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He grunted. “You know him well?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you call him?”
“Because my phone died.” She started to feel her breasts.
“Jesus, girl. What are you doing?” he asked in alarm.
“I’m just getting my phone out.” She showed it to him.
“You keep it in your boobs?”
“This stupid dress doesn’t have pockets.”
“Pumpkins don’t usually have pockets,” he commented.
“What?”
“Aren’t you dressed as a pumpkin?”
“Noo,” she wailed, sniffing as tears dripped down her cheeks.
“Jeez, girl. Don’t cry. You don’t look like a pumpkin. More of a squash.”
She continued to cry.
“A peach? Apricot? Help me out here.”
“I was . . . I was a bridesmaid.”
“Oh.” He winced. “Bride didn’t like you?”
“H-hates me.”
“You’ve had a tough time, huh, girl?”
“Y-yeah.” She wiped at her cheeks. “Lara.”
“What?”
“My name is Lara.”
“Right.”
She waited for him to tell her what his name was. But he didn’t say anything.
“What’s your name?”
“Oh, Renard. Name’s Renard.”
“Thanks for stopping to help me, Renard. A lot of people wouldn’t.”
“A lot of people are jerks.”
“They sure are,” she agreed. They reached the outskirts of Haven. “Can you drop me off in the middle of town? If that’s okay?”
“You’re going to the doctor, girl.”
“I really don’t need to.”
“You’re a stubborn brat,” he murmured. “You were mine, I wouldn’t let you away with that.”
That sounded so much like what Butch would say. A pang of longing filled her. Had he gotten her text? Was he wondering where she was? Would he come looking for her only to find she’d disappeared?
“Could you please just drop me off in town?” Maybe she could find somewhere that would have a charger for her phone. Perhaps the library? Except . . . shit, it was Sunday.
“No time to go driving you places, girl. Not a damn chauffeur.”
She raised her eyebrows. Just before he’d been insisting on driving her to the doctor. He ran hot and cold.
“Um, okay. Then where are we going?” She hated the thought of putting him out.
“You’ll come to work with me. The restaurant opens evenings on Sundays, and I’ve got to start prep work. Already late.”
She cringed.
Yep, the guilt was riding her hard.
“Maybe I can help you,” she offered.
“You can cook, girl?”
“Uh, no. I can chop things, though. I’m a great chopper.”
He grunted. “We’ll see.”
They pulled into the driveway and parked outside a two-story clapboard building that looked like it had once been a house and was now a restaurant.
He got out, then came around to get her. She let him help her down. He unlocked the back door, and they stepped into a large industrial kitchen. It had a small table in the middle, and he gestured her to it.
“Sit down, girl, before you fall.”
“Are there any jobs here?” she asked in a raspy voice. She was grateful to sit again. The room was swimming.
A glass of water was set down in front of her, and she gulped it down gratefully.
“You don’t want to work here, girl.”
“Why not?”
“Because the head chef is a tyrant.”
“Oh, I thought you were the head chef,” she said as he gave her an ice pack from the freezer.
“I am.”
What? He was calling himself a tyrant?
“Keep that on your face. Stay there. Do not move.” He shot her a stern look as he walked into a back room.
She thought about taking off. But where would she go? At least here she could sit out of the sun and drink water. Moving to the sink, she refilled her glass.
“Didn’t I say to stay put?” he snapped.
She cried out and dropped the glass. Luckily, it didn’t break.
Turning, she saw a flash of regret on his face.
“Sorry, girl. Didn’t mean to scare you. Sit.”
She moved back to her seat, and he got her another glass of water and one of juice.
He really was a lovely man.
Where the hell was she?
Butch paced back and forth in the hospital’s waiting room of the hospital as he tried to call her again.
Straight to voicemail. He’d already left three voice messages, countless text messages ,and he’d called the hotel three times.
They said she must have left some time this morning, but that she hadn’t been back. Her phone was obviously dead. And he had no other way of finding her.
But surely she hadn’t gone far. She didn’t have a vehicle. All her stuff was at his place. But that made him worry more, as she likely had no money or her phone charger.
Fuck. Why hadn’t he taken her with him to get Tanner? Why the hell hadn’t he made it clear how he felt about her? He should have glued her to his side and told her that she wasn’t leaving. That she was going nowhere without him again.
Yeah, that sounded perfect.
“All your pacing is giving me a sore neck,” Tanner complained.
“Then don’t watch,” he snapped back. “This is your fault.”
“What? What is?”
“He can’t find Lara,” Raid said.
“Who’s Lara?” Beau asked, looking up from his phone with interest. Maddox just watched him quietly.
