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“What’s up?” Her cheeks, her lips, were pinched.
And he felt like a heel for upsetting her.
“You should have let me know you had tickets to the matinee.” He’d toned down the potentially threatening tone. Had a lot of practice doing so. His voice, as low as it was, had a tendency to scare people.
Something he’d learned while he was still in high school and had been called to the principal’s office for allegedly trying to intimidate a teacher—after which he’d learned to keep his mouth shut as often as possible.
“I didn’t have tickets to the matinee,” she said, frowning. Grabbing her purse, she moved it to the drawer at the bottom of her desk where she normally kept it, locking it in. She looped her apron over her head, giving it a yank when it got stuck on her ponytail. Dropped the desk keys into the pocket. She sat. And then stood. “Burton and I went for a short drive and shared an avocado sandwich.”
Freshly made that morning, he translated. By Marie. For sale at her shop with the rest of the organic lunch options on her limited menu.
“And before you say anything else, Eva wasn’t supposed to be alone. Sam was here. He just left because his mother called saying his son had a fever. They called me and I came straight back.”
She’d seen Burton for lunch. A change in their routine. Could indicate a change in the relationship from casual to more serious.
The tightening in Elliott’s stomach was as unexpected as it was uncomfortable. Emotion swirled within him. Negative emotion. Not warning signals. Not a sense of imminent danger.
He sat. And so did Marie.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d stick to the high-security protocol for at least a few more days,” he said.
She nodded. Looking straight at him, but for once the warm look in those big brown eyes was absent. Her gaze was almost vacant.
As if she was looking past him.
He’d grown accustomed to the compassionate openness she’d shown him since the first night they met.
“Have I done something to displease you?” he asked. Hoping that his tone of voice hadn’t put her off. He’d had no business being...
Jealous.
“No, of course not.” she said, appearing to focus on him now. “If anything I was beginning to think I’d scared you away,” she said with that unique openness of hers.
Such an incongruent woman, she was. Open and sharing and giving everything of herself. And trusting no man with her heart. No wonder her mother worried about her.
She was the type of woman people took advantage of.
“I don’t scare,” he said. “But just for full disclosure, what do you think you’d done that I’d find distasteful?”
He’d eased down in his seat and rested an ankle over his knee. And she still had to look
up to meet him eye-to-eye.
“All that nonsense about thinking Liam would be unfaithful to Gabi. And giving you my disastrous love life history...”
He’d already known about the ex-boyfriends. Marie’s past relationships had fed Barbara’s own fears about her bighearted daughter following in her footsteps. Her “disastrous” love life, as she’d just described, was a big part of the reason Barbara had felt compelled to hire a private investigator bodyguard when Marie called to say that she was investing her savings to go into business with Liam Connelly and, with Gabrielle, purchase the historic Arapahoe.
“How could I possibly think less of you for caring about your friends? Or for the fact that the men in your life have treated you shabbily? If anything, I was impressed by the way you handled the Jimmy Jones situation.”
Barbara hadn’t told him about that one. Maybe, with the whole thing happening so quickly, Marie had opted not to tell her mother about the debacle. A shame, really. It would have done Barbara good to know that her daughter had been able to see through the man and then take care of herself quite effectively.
He’d have lingered awhile, curious about what else she might have to say, but Eva buzzed her, letting her know they had a line out front.
Reminding her that they were on high-security protocol, Elliott watched her all the way to the front of the store and then let himself out the back.
* * *
SHE DIDN’T HAVE to make a trip to the members-only bulk store that exact night. Marie bought enough in advance to always have extra supplies on hand. But she’d opened her last case of organic chips and the store had a coupon special on them. She also wanted a new air purifier for the apartment and those were on sale, too. Ben Schumann, the seventy-seven-year-old who, with his wife, Matilda, lived on the second floor with her, had been smoking in the hallway again and the stench was beginning to permeate her apartment and was driving her crazy.
