Chapter Ten
MY HEART KICKS UP INtime with the engine as we peel out of the shopping center.
“Look behind us,” Rob barks. “Are we being followed?”
I almost swing out of my seat as I turn around at the exact moment he hooks a hard left. We’re clearly not going back the way we came.
I scan the parking lot, looking for the blue-and-reds. Nothing. Then I spot the vehicle: a Chevy Tahoe with SHERWOOD COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT emblazoned on the sides. Just the sight of the words alone makes my stomach turn.
That, and the whiplash-inducing turns Rob is making.
But the Tahoe is parked. Lights off. They haven’t noticed we’re gone.
“We’re good,” I yell.
“Good.”
Rob accelerates, and I shimmy down into my bucket seat. Slowly, with a shaky hand, I click my seatbelt into place.
“I can’t believe I just did that,” I half-whisper. It was surprisingly easy to army-crawl through the HVAC system—the ducts were ginormous—and a bit less easy to jump the five feet down from the outflow to parking lot in the back of the building. That, and the sprint to the valet lot, and my legs were already feeling sore.
“Believe it.” Rob keeps his eyes on the road, shifting gears as we break past 100. “Bastards,” he mutters. “Can’t even have a day of shopping in peace.”
I frown. “I thought...never mind.” I shake my head and think better of it.
But Rob doesn’t. He flicks a glance at me. “You thought what?”
“I thought they were looking for me,” I say. “Weren’t they?”
“No offense, Maren, but why would they be looking for you at an upscale boutique?” Rob raises an eyebrow. “The sheriff’s guys are hardly crack detectives, but still. That’s not the first place I’d start looking for you, not by a long shot.”
My cheeks heat. Something about him figuring out my habits—or what aren’t my habits—bothers me.
Or it should bother me. But it doesn’t.
“You sure you’re not in the mob?” I ask.
But Rob, for once, doesn’t seem to be in a joking mood. “We’re just guys who can’t get tangled up with the sheriff.” We. Not just Rob. All of them. “But you aren’t going to worry about that. Okay?”
He stares at me so hard and so long that I worry he’s going to crash the car. But I nod.
“Okay.”
“Good.” Rob nods. “Now make sure that thing’s buckled tight. We’re taking the long way home.”
LONG WAY MIGHT HAVEbeen an understatement. It takes us over an hour to get back, through a rat’s nest of dirt roads and trees, to the point where I don’t even realize that we are back until we pass through another, smaller gate and I recognize the other side of the shooting range where Will and I had met Rob the other day.
“Back entrance?” I ask, as Rob eases the car up to the other side of his...artillery bunker, or whatever it is.
Rob arches an eyebrow at me. “Shouldn’t I at least buy you dinner first?”
Oh my God.My cheeks burn with embarrassment and I fold my arms with a huff. “Don’t be—you know what I meant.” I nod at the clearing and the pathway back up to the house. It’s midafternoon now, verging on dusk, and the sky above the tops of the pine trees is starting to tinge with orange.
Rob kills the engine and hops out of the car without opening the door—showoff, I think—then jogs to my side to help me out.
I stare at him. “I know how to open a car door.”
“My mistake.” He backs off, and I get out of the car—on my own. He starts off up towards the path, and I follow. “Anyway, yes, there’s more than a few ways in. If you know what I mean.” He coughs. “I figured this option would allow us to shake anyone...and show you a bit more of Sherwood.”
There’s a note of pride in his voice that I can’t help but notice. “You like it here?”
“Like it?” Rob laughs. “Maren, with all due respect, the guys and I could afford to live anywhere in the world. Sherwood is my home. So yes, I like it.”
I kick absentmindedly at a rock in the middle of the path as we emerge by the pool. I’ve never liked Sherwood, always wanted to be anywhere else but here. Sure, it’s got natural beauty, or whatever, if you’re into that. But the boundaries of this county, the city limits of Nottingham, have always been more like prison walls to me than anything else. The only people who choose Sherwood are abusive, corrupt dickheads, like John and the sheriff.
