Chapter 1

I’m sure you have all heard the old cliché “It got so quiet you could’ve heard a pin drop”.

When I walked through the door of Kelly’s bar, it didn’t get that quiet but damn near it. There was a large crowd of regulars and the noise level went from a loud party roar to an almost church service quiet.

The reason for the reduction in the noise level was sitting in a back booth with another man or maybe I should say her new man. The bar crowd was almost silent with only a few muted whispers, waiting for the confrontation between me and her. I’m Jake Connors and the people were waiting to see what I was going to do.

The her mentioned is Jackie Sanders and until two weeks ago, she was my fiancée. Billy something another was the asshole she was with but he didn’t really matter; he was just the guy she was using to piss me off.

I walked to the bar and Kelly slid a glass with three fingers of Jack Daniels down the bar to me. He knows what I drink because I’ve been a favored customer for a lot of years; especially in the last couple of weeks.

Kelly’s was my hangout and I had been coming in at least once a week after work for the last several years. The last two weeks I had been in Kelly’s every night. I was trying to drink my way through his supply of Jack Daniels.

I know alcohol doesn’t solve any problems and the problems are still there the next day or whenever you sober up. What alcohol can do is help you forget while you’re drinking. I needed to forget what happened between Jackie and me at least for a little while.

If I didn’t dull my senses with alcohol my mind went round and round with questions. How could she do that to me? Why would she do that? Did I do something to cause her actions? And so on, round and round, with no concrete answers.

Half of my drink disappeared quickly and I leaned against the bar looking at the mirror behind it. That mirror gave me a perfect view of that back booth and the two people sitting in it. Jackie saw me standing at the bar and through the mirror I could see her watching me.

I had to admit Jackie looked good. She must have dressed especially nice just to yank my chain. She had on a dark green skirt that finished about three inches above her knees. It showed a lot of leg because she was 5 feet 10 and had beautiful legs that went all the way up to her ass and back.

She had on some kind of frilly top that showed enough cleavage to tease a guy. The light green color complimented her auburn hair, blue eyes, and her freckles. I knew from experience that she had freckles on some of the more interesting parts of her body too.

Add to this package the fact that her face was classically beautiful and Jackie was a walking wet dream. When she walked across a room most men and some women would watch her glide past. The way she looked tonight was just another knife in my heart.

I downed the rest of the Jack, pushed off the bar, and started toward Jackie and her friend.

“Jake?” Kelly said with a worried voice.

“I know Kelly. I’m just going to talk to her that’s all.”

“C’mon Jake, I don’t want my place smashed up,” he pleaded.

“It’s okay Kelly, I’m just gonna talk. I’ll walk away before any trouble starts. Just like the last time.” I tried to reassure him.

Last week when Jackie came in looking for me I told her to stay the f•©k away from me and to stay away from Kelly’s. I was afraid I would lose my cool and before she could say anything I left the bar. I wasn’t gonna leave this time.

As I walked closer it was obvious that I was upset and the guy started to stand up.

I wouldn’t want to be sitting down looking up at an angry me either. I’m 6 feet 4 and about 230 pounds of muscle. My hard body and muscles come from hard work not the gym. I work construction and like the most guys in my line of work, I’m in good physical shape. I have grey eyes that become laser like when I’m mad and right now they were boring holes into the shit head sitting with Jackie.

“Sit down,” I ordered him as I got to their booth. He sat back down but looked at me with a smirk.

“Hello Jackie, I see you brought the asshole with you this time,” I said. The guy started to say something but stopped when I held up my hand, again with a smirk showing on his face.

I turned to Bill and said, “Friend, this is between Jackie and me. Just stay out of it, okay?” I really didn’t think macho man would mind his own business but I hoped I could say what I wanted to say without any trouble.

“Look Jackie, I told you last week to stay away from me and stay away from Kelly’s. I don’t want to see you and I especially don’t want to see you with your lover.”

“This is a public bar and I can come in if I want to,” she replied defiantly.

