Jake (Demented Souls #16)

8

H eather watched Aaron walk away, wondering what he was thinking and if he was really as interested in her as he seemed. She’d thought he was just being friendly but the way he’d kept his gaze locked on hers as he’d kissed the back of her hand made her think maybe she’d been wrong.

“What plans, Heather?” Matt’s voice was impatient as if he’d asked the question before and he was tired of her not answering him.

“I’m sorry, I was thinking. What was that?” She turned her attention to her cousin, frowning at the scowl he wore as he watched her.

“What plans?” His voice was more than a little impatient.

“Aaron asked me to dinner.”

Matt let out a mirthless laugh. “Our clubs split the cost of this meal, and the prospects have cooked it, under Miles supervision. Inviting you to eat it is not all that impressive.”

“Oh. Not this one. Dinner some other day. We haven’t decided when or where yet. That’s what he meant about talking more about it.” She turned and looked in the direction Aaron had gone. “We’ll figure out the details then.” She turned and looked at him again, wondering why he looked so unhappy. “What’s wrong?”

“Are you sure this guy isn’t mixed up with your ex or any of the men he’s mixed up with?” He watched her a moment as if waiting for some reaction.

She tilted her head and watched him for a moment, “Didn’t we just do this.” She circled one finger in the air. “Only the other way around? Weren’t you the one assuring me that the Demented Souls are allies to you and your friends so they’re safe?”

“Yeah.” Matt’s scowl grew deeper. “You seemed to have a lot more self-preservation then. I’m not sure what changed that.”

“I don’t know.” She rolled her eyes as she fought the urge to shove him. If she didn’t know better, she would think he was jealous, but he was her cousin, so that was out. “Maybe that I knew him? Maybe I trust your judgement. I don’t know why you seem to suddenly not be so sure they can’t be trusted when you were the one assuring me, they are.”

“I’m not worried about the whole club, just him.” Matt glanced in the direction Aaron had gone, eyes narrowed, as if he was suspicious. “I don’t like that it just happened that you knew one of them.”

“It is odd. But it’s not like he’s been around Mobile for years. He and his family left before we graduated high school. And it’s not like he showed up in this part of the country since I came up here.”

“What do you mean?” Matt’s head whipped around to watch her.

“He’s been here since sometime last year. Said he’d come up before the winter really hit, and as much as he always thought he would hate the cold, he didn’t mind it so much and it made a nice change from the heat. He’s been in Arizona for a while before this. At least that is what he said. Something about coming up to support his president when he had to spend a year up here. But that year’s up now. At least that’s how I understood it.”

Matt narrowed his eyes and turned back in the direction Aaron had gone. “They’ve got some men up from their other chapter, only been here a week or so and will be going home soon. I had assumed he was one of them. Which made his being here just after you got here more suspicious. If he’s been here that long, then maybe it’s not the issue I feared. Still. I’m going to keep an eye on him. The whole coincidence of it makes me suspicious.”

Heather watched him for a moment, wondering if he’d always been this protective and she’d somehow missed it or if it was something new. Was it something he’d started since she’d come to him looking for help and somewhere to hide for a little while? She wasn’t sure, but she knew it would do her no good to question him, not about that, and not right now.

“Come on, let’s go see if the food’s ready. I’m hungry.” She bumped her shoulder against his arm as she turned to head back toward where the rest of the two clubs gathered around a large gazebo with several picnic tables.

“Don’t run into me like that,” he said with a grin as he used both hands and one shoulder to playfully shove her way, as he’d been doing in response to her move for years.

“Well, if you weren’t so big you were in the way all the time, I might not run into you so often.” She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out, and she didn’t try. She loved the playful side of their relationship. That, and knowing he would help her if he could, was what had sent her up here when she’d needed help.

Thinking of how he’d been there when she needed help sent her mind back to the moment she’d known she had to get out of Mobile. She’d been in the grocery store when she’d overheard voices that had sounded vaguely familiar. They’d reminded her of someone Mitch had brought over to the house a couple of times. Since she’d had her earbuds in, though they hadn’t been on, and she’d been dancing to the song that had been on repeat in her brain while she’d shopped, she’d done her best to appear not to recognize them as she’d listened to what they were saying.

They’d been talking about her, one telling the other that Mitch was trying to talk the president into taking her as payment for some debt. At first, she’d been unable to believe it had been her, or her Mitch they’d been talking about, but when one of them had called him by his last name, Coleman, then asked how he’d ended up with someone like her, she’d known, though she’d ignored him when he’d called her a hot piece of ass. She couldn’t react to that one phrase and not the rest.

Instead, she’d finished with what she was doing near them, then moved on. Stopping in a couple other aisles to grab things so it wouldn’t appear she had heard them and now was running, then she’d gone to the register and paid for her purchases.

After loading the few items she’d gotten, thankfully she hadn’t gotten to the perishable aisles yet, she’d climbed up into her truck and gone straight home. There she’d grabbed a few things she couldn’t bear to leave behind if she never got to come back, then got back in her truck and hauled ass out of town.

She’d made it as far as Jackson, Tennessee that first day. By then she’d been so exhausted she’d stopped and rented a room for a night at the first place she’d seen. The next morning, thinking a little more clearly, she’d called Matt and told him what was going on. At his instruction, she’d gone to a bank and pulled everything she could in cash, filled her truck with gas and got everything she could think of she’d need for the drive on her credit cards before locking them in the glove box so she wouldn’t forget and use them. Since she’d already put her room on them, if Mitch or his friends were looking for her, they could already follow her to Jackson, but she’d make it harder to follow her anywhere else.

Shaking her head, Heather forced her mind back the present. She needed to pay attention to the here and now. Worrying about what had already happened would do her no good. Now she needed to think about what was happening in the present, and what she would do in the future.

By the time she and Matt reached the gazebo, people were starting to line up.

“Go ahead and join them, get something to eat,” Matt said, waving one hand toward the end of the line. “I’ll grab a couple of spots at a table.”

“No, you should go first, I’ll get the table,” Heather said.

“Not the way it works around here. Women eat first. Look.” He motioned again at the line.

She took the time to actually look at who was lined up and noticed there were no men. With a frown, she turned to look at Matt. “What?”

Matt shook his head before she had a chance to say anything more. “That’s just how we do it, women eat first, or if it’s a family event, women and kids. Then the guys eat.”

“But what if there’s not enough for everyone?”

“Then we’ve made sure the ones we care about are taken care of and given ourselves a reason to work harder and make sure there’s enough for everyone next time. Go get your plate.”

Heather shot him a glare to let him know she didn’t like him bossing her around, but turned and joined the line for food. She was hungry and even if she didn’t like being told what to do, she wasn’t going to starve herself to prove a point.