Or so I thought, anyway.
“What time is it?” I ask abruptly, partly to change the subject and partly because I have no idea. Unlike Will, I don’t wear a watch, and after those threatening texts from John I buried my dumb phone under a bunch of pillows in my bedroom.
“If you ask me?” comes a voice from above. “Cocktail hour.”
I stop short and crane my neck up to the main balcony. Will’s standing there, looking crisp and clean in a polo and shorts, and holding out a copper mug with a spring of something sticking out.
“Slainte,” he adds, and toasts us before taking a sip. “Where’ve you been with her, you miserable bastard? She doesn’t strike me as the type to make you hold her purse for hours.”
Rob scratches the back of his head. “We...ran into some friends,” he says, glancing sideways at me. The hackles on the back of my neck rise.
“Maren!” Tuck joins Will at the edge of the balcony, a pint glass in his hand. “How was it? You get some nice stuff? Not that you don’t look nice now, I mean, just...uh...” He looks at Will, who shakes his head and smirks.
“Oh, no, you’re on your own there, bud,” Will says. “Just keep digging deeper.”
“I...I mean...”
“It’s fine,” I say, cutting things off at the pass. I bite back a smile. “Shopping success. I’ve got what sounds like a whole wardrobe on the way.”
Rob, who’s started up the stairs, nods, flicking away a message on his phone. “Jack’s having it delivered tomorrow.”
“Excellent,” Tuck says, looking relieved as Rob and I arrive on the balcony.
“That sounds like it calls for a drink,” Will adds.
“What doesn’t call for a drink, in your mind?” Tuck frowns at him.
“You’re one to talk, Mr. IPA.” Will nods at Tuck’s pint glass.
“Hey, it’s my own homebrew!”
“Just don’t force it on her,” Will says, nodding at me. “She’ll be too polite to tell you it tastes like shit.”
Tuck blushes. “It’s a work in progress,” he explains.
Will turns to me. “How about a glass of wine?” he offers. “I’ve got a nice Cotes du Rhone—”
“God, you’re such a snob.” Tuck groans. “Maren, I apologize on his behalf.”
I can’t help but let out a laugh. After the absolute insanity that was my second car chase—almost—in as many days, it’s nice to see something as ordinary as two guys bickering at each other.
“Wine sounds nice,” I tell Will. “Whatever you suggest.”
He flashes a grin. “Beautiful. Be right back.”
Rob darts a glance at Will, and they head into the house together—to talk about what secret nonsense, I don’t know or care. I’m just glad to be sitting on firm ground.
Tuck and I make our way to the dining table at the edge of the balcony that looks out over the grounds. It’s warmer up here, and I relish the easy breeze running through my hair—a relief compared to the high-velocity winds in the car.
I glance around as I take my seat. “No LJ?” I ask.
“He...” Tuck hesitates as he sits. “No,” he admits.
“He hates me,” I say, matter-of-factly.
“No!” Tuck insists. “I mean, well...he doesn’t hate you, Maren. He just needs to adjust to you being here.”
That makes two of us, I think. But I don’t have much sympathy for LJ, to be honest. If anyone should be stressed out about me staying here, it should be me. Not one of these rich boys who doesn’t have to give up anything meaningful to accommodate me. “What’s his deal, anyway?”
Tuck sips his beer. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s clearly got...something going on.” I gesture around my head. “Is it...PTSD, or something?”
“Ah,” Tuck says. “It’s...yeah, it’s complicated.” A distant look fogs over his eyes. “LJ’s just very...territorial. He doesn’t want anyone getting into trouble. Again, I mean.” He scratches the back of his neck. “We’ve all got a kind of...checkered past before we got here, if you can believe it.”
A giant secret forest mansion concealing some kind of unspoken illegal activity? “Yeah, I can.”
Will and Rob return, Rob sipping a tumbler of whiskey and Will bearing a wineglass that’s nearly the size of my head, full of a healthy pour of red.
