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“Hey,” she whines.
“Look, you don’t have to answer any of our questions—but if you’re bringing trouble here, we need to know. Being engaged to a member of the presidential family is no fucking joke. Anyone follow you? Do you have a phone where you can be tracked?”
“Will you stop it.” She shifts and jumps off the chair. “God, forget it. I’ll figure something out.” She grabs her backpack and races out the door.
Fuck.
My body reacts in a need to go after her, but I’m glued to my seat. That’s not who I am. I don’t chase women. Even if they are on the verge of tears.
Especially when they’re on the verge of tears.
But when I turn back, I find my family glaring at me outside the kitchen door.
“What? You can’t tell me you don’t agree with me.”
“I do,” Noah says, sticking his cell in his back pocket. “I just got off the phone with a friend of mine in D.C.” He holds up his hands. “I didn’t tell him she’s here, but Pepper running off is causing turmoil, and they’re definitely coming for her. It won’t be long until someone figures out she’s not an Upper East Side girl from New York and our town and Pepper will be plastered in negative news for weeks, which will take years to recover from.”
Dad scratches his chin. “That’s not what we’re about. We can’t abandon her. Pepper came here looking for help. She feels at home here.” He shakes his head. “You boys disappoint me.”
The door bell chimes and Bethany walks in. “Hey, Boss. Sorry I’m late. The cats were crazy this morning.”
“No worries, Bee,” he calls. “Probably best you weren’t here for all that,” he mutters to us then goes behind the bar.
Levy turns to me. “She couldn’t have gone far.”
With a head shake, I grab my helmet and step out onto the sidewalk, looking in both directions. I find Pepper speed-walking in that city-girl way down Crest Lane.
I’m about to call her when she freezes and tucks herself behind a building wall. The hell?
When I look across the street, I see Angela White and the Kane sisters. The Kane sisters now own a beauty shop on Third. We went to high school with them. They were part of the in-crowd—part of the Pepper Woods crowd.
Now she’s cowering away from them like a bullied high school kid.
“Pepper.”
She snaps her head back. “What?”
“Can we talk?”
“No. Don’t worry, I’m getting out of your pretty hair and your perfect little town.” She quickly swipes at tears she doesn’t want anyone to see and turns in the other direction.
I curse. “Why me?”
I jog back to the alley behind the Inn and hop on my bike. Making a mental note to tell Dad to pick another Reeves who has time for Pepper’s drama.
Starting my engine, I catch a glimpse of where she ran off to and rationalize with myself. “I’m not chasing…I was going that way anyway.”
I round the corner on my bike and spot her on the move halfway down the lane, a few blocks shy of Hideaway Lake. Locals glance her way while others just stop and stare.
I catch a glimpse of panic flicker across her face before she lifts her hoodie over her head.
I ride up beside her and hand her my helmet. “Hop on. I’ll take you wherever you’re headin’”
Glancing around, she considers her options. “In this skirt?”
I rev up my engine. “Suit yourself.”
“Wait.”
