“Mer!” Cruz greeted her happily with his big smile, as if last night hadn’t happened, she didn’t know exactly what kind of a player he was, and her heart wasn’t breaking in two for all of her fantasies concerning him dying.
The rest of his crew were unfamiliar to her. She’d seen some of them last night but hadn’t met them officially.
“This is my friend, Meredith,” Cruz said. He gestured behind him. “This is Taylee, Scott, and Jaxson.”
She lifted a hand. “Nice to meet all of you.”
“You okay?” Cruz asked. “You were waving like you needed help.” He grinned bigger. “Or maybe you were just ecstatically happy to see me.”
Meredith’s eyes narrowed. “I heard someone behind me. I called out a couple greetings, but they didn’t answer. They were chasing me.”
“Mer!” Cruz slid off his bike and set it on the side of the road, unstrapping his helmet and putting it down. He waved to his friends. “Can you all head through those trails and see if you see anyone while I stay with Mer? Jax stay with Taylee.”
They all nodded as if they were part of some clandestine mission.
“I’m sure they’re gone now,” Meredith said, looking around to confirm it.
“We’ll see. On the bikes, they can move a lot faster than someone who was on foot.”
His group took off through the trail she’d just exited. Meredith appreciated their fast action, but what were they going to do? Accuse someone of chasing her? At least she wasn’t alone now. Yet as Cruz clacked to her in his bike shoes, she backed up. He put out his arms as if she would throw herself against his chest like she had yesterday outside her shop. A lot had changed since yesterday.
“I’m sorry you were scared, Mer.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, backing up again.
His arms fell to his side, and a muscle popped in his jaw. “I’m sorry I brought Josh here. We know he’s after you, and we’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”
“Josh?” Her brow wrinkled. “Josh has been nothing but kind to me.” He’d opened her eyes to exactly what Cruz was like, not that she hadn’t feared the truth. The confirmation sealed her need to be leery around this man who had always held her tender heart in his hands without knowing it. If he’d known, would he have cared? She doubted it. He liked to date a lot of different women. Did men like that ever settle down?
Cruz eased in a bit closer. “Josh likes to … be with a lot of women, and he told me he’s after you.”
“Is it such a shock that a man would be interested in me?” she hurled at him, feeling hurt and defensive.
“That’s not what I said at all. Any man would be interested in you.”
Meredith had numerous men hitting on her, but she only wanted Cruz to be interested in her.
“I’m just explaining that Josh is not the guy you want after you, and I made sure last night that he wasn’t lingering around your house.”
“That was you?” Cruz obviously wasn’t the one who’d been walking around her house on random nights over the years, but last night he had been?
He nodded. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t scare you, but I had to make sure you were safe.”
“You did scare me.” She felt angry—irrationally so. She was scared far too often, and she didn’t like it. Before the kidnapping, she’d thought of herself as a pretty brave person. Even when she had heard footsteps at night, she had flipped lights on to scare the person away, waited to make sure no one was there, and then went back to bed. Now she was far too scared and she didn’t like it.
She shook her head and backed away again. “That was wrong and not cool of you to walk around my house in the middle of the night and not tell me it was you. Please just … leave me alone.”
Meredith spun and ran back toward her house and away from Cruz. She didn’t really want him to leave her alone, but she was reacting all wrong and was humiliated that she’d been so afraid when it was only Cruz. Yet why wouldn’t he call her or knock on her door? She didn’t like being scared and was mad at him for being the reason behind it.
“Mer!” Cruz pounded after her, his specialized biking shoes clacking loudly against the pavement. She liked that he was chasing her. Even though the circumstances weren’t great, she’d long dreamt of Cruz chasing after her and calling her name.
Suddenly, he stopped, and she heard his footsteps retreat. Tears pricked at her eyelids and traced down her face. Her heart thumped out of control. She tried to blame it on the running, but she knew Cruz was all to blame. Why had he turned around? He’d given up on pursuing her that quickly? She shouldn’t be surprised. She knew she was nothing special to Cruz. She hadn’t been his focus when the only options were their small group at Mystical Lake High. She definitely wouldn’t be important to him now that he had girlfriends throughout the nation.
She heard a bike approaching behind her and made the mistake of looking. Cruz was approaching quickly, and from the intense look on his face, he wasn’t going to let her escape. Her heart leapt irrationally. She tried to remind her heart that Cruz simply didn’t know how to lose. It had nothing to do with him wanting her, but her heart didn’t want to listen.
He easily reached her side and slowed to pedal beside her. Meredith kept running, panting for breath. Her legs hurt, and she just wanted to be home.
“Mer,” Cruz said her name so softly, so appealingly. She wanted to stop and throw herself into his arms like she had yesterday.
“Mer, please look at me.”
“No,” she shot at him. Usually Cat was the feisty one, not Meredith, but she was feeling plenty feisty today. She was ready to yell at him, put him in his place, and maybe at some point demand to know why he’d never, ever been interested in her.
A couple other riders darted out of the trails behind them and approached. Meredith kept jogging as they rode next to Cruz.
“I didn’t find anyone,” Taylee said.
“I didn’t either,” one of the guys said.
“There are a lot of trails they could take off on,” Cruz admitted.
Meredith wanted to yell at them that it was only Cruz who had been outside her house last night. Then she remembered that there had been other nights when someone had been out there while Cruz wasn’t even in the state. Also, someone had been following and then chasing her today. If it had been a friend or someone innocent, they would’ve called out to her, not silently followed her.
“We’ll keep looking,” the guy said, “Fun trails to ride anyway.”
“Thanks,” Cruz said as they took off again.
Meredith concentrated on ignoring Cruz riding by her side, and thankfully, her house was close by since she hadn’t gone very far this morning. She turned into her driveway and finally slowed to a walk. Cruz climbed off his bike and set it and his helmet down. Meredith continued to ignore him as she marched to her front porch.
“Mer,” he said, approaching her from behind.
“What?” she demanded, whirling to face him. “What do you want, Cruz?”
He studied her. His blue gaze said he wanted her, but dang if she could get him to admit it. She had to remember she didn’t want him. If what Josh had told her last night was true, Cruz was the worst kind of player and heartbreaker. Social media confirmed her fears. When she rewarded herself with “Google Cruz” time, she used to always google action shots or videos of him, but she’d always inadvertently see shots of women draped all over him while he grinned broadly for the camera. Last night she’d googled “dating Cruz Chadwick,” and the pictures and claims from women dating him had made her stomach churn.