Terrific. He was familiar with her family name. “You've heard of my father's company?”
“I was a cop in New Orleans for a couple years. Detective for one. We…ran into your dad's…associates once in a while.”
She laughed. “You can say it. You ran into criminals who worked for or around my father.”
Zander just stood studying her for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. “Yeah. Your dad has some interesting friends.”
Caroline shook her head. “I know this probably sounds ridiculous, but those weren't his friends, and my dad didn't really know what he was getting into.”
“What do you—” Zander shook his head. “How about we go up to the B & B? We can keep talking but we might as well get you settled. I'd like to have you up there before anyone decides to come back for you. Are they coming from New Orleans?”
Yes,” she confirmed. “That was where my wedding was supposed to happen.”
“I’d love to know more about that too,” Zander said.
“Would you?” Caroline asked. “And why is that?”
“Well, now knowing that you’re Charles Holland's daughter, everything got even more interesting. But I was intrigued before.”
“Intrigued?”
“Absolutely. I love some good gossip. I can tell you all about what's going on with Jason and Vivian or Kelly and Brett.”
She was trying to get up into the truck with her huge stupid dress.
When he didn't say anything more, she looked up and realized that he seemed to be waiting for her to respond. She shook her head. “Sorry. I have no idea who Brett and Kelly or Jason and Vivian are.”
Zander sighed as he held a hand out toward to her. “Guess I'll just have to keep gossiping with my grandma.”
That distracted Caroline long enough that she put her hand in his without thinking.
She felt the connection like a jab of heat to her lower belly though and she quickly looked up into his eyes.
“Well, fuck,” he said softly.
She wasn’t sure what that was about. But she somehow knew that she didn’t want to ask.
He helped her up into the truck, even gathering her massive skirt and tucking it in around her on the truck seat. It felt stupidly considerate. Maybe even intimate. Almost as if he was tucking her into bed.
Caroline shook her head at that and forced herself to concentrate. She didn't need him taking care of her. That wasn't why she was here. She was here for assistance, sure, and him being a cop could be handy, but she didn't need him for anything personal. Well, unless you considered keeping her brother from pursuing a life of crime and her personal vendetta against nearly all of her father’s friends personal.
She cleared her throat. “So you're telling me you're a gossip?”
Zander tucked the final bit of shiny bejeweled fabric around her feet and then nodded. “Of course.”
“Are Kelly and Brett people from here in Autre?”
He laughed. “Country music singers.”
“Oh, so celebrity gossip, not local gossip. And here I was picturing you sitting around the coffee shop downtown with the little old ladies talking about who got caught sneaking out of whose house early this morning.”
“Oh, I definitely gossip about that stuff too. And this building right here”—He nodded toward the bar—“is one of the best places in town for it. Being a cop, it's pretty handy to keep my ears open and ask a lot of questions. Helps that I was born and raised here. People know I'm always up for a good story or tall tale. They forget that now some of that stuff can be incriminating.”
Caroline snorted. “Convenient.”
“Very.” He stepped back and slammed the truck door.
She watched him round the front of the truck and wondered what she was getting herself into. That had seemed like a warning. How much should she tell him?
Then she thought about the lion cub she'd surrendered inside the bar. She was in Autre because of Donovan Foster. She'd seen him on television recently and knew that he was doing wildlife rescues and rehabilitation right here in Louisiana. Social media had been blowing up with the news that he was starting a new TV show that was going to be filming right here in Autre. It made sense to bring the lion cub to an expert. She figured that if Donovan couldn't take care of it, he would know someone who could.
In any case, the lion cub was much better off here in Autre than it would've been with her fiancé, his family, or any of his friends. And now she needed to figure out a way to save the rest of the animals.
Zander climbed up into the truck and started the engine. She studied him as he pulled out onto the main road and turned north. They bumped along the dirt road for only about a mile before they pulled onto pavement.
“So we need to go over some realistic possibilities of where you might go.”
She looked over at him. “What do you mean?”
“If someone shows up here looking for you, we’re going to convince them you already left town. Where would you go?”
Oh, right. Were they going to come back looking for her? Yeah, it was really possible. How fucking annoying was that?
“How about you just say you don't know where I went? Why would I tell you that? You can tell them you gave me a ride back to New Orleans and dropped me at the airport,” she said.
“Do they have the ability to track things like you checking onto a flight?”
Dammit. She wouldn’t be able to do that without a credit card and her dad would know that.
“Okay, you tell them that you gave me some cash and the last time you saw me, I was at the gas station on the corner. You don't know anything about where I headed or who I went with.”
“That kinda makes me sound like an asshole. Why would I not be more concerned? Why would I not personally take you somewhere safe?”
She lifted a brow. “Just tell them that I insisted on not involving you.”
“I’m a cop, Caroline. I have an obligation to make sure people in distress are no longer in distress when I leave them.”
“They don’t know how I was when you left me.”
“After your run-in and the way I stepped in with Chris, I think ‘distressed’ is a good way to describe your emotional state.”
Caroline sighed. Running away from home as an adult should be easier than this. “Okay, you took me back inside the bar and got me something to eat. I went to the bathroom, and never came back out. As far as you know I snuck out the back door and disappeared. No one has to know any different.”
He thought that over. Then nodded. “Okay.”
She was a little surprised. “Do we need to set it up with everybody inside? Maybe actually go in and eat something? I can go to the bathroom and then sneak out the back. You can meet me later, but at least the people inside will have a real story then.”
He shook his head. “I'll tell them what to say. No big deal.”
“You're gonna tell everybody their story, and they're all going to stick to it and nobody will have any problem lying?”
“Pretty much.”
“How can you know that? You know every person inside?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I told you I'm related to most of them.”