She gifted me with a smile then, and I reluctantly let go of her neck.
“Anytime, anywhere. I’ll go with you. They’re open Monday through Saturday, eight in the morning until midnight,” she promised.
And it really was a promise.
“What about the potato salad?” I asked then, heading into the kitchen to grab her a bottle of water.
“Costco,” she admitted.
“Holy fuck.” I shook my head, not able to help myself. “Do I even know you?”
She giggled and I turned around just in time to see her eyes fixed on my lower half.
Or where my ass was at one point.
Her eyes lifted and she blushed.
This feeling slid through me. One of excitement, curiosity, and wonder.
What would it be like to have her as my own?
“Here,” I said gruffly, handing her the bottle of water. “Are you hungry?”
She pursed her lips. “Yeah.”
“And what do you want?” I asked. “I can order Chinese. Or pizza. I’d have to go get everything else. But I’m not really willing to leave you by yourself at this point.”
She looked at me sadly. “I hate to tell you this, but while you were in prison, they created this thing called DoorDash. They deliver any food, from anywhere, for a price. Even Moe’s and Wiggles delivers.”
Wiggles was the bar in town. Their food was absolute shit. But when you were drunk… well, then it was fairly decent cuisine.
But Moe’s…
“Moe’s sounds good,” I said. “You figure out the DoorDash thing. You know what I want. I’m going to go out and call a friend. Tell him what happened tonight and see if he can figure out anything.”
She gave me a thumbs-up and I left while she was fiddling with her phone.
On my back deck, the waves were loud.
But I called Wake anyway.
Wake was a friend that I’d met in prison, which, funny enough, had already lived in my hometown before we’d met. Upon bonding with our hometown in common, we’d become the type of friends that would watch each other’s backs while we were on the inside.
And eventually, he became the person that I trusted the most.
Not even my dad held that honored spot anymore.
“Bain, what’s up?” Wake asked as he answered.
“I have a situation,” I admitted. “You got a second?”
There was a muffled sound as I heard him say something—likely to his wife—then a sound of movement before I heard a door open and close. Seconds later, he said, “All right. I’m outside. What’s up?”
I told him everything that had happened from the beginning. Including the wallet that I now utilized.
“Do you think she’s safe at home?” he asked after I was through explaining.
“No,” I answered. “But I’m not sure that she’s safe here, either. She gave him my name. If his wallet is that important to him, then he’ll find me. Everyone knows me here.”
Wake was rich. I was rich rich.
As in, money that my parents had made, paired with money that my grandparents made and their grandparents made, meant that I had so much money that even people in other towns recognized the name.
It wasn’t a secret where I lived and if Bart tried hard enough, it would take him all of twenty seconds to find out where that was.
And, inevitably, where Luce was, too.
“I have that security guy that I just used to install cameras at my house,” Wake said. “We can get him out there in the morning. Get him started on…”
A gust of wind cut off what he was going to finish saying, but I got the drift.
“Can you call him now? Tell him that I’ll pay him triple his fee if he gets out here now?” I asked.
“Sure,” Wake agreed. “But something else you need to think about. You’re starting that new job in the morning.”
That “new job” that Wake was talking about was an engineer at a chemical plant. One that my father worked at for going on twenty years now. Tomorrow was supposed to be my first day…
“Son of a bitch.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I guess I’m gonna need a ride to the college then, too. My bike’s still there.”
“Done,” he said. “I’ll bring my girl over. Let them talk while we go do that. I’ll have Davis come over and talk to her. He can stay with her… or shadow her tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’ll start looking for this Bart guy and take care of him.”
“Okay.” I blew out a breath, glad we had a plan. “Thanks, Wake.”
“No thanks needed,” he said. “You were here when I needed you with Dutch. I’ll be here when you need help with this ‘Luce’ of yours.”
With that, he hung up, and I walked back inside to her typing away on her phone.
“I’m ordering two cheeseburgers again.” She paused. “That enough?”
I winced. “Go ahead and order enough to feed an army. I have a couple of friends on their way over.”
CHAPTER 5
If at first you don’t succeed, it’s only attempted murder.
-Fact of life
LUCE
As an introverted person—who was going to be in a very extroverted career field—I prided myself in putting myself into situations that would make me uncomfortable. Because I was about to be living a life where I had to do uncomfortable things every single day.
Being a veterinarian wasn’t an easy life.
However, when I say I wanted to put myself into uncomfortable situations, I didn’t quite mean… what I found myself in right that second.
There were seven very large, very intimidating, very otherworldly giants in Bain’s living room.
I was currently in Bain’s living room.
I was also staring at another redhead who was talking a thousand miles an hour and not letting me get a word in edgewise.
“Then I was run into at an intersection. I made it to the hospital, though, without any bruises and I’m all better now. The old sheriff is gonesies.” Dutch snapped her finger. “You won’t ever have to worry about him again. He was running a sex trafficking ring out of our own backyard. His own sister was the one to put him in jail, too. Can you believe that?”
“No.” I blinked.
“Darlin’,” Wake, Dutch’s man, said. “You need to chill.”
“Aww,” she said all of a sudden. “I got all of you those matching vests and none of you are wearing them!”
I looked around at all the men, all of which were standing around in some form of tight black t-shirt and jeans.
She was right. None of them were wearing any kind of vest.
“They’re hot,” the man who’d introduced himself as Davis said. “As in, have you ever worn leather in the middle of the Florida heat? I thought I might die the first time I put it on.”
That was true.
Anything thicker than a t-shirt that was cotton and airy was too much for the Florida heat.
Dutch pouted.
Then turned back to me when the group went back to what they were discussing—me.
Davis would be my new bodyguard until we could find Bart and scare the living daylights out of him. He was tall, an ex-pro athlete, and gorgeous with his surfer vibe.