in her father’s recent poor health, there had been no room for a life of her own let alone a love of her own.
“No, I’m single.” He looked her squarely in the eye and the look he gave her spoke of something she had yet to fathom. There was a connection between them, she was sure. She’d felt it the moment she walked into the bar. Or maybe even before. On the drive over here, she’d experienced an unusual frisson of excitement at the thought of finally meeting O’Malley, who her brother had spoken so warmly of.
But then her excitement might be caused by the fact she was getting out of her hometown for once.