“I’m sure she will.”
Turning away from the counter, I smile for Troy ‘Romeo’ Rosa – Abigail’s oldest brother – and smother my laugh when he walks with a limp.
Not so long ago, that giant mountain of overprotective muscle was shot in the ass – the perks of the job he’s chosen – and now, he walks funny. And that walk, the hitch in his step, and the growling that comes with it, makes me happier than it should.
Though of course, I know better than to laugh about it to his face. I’m man enough to admit he’s bigger than me, badder, and if licenses to kill were a thing, I’m certain he has one.
“Romeo.”
He narrows his eyes and watches me approach. “Devil. Whose life are you trying to infiltrate and destroy from the inside?”
“Troy!” Abigail’s exasperated voice cuts through. “Quit being rude.”
“One special lady,” I answer anyway. “I think maybe she got me stuck.”
“Good,” he grunts out. “Getting stuck is fun. Now go away before my sister’s shop spontaneously explodes.”
I bark out a laugh and head toward the front door. “Ya know, that wasn’t me.”
“What wasn’t you?” Abigail asks as Romeo meets his sister at the counter.
“Everyone around here says something about explosions whenever me and my brother are around.” I stop at the front door and turn back to meet her eyes. “They especially reference the pet food factory explosion.”
“That wasn’t you?” Abby narrows her eyes. “That’s not what everyone else says.”
I grab the door handle and pull it open. “That’s what I’m saying. I know what the rumors are. But seeing as I was there that night, I also know who actually blew the place up. And it sure as shit wasn’t me.” Then I do some kind of weird half-bow. “Good morrow.”
Romeo snorts. “Good morrow, you fuckin’ weirdo. And until you hand over the factory explosion culprit, we won’t change our opinion or the rumors on who did it. Just so you know.”
I shrug just before the door closes again. “In my family, we know what happens to snitches. See ya.” I lift a hand to wave goodbye, then stepping onto the sidewalk, I head toward Ally’s hotel and forgo my truck… though fifty or so steps later, when people stare at the flowers in my hands, I regret that decision and make a mad dash back to get my ride.
The beauty of living in a small town is that everything is within walking distance. It could take five minutes to walk, or, at the most, an hour, if you’re going from one end to the very, very other. But most trips take ten, maybe twenty minutes, and with Ally staying in a hotel just a few short blocks from Main Street, it doesn’t take long at all to travel the distance from the florist to the front entrance of the historical building that boasts a presidential suite – though I can say with almost a hundred percent confidence that a president has never ever stayed in there, unless of course, we count the president of the local chess club.
The front doors are double wide, thick glass, and have that mirrored effect so when you’re outside, you can’t see in. But when you’re inside, you see who’s approaching.
Unfortunately for me.
I push through the glass door with a smile creeping along my face, only to stop again and jolt when that dude, that same fucking dude from this morning, looks up and smiles from his vantage point on an ‘old boys club’ leather couch in front of the unlit fireplace.
This building may once have belonged to a single rich family, because if you look past the numbers that are now on each door, and look past the glass window that leads into an office space, a guy can really see the home underneath. The coat room, and the front foyer. The hall that leads toward what I assume is the kitchen, and then the sprawling set of stairs that leads up. Most of all, I see the sitting parlor, the fireplace, the silver drinks tray strategically left out for guests to help themselves.
And I see Jason, the guy who maybe likes looking at my girl.
He reads an oversized newspaper – not the local paper, since ours is much smaller – but something that overflows the sides of his lap and droops down to touch his thighs. He sits in black pants much like mine, and a button-up… sort of like mine. Except instead of looking uncomfortable the way I feel, he looks like he’s been dressed that way all day. Comfortable, unruffled.
He glances up and meets my eyes when I stop in the doorway, then his gaze tracks to the bouquet in my hands, and his brows arch up. “Quite the display you have there, Mr…”
When I say nothing, he refolds his paper and pushes to his feet without a single care in the world.
Meandering across the room and stopping just a couple of feet away from me, he digs both hands into his pockets, and rocks back on his heels. It’s like he’s impervious to the venom in my glare. “You’re not gonna tell me your name?”
“You act like you don’t know.” I crush the flower stems in my hand, but I try – I really, really do – to calm myself and breathe through what I think is a strange dude trying to lay claim over a beautiful woman he doesn’t even know.
But then I remember that I was also a guy… laying claim on a beautiful woman I didn’t even know.
“Luke Hart.” I try to relax my jaw, but it ain’t happening. I try not to squeeze his hand… but when I offer, and he takes it, there’s not a hell of a lot I can do about the adrenaline zinging through my blood.
“Jason Donnerson. Pretty flowers.”
“For someone very special to me. Why do you insist on being seen?”
The second I release his hand, he flexes it and drops it back into his pocket. “How do you mean?”
“I mean you turn up to town, you smile for my girl, then you purposely make yourself seen when I’m walking through. Why do you want me to notice you?”
“Maybe I don’t.” He swallows, but hides that show of nerves with a smile. “Maybe I want her to notice me. Maybe I think she’s beautiful too.”
“And you think it’s smart telling me that? Do you think the fact I haven’t already smacked you down is a sign of weakness?”
“I don’t know.” His eyes continue to come back to the flowers. “It’s either weakness, in that you can’t protect what you call yours, or it’s discipline and a lengthy rap sheet that says if you fight some more this year, you’re going to get your ass tossed into jail.”
“Listen here, asswipe.” I push forward until we stand toe to toe, and the flowers crush between us. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, and I don’t know where you came from, but you’re in my town now, and around here, we take care of our own. You’re not getting anywhere near her again. I’ll make fuckin’ sure of it.”
“Hey there.” Libby Tate is a local cop, married to a thug, related to a bunch of other thugs, and an all-around gym junkie – which is how I know her – and right now, she pushes through the hotel’s front doors to where Jason and I stand, and grabbing my arm, she uses her strength and steers me away from him. “Absolutely not, Hart. Move along.”
“Who the fuck is he, Lib?” I let her steer me to the stairs, and then up. “He’s scamming on Ally, and it’s giving me the fucking creeps.”