Chapter Seventeen
J ocelyn’s breathing steadied as she approached the hotel, the early morning sun already heating the pavement under her feet. Waving at the staff manning the check-in counter, she walked to the elevator and used the bottom of her shirt to wipe the sweat from her brow.
Her mind was whirring when she’d awoken with Birch out cold at her side. They’d stayed up whispering in the darkness for almost two hours before his answers became too groggy to understand. He remained on edge until she turned her back to him and one muscled arm finally flung around her and pulled her flush against him while he murmured his answers to her questions.
It was a dangerous precedent to set, letting him get under her skin as easily as he did. She was damn good at falling hard and becoming blind to the flaws of her lovers. It was a weakness she paid dearly for.
Stepping into the hall, she slid her key from the pocket of her shorts and opened her door, smiling when she saw him in her bed, a pillow in her place.
Over the years, she’d known a few loners, people who lived their lives their way with few connections tying them down.
But Birch wasn’t a loner.
He was simply alone.
Aside from his brothers, who he seemed to keep in the dark about anything difficult, he never mentioned any friends. Every story involved a guy he knew, or a woman from the neighborhood, or someone he worked with a few years ago. He knew everyone in town, had hung out with most of them for a night here and there. But none were deemed friends.
When she probed into his dating history, asking about his last girlfriend, he took a moment to think about it.
“Serious girlfriend? Does middle school count?”
She freshened up in the shower then wrapped a towel around herself while she did her makeup and brushed out her hair. Tiptoeing into the main room, she flipped the switch on the coffee maker and eased the dresser drawers open to grab a change of clothes.
“Hey,” a husky voice muttered from the bed. “I thought the agreement was next time you run, take me with you .”
Catching his eye in the mirror, she smiled. “Sorry. I couldn’t bring myself to wake you up.”
He rolled out of bed, scratching his chest lazily as he trudged to the bathroom. “I’m as up as it gets now,” he grumbled, closing the door behind him.
Deciding on comfort over style, she chose her track pants and a fitted green tank then tossed on an oversized sweater to combat the room’s cool morning temperature. Birch emerged a few minutes later, his unshaven jaw a little scruffier than the day before and his hazel eyes squinting against the lamp light. He’d stayed fully clothed when he climbed into bed last night, leaving him with a rumpled shirt skimming the band of his low-slung jeans. Pouring a cup of coffee, he swiped his phone to life, scanned it, and set it on the dinette before coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her.
“Thank you,” he said into her hair, squeezing her tight before releasing her and walking to the door. “All right, I’m out. I need to open the shop in an hour.” He tugged his shoes on and grabbed his wallet, phone, and keys from the dresser. “Come by later?”
Following him to the door, she nodded. “I’ll be there once I wrap up a few loose ends here and stop over at my parents’ place for lunch. Then you and I will figure this out together. Maybe practice our sleuthing skills.” She smoothed his wrinkled shirt out along his shoulders. “Have a good day, okay?”
He hesitated in the doorway for a moment before kissing her, her hand still resting on him. “You too.”
*
Birch scrawled in another piercing booking for Ryder and hung up the phone, hating the suspicion he felt every time he entered a name into his partner’s timetable.
Logically, he knew not every person calling for an ear or navel piercing was looking to score, but until he knew who was and who wasn’t, everyone who called in asking for Ryder was suspect.
His phone buzzed and he glanced at it, recognizing the number immediately.
“Hey,” he answered, twirling his pen in between his fingers. “How’s it going?”
“Roses and fucking sunshine,” Winter grunted, his response the same every time he was asked. “How are things there?”
Studying the wood grain of his desk, he momentarily debated telling his older brother what was going down, then shut down the idea immediately. “It’s going. Business is still open. River’s ass is all over the internet for some bathing suit ads he’s been doing and his wife is still posting about their lives twenty-four seven. I don’t know much about it, but I guess it’s a good thing. And Grey’s maintaining a 3.87 GPA.”
“Where’s the other .13?” Winter demanded, his need to see the younger Bakers succeed as intense, if not more so, than Birch’s.
“Probably in the cleavage of some coed.” He leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the desk. “Seriously though, he’s busting his tail.”
His brother cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, he better not be slacking off.” There was a long pause as a clamor in the background filled the speaker. “Any chance you could add a hundred to my canteen allowance this month? I want to pick up a few more books.”
The words weren’t totally out of Winter’s mouth, and he was already sitting up and pulling up the inmate deposit website. “On it. You should be able to access it by tomorrow. You sure you don’t need more?”