“Isn’t it bad enough that you f•©ked me over just before our wedding but now you want to rub it in by bringing your damned lover in here?” I wasn’t a happy camper.

“Why don’t you find another bar then, I like it here,” Jackie goaded me. “And I’ll, I mean we’ll keep coming until you talk to me.”

“You don’t want to talk; you want to justify your actions. What you don’t understand is that I don’t care why; it’s enough that you did. This is my hangout and has been for years. You don’t care about Kelly’s; you just want to rub it in that you’re with this dipshit now. I promise you won’t like what happens if you keep coming in here.” I kept my word to Kelly and turned to walked away.

Mr. Macho wouldn’t let it go. “Hey big man, now I’ve got a few things to tell you.” He came out of the booth and stood, holding Jackie’s hand.

I turned to face him and had to admit, the guy was good looking. He wasn’t as big as me, only about 6 feet and probably 190 pounds but he did have a presence about him. Wearing a nice sports jacket, shirt and designer jeans, he was a picture off the front cover of GQ magazine. Designer jeans for Christ sake, I thought.

“What do you want Mr. GQ?” I said to goad him a little.

“First whatever concerns Jackie concerns me; we’re friends. Second, you don’t order her or me around; we’ll go anywhere we want, when we want. And Third, I’m a third degree black belt and you don’t scare me.” Now he was really smirking and stepped closer to me.

I don’t know what he was thinking. Maybe his martial arts training gave him confidence, maybe he thought showing that he wasn’t afraid of me would make me back down or maybe he was just showing off for Jackie.

Jackie warned him saying, “Bill don’t, he’s like a dangerous animal when he’s in this mood.”

“Well Mr. GQ, you better listen to your “friend” because your mouth is writing checks your body can’t cash. Take a piece of good advice and get out of my face,” I said. That’s when he hit me.

I’ve got to admit, he was very fast and I didn’t see it coming. He hit me right on the nose and when I took a step back, he hit me again. More surprised than anything, I tripped on a chair and fell on my ass. As I fell I pulled a table and a couple of chairs with me.

Bill was standing in some kind of “kung fu” stance with a big grin when I got up. As I stood I threw one of the broken chairs at him. When he ducked the chair, I kicked him in the nuts. Not very sporting I know but in the area I grew up in you did whatever was necessary to win.

He doubled over and I grabbed his hair, lifted his head, and hit him with my ham like fist. It was his turn to hit the floor. I had wanted to nail this asshole for some time but I restrained myself; I was afraid that I would kill him if I kept going. Jackie was screaming as I knelt down to him and picked his head up again.

“One thing they forgot to teach you at the dojo Billy Boy, every once in awhile you run into somebody you shouldn’t screw around with. I’m that guy.” I dropped his head, stood up, and looked at Jackie.

“You’re the one that should be lying there bitch. This is your fault. Now get this piece of garbage and get out before you join him,” I ordered. Normally I would never hit a woman, but my resolve was being tested here.

Jackie stared at me with anger and something I was surprised to see ... sadness. She had knelt down to Bill and said “Damn you Jake. Why won’t you listen?” She helped Bill get to his feet and supported him out the door.

I went back to the bar and Kelly met me with another drink. “I enjoyed the show big guy, even if you did break some fixtures,” he said with a smile.

“Sorry about the breakage, I tried to walk away,” I answered. “I’ll pay for the damage.”

“Naw, that jerk knocked you into the table, he’s the one that should pay. Don’t worry about it.”

I was working on my next drink when the police and the EMTs arrived. The police came up behind me and ordered me to stand up, put my hands on the bar, and told me that I was under arrest. Before they could handcuff me, I had at least 30 people explaining that I was defending myself.

They asked Kelly if he wanted to make a complaint because of the fight and the broken fixtures, but he just laughed and told them no way.

The EMT that was working on me said that someone had called them and they called the police when they heard that it was a bar fight. He told me I needed to go to the ER because my nose was broken and the cut over my eye needed stitches. It wasn’t the first time that my nose had been broken. Bill must have tagged me pretty good. I don’t know because it was just a blur after he hit me.

