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“First of all, Cara, Mason does those procedures first thing in the morning.” She leveled a stare at the bimbo. “And not only does neutering a cat only take about fifteen minutes—a female cat gets spayed, not neutered. When lying through your teeth, it’s a good idea to know some basic facts.”
Cara’s lips puckered open and shut. The fishy face matched the fishy story.
“Fine.” Cara sighed, as if talking to Andie was an enormous pain in the butt. “He’s not here right now and I didn’t want you hanging around until he gets back. Sue me for not liking you.”
The bitch was still lying about Mason. His truck was around back, its rear end visible from the front lot to anyone who cared to look. Andie issued Cara the middle finger and marched straight to Mason’s office. The knob rattled in her hand. Locked door.
“I told you, he’s not here,” Cara said from beside her.
“His truck is here.”
“He went for a walk. Said he needed the fresh air after the day he’s had.”
Finally, a sensible answer. “You could’ve said that from the start. Mason’s not going to be happy about the hard time you gave me.” And yes, she was totally tattling later. For now, though, she just wanted to find him. Do whatever she could to make his day less crappy. She fished her phone from her purse and tapped his number while moving toward the front door.
The ringing stopped her cold.
One of the sweet, romantic things Mason had done was personalize his cell for her calls. Not a generic ringtone that could come from anybody’s phone—a snippet of a song he’d said reminded him of her. One he’d played while dancing with her in his living room. One he’d sang in her ear, late at night while lying in bed. For several seconds, those sweet, meaningful lyrics filled the air.
On her end, the call went to voice mail. She looked from his closed office door to Cara. The girl’s eyes were wide, her mouth open in the shape of an O. Andie hit redial. This time, silence from Mason’s office. Still no answer on the line. Her heart sank as Cara’s lips curled upward in a smug smile.
In the parking lot, she slumped over the steering wheel. Questions and scenarios knocked around in her brain. If his phone had rung with the second call, and if Cara hadn’t looked so guilty, Andie would’ve thought he’d simply forgotten his cell before going out. She wanted that to be true. God, she wanted it to be true. For Cara to be a conniving, jealous twit and Mason to be out taking a much-needed break. But it didn’t mesh with the evidence, or with the pang of doom in her stomach.
She’d barely settled in to her surveillance spot up the street when Mason drove away from the clinic. She started the car, put it in gear. What the hell was she doing? The problem with falling crazy in love with somebody—it made you crazy. Whatever was going on with him, whatever caused him to lie and avoid her…she wouldn’t let it turn her into a psycho girlfriend. Too much.
She engaged the parking break and hit send on his cell number again. Yes, that was a little bit psycho, but at least she wasn’t tailing him right now. Weaving lane to lane and staying two car lengths behind to avoid detection. She had complete control over her urges. Uh-huh.
Still no answer. His deep voice instructed her to leave a message. This time, she did.
“Hi, it’s me. I stopped by your office to check on you, but you were,” she bit her tongue, for now, “out for a walk. Call me when you get a chance. I have some things to tell you.” There, a crazy-free message. One he’d reply to as soon as he got home, with an explanation and a huge apology. She hoped.
Chapter Sixteen
MASON
“You shit-for-brains dickwad coward.” A girly slap in the face followed, courtesy of Andie’s best friend.
The guys around Mason roared. A couple wolf-whistled, because hell, Lasha was as hot as she was feisty. Black leather covered the essential areas and not much more. Long legs ended in wicked high heels. She had chin-length dark hair that would’ve been cute on another woman, but combined with her shocking pink lips and heavily made-up eyes, looked the furthest thing from it.
Not his type, but he got why his teammates had their tongues on the floor. The fact that she had her arm around another smokin’ hotfemaleonly added to the appeal.
“I’ll take whatever you’re dishing…” Mason rose from his seat on the patio. Nodded outside the gated-off area. “But let’s do it away from the crowd.”
“Why? You don’t want your little baseball buddies to hear what a prick you are?”
More hooting from the table.
He leaned into her space to answer, rather than raise his voice. “Actually, I had Andie’s privacy in mind.” Yeah, that took Lasha down a peg or two.
She recovered quickly enough, kissing the redhead full on the lips in front of a table full of guys hopped up on beer and testosterone. “Baby, I need a couple minutes with this douche of an excuse for a man.”
“I’ll keep his seat warm,” Red said, sliding into the vacant spot and smiling demurely at the men.
Nobody at that table would give a shit about anything he and Lasha discussed now.
“I hate sadistic players like you.” One pointy finger jabbed at his chest, over and over. “Andie wasn’t looking for something serious. She wanted to keep things casual. But it was more fun to fuck with her head and her heart, wasn’t it? To convince her that you love her, that you wanted to be part of her life, to have a,” Lasha’s fingers made air quotes, “real relationship. Then, once you had her head over heels for you, willing to do anything, risk everything, you drop her stuff on the doorstep and dump her with a note. You total piece of shit.”
Yeah, it’d been a brutal way to end things. If he’d had to see Andie’s face, or even hear her voice, he couldn’t have done it. Lasha was right, he was a coward. And a piece of shit. But he was not a player. Not with Andie. Lasha had that part all wrong.