“Positive. Is the well still pretty stocked? Cuz I’ve been doing the math on the tuition payments, Grey’s scholarships, and all those textbooks you said Grey needed and I don’t want you guys going without.”
Jocelyn’s spreadsheet flashed through his mind and the simmering rage he worked so hard to compartmentalize and channel boiled up fast.
Winter never spoke about his life in prison. He never complained, never vented. He never uttered a single word of bitterness about his situation compared to that of the rest of them.
He wanted a fucking book. And every penny Ryder stole was one less penny Birch could give to the brother who saved the rest of them from Colton Baker’s temper.
“Birch,” Winter grunted into the phone, the poor connection glitching.
“I told you, it’s all good,” he replied, hoping his brother didn’t pick up on the tension in his voice.
Someone called to Winter and his brother exhaled loudly into the phone. “I gotta go. I’ll try and call in a few days.”
The call disconnected and Birch tossed his phone on the desk. He scowled at the floor until the door chimes sounded and Jocelyn walked in, bringing with her a stack of plastic containers.
“My mother wants you to know that if you don’t like mushrooms, you can pick them out and she won’t be offended,” she announced with a smile as she set them on the desk. “It’s some quinoa avocado concoction she found online.”
Shoving aside his homicidal thoughts toward Ryder, he popped the lid off of the largest container, accepted the plastic fork she handed him, and took a bite. “Damn,” he moaned, pulling his chair closer. “Did she take cooking classes or something? This is amazing.”
She perched on the edge of his desk and crossed her legs, her purple skirt riding up her thighs. “No, just a hobby. I’m texting her your reaction right now, so if a woman who looks like me in vintage form shows up and hugs you, don’t scream.”
He wasn’t a picky eater. Growing up with empty cupboards and bare fridges meant he was usually content with whatever food he had available. He tried to cook for River and Grey, but his skills and time were limited, so the boys became connoisseurs of frozen dinners and pizza delivery. And with no access to home cooked meals to compare to, they didn’t realize they were missing out on anything.
He wolfed down the meal while she opened the other two containers, laughing when he picked up a slice of cantaloupe from one and abandoned the quinoa for a bite of cherry cobbler.
“Slow down or you’ll choke,” she warned, tossing her hands up when he shook his head and continued to gorge himself.
Mrs. Carter’s cobbler was damn good, but the array of fresh fruit hit him hard in a way he hadn’t expected.
He always kept fruit and vegetables on hand for his brothers. Bananas and oranges could be peeled, apples and strawberries bitten, blueberries and grapes eaten by the handful.
But their fruit wasn’t presented. Not like this.
He never thought to slice the apples or cut the tops off the strawberries. Grapes were eaten off the vine. And they ate what was in season, not the array of seven fresh fruits Mrs. Carter sent which weren’t yet in season.
“You’re looking at the peach slices like they framed you for murder.”
Snapped out of his zoned-out stare, he grinned up at Jocelyn. “Sorry. I’m not used to eating anything that isn’t takeout, instant, or put-on-a-cookie-sheet-and-bake-at-three-fifty-for-thirty-minutes.”
“Well then lucky for you, my mom is already making meal plans around your appetite,” she laughed, holding her phone out to show him Mrs. Carter’s text asking for his favorites, his dislikes, and his allergies.
Downing the last of the fruit, he leaned back in his chair. “Damn, that was good. Thank you.”
She hopped off the desk and collected the empty containers. “I’m going to run these out to the car. When’s your next appointment?”
“Half an hour,” he replied, getting to his feet to walk her out. “All I have left on the schedule are a few draft drawings to finish up, if you’re bored and want to hang out here or something.”
Leading him to her car, she unlocked it and set the empty bowls on the passenger seat, catching him when he glanced down at her skirt as it rode up an inch. She smirked at him and cocked a brow. “I wouldn’t be a distraction or anything, would I?”
Already busted, he took a moment to appreciate the hint of cleavage her loose black shirt provided as it slid off one shoulder. “If you’re not around, I’ll be distracted thinking about you walking around town all hot and sexy in that outfit anyway. If you are around, I’ll be just as distracted, but you can get all bossy and demand I focus.”
She took his hand as they walked back into the shop. “So what you’re saying is I should have worn sweatpants and a hoodie.”
“Sweatpants are easy access and hoodies make me think you might not be wearing a bra underneath.” Tugging her toward the back of the shop, he nudged her into a corner out of sight of the glass entrance. “So what I’m saying is you’re smokin,’ and distracting, and we have twenty minutes before my next client walks in.”