I promised to go to the hospital when I finished my drink and the EMT laughed. His partner came in from outside and said that the guy out side had a broken nose too. He also said that Bill’s nuts were going to be sore for several days.

Even exchange, I thought. Maybe I even got the best of it because he wouldn’t be f•©king Jackie for awhile, but then again neither would I. Looking at myself in the mirror, at the swollen nose and the cut over my eye I thought back over the events that led me to my current physical state.

My mother was a single parent; my dad just disappeared when I was eight. Mom and my grandmother raised me and my older brother James who was twelve. Although we never had a lot of money, we always had clean clothes for school, enough to eat, and a decent place to live.

The neighborhood we lived in wasn’t the inner city but it wasn’t far from it. It was a tough area for a boy to grow up in and a lot of my friends and kids I knew got into trouble with the law. The only reason that James and I stayed on the straight and narrow was because of my mom and grandma.

I wasn’t afraid of the police or jail, I was afraid to disappoint my “ladies”. I could have taken punishment or jail but I couldn’t take the look of disapproval that they would have had if I got into trouble for stealing or something. I know James felt the same way.

James waited until he was seventeen and with Mom’s permission enlisted in the Marine Corp. He came home for two weeks after his boot camp and I didn’t see him again until I was a senior in high school, a period of four years. Then it would be several years before I saw him again.

My “ladies” made sure that I studied and learned something while I was in school. After high school there wasn’t the money needed for college so I joined the military like my brother. I enlisted for four years. For some reason, maybe my size, I was assigned to the Corp of Engineers after basic and AIT. That’s where I learned about construction and grew to like it.

My first sergeant liked me because I always hustled, worked hard, and would step in to help on any project even if it wasn’t my specialty. He thought I was a virgin and decided to include sex education to my learning process ... I mean why pass up pussy when it’s shoved in your face, right? I didn’t tell him that I lost my virginity when I was sixteen, maybe actively gave it away is closer to what happened.

My tour was coming to an end and the Army offered me a reenlistment bonus to reup but I turned it down. I wanted to go home and see my mom and grandma, get a job, and help them financially the way they had helped me.

So I said good bye to the Army and the engineers and went home. I got lucky and landed a construction job as an apprentice rough carpenter. Later I branched out into other construction specialties and became an all around type of guy. Three years later I met Jackie.

We met at the bank where she worked as a teller. I needed someplace to cash my checks and a friend took me to the bank to set up an account. Jackie was the teller that handled my first transaction and pretty soon I would wait in line just to get to talk to her for a few minutes.

Other tellers would motion me over to help me but I waited for Jackie. I waited and got up my nerve and after two months of seeing and talking to her once a week, I finally asked her if she would go to a movie with me.

“I was beginning to think that I would have to ask you,” Jackie said with a smile. “I would love to go to movie with you.”

Jackie and I dated at least once a week, sometimes more, for the next three months. After our sixth date she invited me into her apartment. I didn’t leave until the next day. Jackie was everything a man could want in the bedroom. Not only was she drop dead gorgeous, Jackie was wildly uninhibited in bed.

She like oral sex, both giving and receiving; me too. Jackie liked to be taken from behind doggy style; I like to do her that way too. She enjoyed being on top or bottom, in fact there wasn’t much that she didn’t like sexually; me too.

She still had a few dates with other men but we hadn’t said anything about not dating others so I didn’t feel like I could bring it up. It did eat at me to think that she might be doing the same things in bed with other guys that she did with me.

We were going out to dinner on Friday after she got off work and maybe some dancing on Saturday evening. I planned to tell her that I was falling in love with her and wanted us to only date each other while we were at dinner Friday evening.

Jackie and were having an after dinner drink and I thought this would be a good time to make my suggestion. Before I could say anything, Jackie said something that blew me away.

“Jake I know we were supposed to go dancing tomorrow night but I’m going to have to cancel. Something came up and I can’t go. I’m really sorry and I’ll make it up to you,” Jackie said. She acted like she really hated to cancel.

