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“Where are you going?” Cade asked, eyeing me from his chair on the front porch as I walked out of the house.
Oh, God.
This felt like a repeat of the other night. Did I have to get security clearance every time I wanted to leave the house now? Even in the middle of the day?
“I have a hair appointment,” I said, smiling sweetly to hide my spark of annoyance. I knew he was just looking out for me, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful… but I was really starting to miss the time when my life had at least seemed a little more normal.
It was hard to believe that I would have even considered my day-to-day life a little boring just a few weeks ago.
Boring was definitely not a word I’d use to describe my days now, though.
“Surely, I can do that on my own, right?” I continued. I’d made the appointment on the spur of the moment after the sheriff had left. And honestly? I’d made the appointment knowing it was the one place in town where the men around here would probably let me go by myself. “Unless you and Boone want to sit there with me at the salon?”
“You know Boone and I would go through hell to spend a little more time with you, beautiful,” he said, then crinkled his nose. “But, uh… I think we might look a little out of place if we went with you to the salon. Your friends aren’t going with you, though?”
I shrugged. “I asked, but they both wanted to stay around here this afternoon.”
And okay. So that might have been a little white lie. I hadn’t exactly asked them if they wanted to tag along, but whatever. This wasn’t exactly going to be a social trip anyway, if it worked out the way I was hoping.
Cade looked a little skeptical for a second—God, I really wasn’t a very good liar. Could he tell? Was I being that obvious? Finally, though, he shrugged and tossed me a wink. “You’ve got your phone in case you need anything, right?”
I held up my purse. “Right in here. I’ll be fine, though. Just going to the salon and back. You won’t even miss me.”
“I already miss you,” he said, grinning. “But okay. Be careful and call if anything seems weird.”
I gave him a mock salute and turned to walk toward my car. I didn’t feel great about leaving out some of the details of my trip, but Cade and Boone wouldn’t have understood. They would have just tried to talk me out of going.
Because I wasn’t the only one who had a hair appointment in town today. As long as her old routine hadn’t changed too much, there was one woman in particular who I planned on accidentally running into.
And then, hopefully, I could start to get some answers.
From across the parking lot in my car, I could see through the big floor-to-ceiling window of the salon.
And yep, she was there.
Nora.
I could feel my stomach start to knot and my blood pressure start to rise just from looking at her. I wasn’t normally a violent person at all, but I’d had enough interactions with Nora over the past year to realize that it was probably best for both of us if we weren’t in a confined area together for too long.
But just once, I really wouldn’t mind kicking her ass.
I took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. There wouldn’t be any ass kicking today, though. That wasn’t what I was there for—even if it probably would have felt really good for at least a little while.
One more deep breath and I was out of the car, walking toward the salon door with just one objective in mind. I needed to hear Nora’s story for myself. I just wanted a few minutes and a chance to look her in the eye, to see for myself whether or not she was lying.
She might be able to sweet-talk Logan and the sheriff and even Derek Winslow. But she wasn’t going to sweet-talk me. I could see right through her, and I knew her smile was as fake as her tan.
I waved to Linda, the hairdresser, when I walked in.
“Hey girl,” she said, waving back. “Just have a seat and I’ll be with you in a bit, okay?”
Perfect.
I couldn’t help but smile. Everything was going to plan so far. And even without looking over, I could feel Nora’s eyes on me. When I finally did make eye contact, it was because I’d walked by all of the other empty chairs in the waiting area to sit in the one right next to her.
Was it wrong that I got a little bit of satisfaction from the way she frowned when I sat down?
I smiled, knowing it was too big and sweet to be believable. Not that I cared. “Nora, I didn’t expect to see you here today. What a coincidence.”
