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I arched a brow at him. “MaryCat?”
He winked. “Mary Catherine’s too big of a mouthful between husband and wife.”
And with that, he left me to go and pay.
7
DIGGER
WasI the Grinch in thinking it was too early for “Jingle Bells” to be playing as I walked toward the desk?
“Fucking Christmas,” I muttered to myself.
I hated this time of the year.
Blowing out a breath as “Deck the Halls”graced my ears next, I was grateful the line wasn’t that long. But it was long enough that I figured it gave her sufficient time for my words to resonate, and for me to ask myself if I was a goddamn lunatic or not.
Anyone who knew me would probably say they already had the answer to that without this attempt at playing knight in shining armor, but even though I was only getting myself into a whole world of shit, I didn’t feel that cut up about it.
What was marriage nowadays? Not worth more than the piece of fucking paper that we’d sign our names to after the ceremony, that was what.
We’d get married, her father would lose his shit, we could avert a war or trigger one, and then we could get divorced.
Simple.
Either way, it’d end up without her getting raped and trapped into marrying her rapist.
My temper surged at the thought, and Marley Sue, a girl I’d gone to school with, winced. “Jeez, Digger, you look mean.”
I blinked at her. “Sorry.”
She sniffed and her head bobbed, making the dancing Santas on her earrings sway with the move. “Not like you to say sorry. Is this the day of the rapture and no one told me?”
“Like I’d be the one in the know about that,” I retorted with a snort. “I’m four.”
“A four? More like a ten.”
I jerked my thumb at the pump. “Four.”
Her cheeks burned with heat. “Oh. Four. Understood.”
She rang up the bill, and I tossed a pack of gum on the counter and dragged out a stick for me to start chewing.
After paying my tab, I snagged my cell phone, saw I had a couple messages, and calculated the likelihood that my absence would be noticed by Rex. With Storm out of it, the likelihood was high.
A quick scan of Google Maps confirmed what I already knew—a forty-hour, one-way trip to Las Vegas was in my future. That prissy little cat out there’s future as well.
My lips quirked as I thought about how her ass was about to ache from a ride that long before I accepted thatmyass was definitely about to be missed if I was away for ten days.
Deciding that it was easier to say sorry than to ask for permission that could be denied, I headed onto the forecourt, which was when I saw the bastard.
He came running off Main Street like he had an enraged German Shepherd chasing him, and he collided with an old woman who shrieked at the point of collision and cried out as she went down.
“Digger!” MaryCat screamed.
Recognizing the victim and noticing that MaryCat was already heading over to Mrs. K, I urged her to: “Call 911.”
Then I took off after the asshole who thought it was okay to steal an old woman’s purse that probably had nothing more than a tin of Altoids and a couple bucks in it.