“There you go,” Will says. “Cotes du Rhone, 2009 vintage. Tell me what you taste.”
I lift an eyebrow at him as I accept the drink. But I shrug. Sure, I’ll humor you. I lift the glass to my lips and take a long sip.
And then another.
“And?” Will says. All three of them are looking at me expectantly.
I have no idea what to make of this wine beyond the fact that it’s pretty good, and it’s red. “What am I supposed to taste?”
“It’s got a spice forward profile on the nose,” Will says. “With a jammy finish.”
“What do you taste?” Rob asks. “Just out of curiosity.”
I take another, third sip, just to be sure. “Grapes,” I answer.
Rob and Tuck burst out laughing. Will scowls, but smiles a little too. I crack a grin.
It’s hard not to feel at ease. Yes, I’m literally on the run from the law. No, I don’t know these guys well at all. But it’s a beautiful late-spring evening, the scenery is gorgeous, the wine is rich on my tongue, and they’ve shown themselves several times to be generous, if not trustworthy.
Maybe...just maybe, I can enjoy myself.
“I COULDN’T EAT ANOTHERbite,” I say. “Seriously.”
Tuck’s dinner was impossibly good—slow-roasted pork with a heaping garden salad dressed with zingy lemon and dotted with figs.
“Don’t hold back on our account,” Will says, lazily circling the rim of his glass with his finger. “I can’t stand those girls who don’t eat.”
I cock my head at him. That second glass of wine made me bold, apparently. “You seriously think after that display that I’m a girl who doesn’t eat?” I stare at my very clean plate. “I eat plenty. Just usually I’m a box mac-and-cheese girl. But this’ll work too.”
“She’s got you there, Scarlet,” Rob says, grinning. “A pretty lady with a healthy appetite.”
I blush in spite of myself. Am I really so starved for affirmation that a passing compliment is enough to get me stammering? Or is that wine truly going to my head?
I hope it’s not the latter, because I don’t refuse a refill as Will wanders back over with the bottle.
Glass number two becomes glass number three, and as the guys rib each other and joke around, soon we’re engaged in a game of Two Truths and a Lie.
“Lie,” Will drawls, pointing at Tuck with his glass. “Cliff-diving in Mexico? You’ve never been out of the country.”
Tuck wiggles his eyebrows and sips his beer. I giggle—and I’m not a giggler. The wine is really going to my head. He looks at me.
“You agree with him, Maren?”
I lift a shoulder. “I mean, you staying in during recess to read as a kid is so embarrassing it has to be true.”
Rob gives Tuck a little shove on the shoulder. “She’s got you there, my friend. No one would make up that lie.”
“Aw, c’mon.” But Tuck’s smiling. He does a palms up. “Fine. You got me. No cliff diving...yet.”
The three of them go on a tangent about which of them is most likely to chicken out in an extreme sport, and I lean back and watch, the easy banter of the three of them like brothers, the relaxed maleness of it all...I can’t help but enjoy watching.
I wonder which of them is the best kisser.
The thought comes out of nowhere, but my mental filter’s apparently gone, because I smile to myself as it crosses my mind.
Tuck’s probably nice and gentle, I figure. Nothing wrong with that. Will might be a bit withholding, kind of a cat-and-mouse kind of thing, pulling away to make you ask for more. And Rob would just...be in charge, I think.
“Maren?”
I startle, sitting up a bit straighter, which makes the guys chuckle.
“Yep?”
Will smirks. “She was a million miles away. Penny for those thoughts.”
I scowl at him and stick out my tongue, even as my heart hammers. “Never.”
Rob smiles into his whiskey and nods at me. “It’s your turn, pretty lady.”
I squint, digging deep to conjure up some good ones. The best lies have a grain of truth in them, I figure. So I’ll borrow a bit from my past.
“Okay,” I say, motioning for quiet. I hold out my thumb. “I’ve been driving since I was twelve.” I put up my index finger. “I can dance an impeccable Virginia reel.”
