“Wait,” I called out just as the door snapped shut.
“I know you struggle with maintaining personal boundaries in confined spaces, but I’m not about to attack you, Mac Daddy.”
“No, no, no,” I murmured, rushing past Brady and pushing futilely on the door. “Shit,” I said, giving it a final kick before I spun around to face the man responsible for locking us in the shed after hours.
He let go of the cart handle and straightened. “What?”
I gestured to the door. “We’re trapped!”
This couldn’t be happening. I patted the pockets of my jeans and my coat despite knowing damn well my phone was back in the booth where I’d stowed it after seeing Brady’s stupid Chatter post.
My gaze locked on the reason for this ridiculous turn of events, and my breathing went decidedly dragon-like.
“Why would we be trapped? Who locks a shed from the outside?” Brady marched to my side of the building and pushed fruitlessly.
“We put the lock on after that incident with the naked family. Didn’t you see me type in the code?” I gritted out.
My anger and annoyance were mixing with panic, but I forced myself to relax my jaw.
While Brady examined the latch, I blurted, “Your phone! Where’s your phone? We can call for help.”
“It’s in my truck,” he mumbled, still facing away from me.
Hope died a quick death. “Why would you leave it in your truck?”
He turned to look at me over his shoulder. “Because I knew I would be talking to William. I don’t like to be distracted by my phone. I thought I’d be right back. What about you? Where’s your phone?”
“I wasworking,” I replied with a healthy dose of sass, even though I regularly checked my phone while I was on shift. Brady didn’t need to know that. “It’s in the booth.”
Brady placed his hands on his lean hips and stared off like he was thinking hard. “Okay, so we’ll make some noise. Someone is bound to hear us.”
I was already shaking my head. “No, they won’t. I watched everybody leave for the night. I was the last one here. No one knows to come looking for us. Unless Joan was expecting you back?”
Brady bit his lip, and my eyes tracked the movement. “No,” he finally said. “She was going to come over in the morning. I thought I’d try to catch William before he left for the day. I didn’t tell Joan I was picking the part up for her tonight.”
That information made me pause. “Why would you do that?”
He started going through the storage shelves along the wall and replied over his shoulder, “I’m a good brother. I do stuff for my sisters all the time.”
My gaze narrowed. He was being shifty, not looking my way, not cracking a joke or smiling. Why had he really come over to Grandpappy’s tonight, unprompted and of his own volition?
Brady peeked at me over his shoulder before shuffling items in the overhead cabinet.
Holy shit. Did he—he wouldn’t have shown up out of the blue on some fake errand for his sister just so he could see me ... right?
Right?!
My mind spun with the possibility that I’d been the reason for this little visit. Yes, I’d been avoiding Brady. But I’d assumed we’d been in the same boat—the avoidance boat. Then I recalled the night of the pumpkin-painting event and how he’d approached me and talked to me.
Maybe he wasn’t trying to forget what had happened between us, after all.
This wasn’t really the time or place to be speculating about Brady Judd’s motivations. We were, in all likelihood, trapped in this shed for the night—until someone showed up for their shift in the morning and came to get the garden carts. I couldn’t start freaking out about this. We were stuck.
Shit.
I rubbed a hand over my face.
“What about your family?” Brady asked, and I looked up. “Won’t someone notice you’re missing?”