“Okay, I guess we can go dancing next Saturday. What came up anyway?” I didn’t read anything into the cancellation, I was just curious.

Jack looked down at the table and didn’t say anything. Either she didn’t hear me or she doesn’t want to answer I thought. I was getting a bad vibe about this broken date.

“Jackie what came up?” I repeated more forcefully.

She sighed and looked at me. “One of the other guys I date sometimes has an emergency and I’m going to help him.”

“What kind of emergency and how can you help?” The bad feeling was getting stronger. I don’t think I’m going to like this, I thought.

“Well, Bill is going to an awards dinner for his company tomorrow night and his date got the flu or something and can’t go. So he asked me to go in her place and I told him I would,” Jackie was hesitant with her answer.

“Why do you have to go? Why can’t he go by himself?”

“It would look funny if he went alone, I mean his boss and everybody will be there,” she explained. “It could hurt his career; I mean it would look like he didn’t care enough to get a date.”

“Let me get this straight now. You’re going to break a date with me that we made over a week ago so that you can go out with another guy that just asked you yesterday. Is that about right Jackie?” I think the sarcasm showed in my tone.

“It’s not like that Jake. This is an emergency,” she said in her defense.

“It’s exactly like that. I’m sure glad that one of his female f•©k buddies didn’t get sick, you’d probably consider that an emergency and want to help out with that too.”

She was shocked that I reacted the way that I did. Jackie apparently thought I would just roll over and accept this bullshit.

I motioned for the check, paid the bill, and stood up. “C’mon, I brought you here and I’ll get you back to your place. After that, you’re on your own,” I told Jackie.

The ride home was less than comfortable. Jackie tried to talk to me and explain again why she “just had to help” Bill. I never made a comment, or answered her questions, or said a word on the entire trip.

I pulled up in front of her apartment, reached across her, and opened the door.

“Aren’t you coming in tonight Jake?”

“You’ve got to be shittin me Jackie. Get out,” I said with more force than I intended. She got out and I peeled rubber getting away.

Jackie called me on Sunday morning. When I realized it was her I hung up without saying a word. She called back and I let the machine answer. Jackie left a long message on the machine saying that going to the dinner with Bill wasn’t a romantic thing; she was just helping him. She said she cared about me, that we needed to talk and please call her. When she finished I erased the message.

The next two weeks when I went into the bank to cash my checks, I made it a point to go to any teller but Jackie. If her window was available I would stand in line at another window. If she motioned me over to her window, I ignored her. Twice she came out from behind her counter and tried to talk to me and both times I walked out of the bank. I just plain didn’t want to talk to her.

Some people will say I was acting childish. They will say that I should talk to her. To those people I say f•©k you. You weren’t the one that was shit on. It wasn’t pride, it was anger that she would screw me around the way she did.

Three weeks to the day when I came off a job site, Jackie was leaning on the fender of my truck. Damn it, I thought, how did she find out where I was. I put my gear in the bed of the truck and opened the driver’s door.

“Jake,” she almost shouted. “You’ve got to talk to me sometime.”

“No I don’t,” I replied and got into the truck.

“Are you going to just leave me here? I caught a ride with a friend and don’t have a way back to the city,” she was concerned. “Can you at least give me a ride back to my place?”

Oh hell I said to myself, I can’t leave her out here. I motioned for her to get into the truck and took her home. Every time Jackie tried to talk I would hold up my hand or shake my head no. She finally got the hint and kept quiet. We got to her place and I reached across her and opened the door. When I sat back up, Jackie reached across and grabbed my truck keys and jumped out of the truck.

“Now you’re going to talk to me or you’re just going to have to sit there,” she said with a self satisfied smirk.

I got out of my truck, went to the wheel well and got the magnetic key holder that held an extra key to my truck. Holding it up so Jackie could see I climbed back into the cab and started the engine.

“Jake, please. This isn’t fair,” she pleaded.

She’s right; it was time to put an end to this. I looked at her and nodded.