Then I take a deep breath. This one’s a bit out there, but with the casual vibes of the evening and the warmth of the wine coursing through my veins, I’m feeling brave.
Or maybe just reckless.
“And...” I add my middle finger. “I once made out with two guys the same night.”
I’ll admit it: I made up that lie just to see their reactions. Because in my slightly-tipsy haze, that’s where my mind is going. It does have that grain of truth—a rumor that went around school about Madison Anderson-Scott, the queen bee of our grade—but certainly was never something that happened to me.
And my lie gets a reaction.
Rob chokes on his whiskey.
Tuck’s cheeks turn ruddy.
And Will purses his lips together.
None of them says anything. So I push them.
“No guesses?”
Will clears his throat and sits up straight, shooting Rob and Tuck a look. He leans forward, elbows on his knees so he can look at me squarely, his ice-blue eyes intent.
“Driving,” he says. “That’s a truth.”
“If anything, I’d bet she’s been driving since she was ten.” Rob adds, his own grass-green gaze fixed on me, too. “But I agree.” Heat starts to prickle up the skin of my throat—maybe from the wine, maybe from their stares—but I try to play it cool, alcohol notwithstanding. “And I bet she can dance, too. I recognize a good Southern girl when I see one.”
“Amen to that,” Tuck says huskily. He licks his lips, tracing a finger up and down the condensation of his glass. “So I’m betting it’s that last one. Boys?”
“Mhm.” Rob nods and sits back, throwing an arm over an empty chair and propping an ankle on the opposite knee, the picture of casualness. “I’d reckon.”
“Indeed,” Will mumbles. He swigs his drink.
I sit still, with three pairs of eyes burning into me for as long as I can stand it, and then I break.
“You’re right,” I say. “That’s the lie.” I shrug, trying to look airy and cool, the same way Madison from high school did when everything circulated the rumors about her. “Never done that.”
Tuck’s the first to take his eyes off me—just for a second. He looks from Rob, who’s still leaned back, studying me, and Will, who’s holding his glass in a death grip, like he needs to force himself to concentrate, and then at me.
“Well, for Christ’s sake, no one’s going to make her the offer?”
My skin surges with heat. And it’s not from the wine.
“Scarlet.” Rob’s voice is firm and cold. He’s still staring at me. “Boundaries.”
“Sorry.” Will swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he throws a sidelong glance at Rob. “Didn’t mean to offend.” He pauses. “But God, it’s a wonder you manage to sit comfortably with a stick so far up your ass.”
Tuck snorts with laughter, until Rob glares at him, and Tuck hangs his head.
“Aw, c’mon, Rob,” Tuck says. “We were all kinda thinking it. And she started—”
“That’s it,” Rob says loudly. He stands, and offers me a hand. “Time for bed.”
“What?” Will groans. “Relax, Rob, we were just having some—”
“I said we’re calling it a night. She’s had too much to drink, anyway.”
“Hey!” I cry, but when I try to get to my feet and stare him down, the wobbling in my knees proves him right. I run my tongue over my teeth, tucking hair behind my ear, and glare at him. “Okay. Maybe.” I feel petulant, misbehaving, like a rebellious teenager. My mind is swirling with stupid thoughts. “You’re right. I’m a bad girl,” I admit. “A bad, bad—”
“You see?” Rob says, tightening his grip around my waist. “It’s all been too much for her. Maren,” he instructs me. “Go to bed.” He looks at the others. “You two help her upstairs.”
I scowl, thinking I’m being cute and playful. “But—”
“But nothing,” Rob says. “Now.”
I pout, but teeter my way to the door, where I almost run into—
“LJ,” I breathe. Great. Just who I wanted to see.
Not that I can see more of him than his chest, anyway.
He ignores me and brushes past me to Rob.
“This is a mess,” he mutters, probably thinking I can’t overhear.
“Relax,” Rob answers, also barely audible. “It’s only temporary, remember?”