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“Um, yeah.” I shrugged. “I might or might not have forgotten that I have an appointment to make. I met up with a friend here,” I jerked my head in Lynn’s direction. “He’s going to grab something to eat with me. But I am going to get Wyett’s burger to go, please.”
Her eyes flicked to the silent man at my side.
He was once again fully dressed in his suit and didn’t look at all the scary man that I’d met in the middle of that field earlier in the day, beating a man with a pair of brass knuckles.
A pair of brass knuckles that he right then had in his pocket, ready for him at a moment’s notice.
“What can I get you, sir?” Crockett asked quietly.
Lynn’s hard eyes went to her—they’d previously been checking out the store. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Crockett’s eyes were wide. “No veggies at all?”
Lynn’s eyes turned to me. “I don’t like the way the veggies take away from the taste of the burger.”
His eyes studied my face, then he turned back to Crockett. “Exactly what she has.”
Crockett looked at him for a few long seconds, likely just as lost in his deep voice and confident manner as I was.
“O-okay,” she said. “Coming right up.”
When Crockett left, Lynn turned to me. “Where would you like to sit?”
Was his lap an option?
“Umm,” I hesitated.
CHAPTER 8
The only people I trust are Jack, Jim & Jose.
-T-shirt
LYNN
“Anywhere is fine,” she said softly. Hesitantly. “I don’t mind.”
I took the table that was farthest away from where the young woman was making our burgers.
She sat down on the chair across from me, and placed her hands primly in her lap, her eyes focused on me.
Her brown eyes were magnificent, and I found myself hoping that she wouldn’t put on the contacts that colored them anymore.
“Why do you wear colored contacts?” I asked curiously.
“Pisses my dad off,” she said, shrugging. “Anything that bothers him, and isn’t an outright dig at him, I try to take. I’m passive aggressive. But again, I know how far I can push him.”
“You need to push him often?” I leaned back in my chair, crossing my right leg over my left knee.
“I don’t like to be his well-behaved pet,” she answered. “I especially don’t like when he tries to make me do things that I don’t want to do.”
“Like attend parties for mayors?” I teased.
She wrinkled her nose. “It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever had to go to.”
“What was the worst thing?” I wondered.
“Anything that has me dressing up super formally, playing my father’s puppet, is considered the worst thing,” she admitted. “I don’t particularly like getting dressed up, and I really don’t like putting on a show.”
“Why do you do it?” I wondered.
Her head tilted.
“Have you ever been to prison?” she asked sweetly.
Crockett came over with our burgers and fries and placed them down in front of us. They looked delicious, and I was kind of kicking myself for never taking the time to stop by here before now.
“Thank you,” I said softly to Crockett.
She nodded and walked back to the grill, likely taking the time to box the other dinner up.
My lips turned up as I replied to her earlier question. “Nope, have you?”
She pursed her lips. “Does being in the back of a cop car count as prison?”
I chuckled as I shoved my face full of one of the best burgers that I’d ever had.
“No,” I said around a bite. “But go ahead and tell me what you did anyway. You have me curious.”
She ripped open several ketchup packets that were in a basket in the middle of the table, drizzling them all over the top of the fries instead of a nice, tidy pile on the side of her plate that she could dip them into. I should’ve known that she’d be that kind of person.
“When I was six, I decided that I really wanted a cat. But my father wouldn’t let me have one. So I decided that the best thing to do was go into my neighbor’s house and steal hers,” I said. “The neighbor called the cops because she didn’t know that it was just a kid that’d gone into her house. When I came outside with the cat, there were about ten guns pointed at me. And, apparently, when my father was told what happened, he told them to arrest me,” she explained.
My mouth went dry as she told me that story.
“They pointed their guns at you?” I asked for clarification, suddenly very angry. And very perturbed at the thought of this beautiful woman, child or not, having a loaded weapon pointed at her for any reason.
“Yep,” she confirmed. “They thought that I was an intruder. I was. I’m not mad.”
“I am,” he said. “You don’t point guns at a child. I don’t care if they think it’s an intruder or not.”
