Hands on his hips, Remmy looked down at his feet, shifted his stance, groused something low that she couldn’t quite hear, then lifted his head and locked her in his brown-eyed stare. “The thing is, Jodi, it’d be better if I was with you.”
New, uneasy tingles sizzled along her nerve endings, making the troubled awareness spark hotter. “Uh-huh. Why’s that?”
This time his grumbled “Fuck” reached her loud and clear.
She was about to insist on some answers when Worth came creeping around the corner, his cagey gaze scuttling back and forth between them.
Remmy was not pleased to see him.
Lifting his thick chin to prove he didn’t care, Worth tried a smile that didn’t look too convincing.
Now what was going on?
Shoving his hands into his dress-pants pockets, Worth nodded at her. “Good, you’re still here.”
“Did you think I’d left my truck and mower behind?” Both were at the curb on the street, more than noticeable in the quiet town.
“Ah...” He verbally tripped, then rallied. “Guess I wasn’t paying attention.”
Yet he knew to look for her back here? Crazy as it seemed, she took pity on him. “So, what’s up?”
“I wondered if you would change the contract. Back to cutting my lot, I mean.” His smile wouldn’t fool anyone. “Now that we’ve worked out our differences.”
Was that what they’d done? Jodi glanced at Remmy and caught him giving Worth a lethal glare that should have incinerated him. Man, she knew her stare was good, but his wasn’t too shabby either.
“Sure, Mr. Linlow. No problem.” At that point, Jodi knew her best bet was to get going.
“Call me Worth.”
No, she wouldn’t. “You keep paying and I’ll keep maintaining.” Hefting her blower and a heavy lawn bag packed full of trimmings, she walked away. Behind her, she heard a low argument that ended with Remmy jogging to catch up with her.
She kept going anyway. Luckily, her truck wasn’t that far away, so she tossed in the bag of debris and dug out her mower keys to load it.
“We didn’t finish our conversation.”
“Pretty sure we did.” Jodi eyed him askance while climbing onto her mower. Now that they were out front on the main street where anyone could see them, those twice-cursed nerves evaporated. Here, in the open, she was safer.
Isolated away from witnesses, like while at the back of the building, anything could have happened.
She knew that only too well.
It wasn’t cowardly to be worried, she promised herself. As Reyes had told her many times, only an idiot wouldn’t be. Not that Reyes would have worried. He and his family—sort of her family, too—were brave and brazen, confident in ways she could only pretend to be.
“Jodi.” Remmy stepped too close. “Can I tell King that you’re considering the work?”
Disliking the way he said her name—with familiarity and...something more, something smooth and warm, meant to soften her—she stuck the key in the ignition.
He sighed and eased back.
Yeah, he expected her to start the mower, and that had been her intent. Just to be contrary, she changed her mind. “I don’t really know what the work is—unless you want to give me an address after all.”
Appearing heartened by that reply, he relaxed. “Ten acres. Besides the detailed landscaping for the house and driveway, there are a bunch of trees surrounding the yard that you’d have to trim around.”
“Sounds like a big job.”
Nodding, he said, “Would probably take you two days, at least. Unless you have a crew?”
The sun baked down on her. Sweat left her skin sticky. Damn it, she hated mysteries. Plus, she could use the pay. What better way to convince people she was self-sufficient than building up her landscaping business? Ignoring his question, she said, “Tell you what,” and hopped off the mower. Striding to her truck, she dug a pen and an old receipt from the console. “Give me the address and I’ll drive by to get an idea of it.”
He waffled way too long. “Just to take a look, right?”
That was concern she saw in his mellow brown eyes. Huh. “Can I even see it with all the trees?”
“From the driveway entrance you can. But don’t linger there.”
“Security cameras?”
One brow lifted. “Several.”
“Got it.” She waited until he wrote out the address. Then she tossed both the pen and the note back in her truck and turned away.
“I have your number off your truck.”
Yeah, a business line that took messages where she could either call back or not. “So?”
“Would you like my number as well?”
Ha. Jodi gave him a level look to let him know he was nuts. “Later, gator. I have work to do.”
“Jodi?”
With a big huff of impatience, she looked over her shoulder. Remmy was staring at Worth, who made no bones about watching them. “What?”
“Be careful, okay?”
She gave her best cocky grin. “Careful is my middle name.”
* * *
LONG BEFORE SHE RETURNED, Hunter was watching for her. That was a new habit of his. An annoying one. He was not Jodi’s protector.
He was a neighbor. And now a friend—or at least, he hoped so.
In some ways, yesterday had been a revelation. Jodi had friends-who-are-like-family who’d furnish her entire house for her. Wealthy, obviously. Given that they knew he’d been a park ranger, they also worried for her. Why else would they bother digging into his past?
The real kicker was how they’d so easily accessed her security cameras. There was no other way they could have known he was standing there.
Last night, he’d worried that they might have accessed his as well. He’d taken the time to change his passwords and codes, but in his gut, he figured it might not be enough. He’d bought good-quality devices—but he wasn’t on a par with people who could determine that he’d covered his digital footprint. How would they know that?
Who were these people—and what did they do?
Okay, so Jodi said she helped women. He could believe that. Given her larger-than-life attitude, you could tie a cape around her and she’d pass for a superhero. Helping others was legit—so why was she holed up here in Triple Creek, living alone in a tiny house in the middle of nowhere?
Memphis had done some digging of his own, and his brother was better than good, but he hadn’t found anything. The one time he’d spotted a lead, it miraculously disappeared. Memphis was impressed by that. Hunter was merely frustrated.