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“Excuse me.”
She looked over her shoulder and saw a woman pushing a double stroller, trying to navigate it around the few tables outside the coffeeshop and Petra, standing like a post in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Oh, sorry.” She stepped out of the way and, from reflexive habit more than actual interest right now, smiled and waved at the toddler in one side of the stroller. A tiny infant slept in the other side.
That small interaction served to snap Petra out of her stupor. Her father had left. He didn’t want her help. He wanted her to focus on her own life. Well, she didn’t know how much focus she was capable of right now, but she had to get to the bar soon.
So she grabbed her keys from her bag and headed to her Volvo.
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~oOo~
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Looking back over thepast fifteen minutes, Petra could see every step that had brought her where she was now, but she still wasn’t quite sure how it had happened.
She’d pulled out of the garage under Mr. Vermeyer’s office and headed home, following the nav system, because she wasn’t that familiar with this part of Tulsa. As she approached the second stoplight—or maybe the third—the British woman who lived in her nav system suggested she turn there.
The street name called up a memory. A glance at the map showed her she was right. Without thinking more about it, she turned the opposite direction, which really did her nav’s crust in, so she stopped navigation and carried on alone.
Now she was parked in sight of Brian Delaney Auto Service. She didn’t know who Brian Delaney was, but the Brazen Bulls clubhouse was right next door, so she figured this was where they worked.
Until thirty seconds ago, she hadn’t known what she meant to do or if Jake was even working today, or what she thought he’d do if she suddenly showed up where he worked, like Act One of a true-crime documentary.
Now she still didn’t know what she meant to do, but she knew he was working. She was watching him clean the windshield of a Land Rover—a vehicle that seemed out of place in this neighborhood.
The station was bustling. There were four service bays, and they were all full. A few older men sat outside the door to the shop part, ensconced in plastic lawn chairs and drinking bottles of soda as they talked. A group of four kids flew through the lot on skateboards.
And Jake, dressed in a neat green uniform, his shoulder-length hair tied back, drew the squeegee across the shining glass.
She was close enough to see the muscles in his arms flex with each pass. And to remember how those arms felt around her.
This was so stupid. Why this impulse? What could that young man—she had to remember that he was younger than her—possibly do to make this terrible day better, let alone all the terrible things this day portended? Why on earth would she even consider burdening him with her baggage? Even if she never told him everything that was going on, she’d still burden him by simply needing him.
Needinghim? What the fuck? She didn’t need him. She didn’tknowhim.
No. This was extremely stupid. They’d had a great night together, but it had been no more than that. If she needed anyone, it was her friends. The people who knew and loved her.
She started the car again. In the intersection, she made a U-turn and headed to Gertrude’s where she belonged.
CHAPTER NINE
As Jay headed backinto the shop, a flash of light hit the corner of his eye, and he glanced over at the intersection—and then squinted against the glare of the setting sun bouncing off a windshield. In a shitty mood—his default the past few days—he very nearly flipped the car off for blinding him. But he cut the impulse off before it got him into trouble.
