Chapter 19 Pretty Bird
Chapter nineteen
Pretty Bird
“Thank you so much, Diane,” Jenna said to her landlady while Lynnette hovered by the door to the small office. The older woman returned Jenna’s smile, and they ducked back outside.
“Well, at least your window finally got fixed,” Lynnette said when they hit the sidewalk that would curve them toward Jenna’s apartment.
Jenna blew out a sigh. “Seriously. I mean, I get that it’s hard to install a new window when it’s raining. Not to mention removing the old and measuring the space, and whatever else. But that was too many days with a sheet of plastic over my kitchen sink for my liking.”
Lynnette chuckled. “I think half a day of that would be too many for me.” And she didn’t have near as high the standards for her kitchen as Jenna did.
Jenna flashed her a grin. “You are not wrong.”
They turned the next corner, both laughing lightly, and Jenna’s apartment came into view.
With the window confirmed to be installed, all they really needed was to pick up the equipment Jenna had said she wanted to pick up.
Then they could circle back to the store, grab the grocery items, and Jenna could get to work on the sweet treat she had in mind.
Whatever it was. The sooner all of that was accomplished, the sooner Lynnette could be eating some chocolate-forward decadence.
It was an overindulgence Lynnette wouldn’t usually allow herself, but if it kept her mind from too heavily worrying about Lance, the calories were a small price to pay.
Lynnette slowed, her mind quieting, as she registered the presence of a darkly dressed figure on Jenna’s driveway. It looked as if the individual were walking away from Jenna’s door.
But the window installation had completed the previous afternoon, according to Diane.
Jenna came to a full stop and her breathing altered. “What the hell?” Her question was muttered, as if she were thinking out loud rather than intentionally speaking.
Lynnette tilted her head to speak quietly to her friend.
“You know that guy? Is he a problem?” She’d left Lance’s gun in the glovebox.
She knew how to use guns, of course. Her father had made sure of that.
She’d just never much cared for them. In the moment, with the faint pull of her still-fresh tattoo on her back, she wondered if she should have made an exception.
“I know him,” Jenna replied. She drew a deep breath. “Kind of. He’s a customer, and recently he said some things that were a bit too forward. But I don’t know if ‘problem’ is a fair description.” She hiked her purse higher on her shoulder. “I can handle him.”
Lynnette opened her mouth to remind Jenna that as her best friend, and considering they were supposed to be sticking together, she would not be handling any such thing solo.
Except Jenna was already moving forward.
The strength and determination in her stride gave Lynnette some reassurance, so Lynnette swallowed any lecture and followed after her.
If the guy was just a customer with an infatuation, then he was just an annoyance who’d come around at a bad time. And Lynnette would have to share her chocolate with Jenna. There were worse things.
“Quetzal,” Jenna said, projecting her voice as she neared her own driveway.
Lynnette arched a brow. That’s an unusual name.
The man tucked his hands into the pockets of his pressed slacks and walked to meet Jenna at the bottom of the driveway. To onlookers, it would absolutely appear as if he were the resident and they were the intruders. Not that that made a difference.
Lynnette studied the man who’d yet to flick his gaze her way.
He was dressed respectably, his hair was a bit too slick, and he had brown eyes to match what she assumed to be his natural hair color.
In addition to the sweeping rug on his head, he had a faint dusting of hair along his jaw.
If not for the gel-shine and the unpleasant tightness to his lips, it might have been a good look on him.
He stood only a couple of inches taller than Lynnette, definitely several less than six-feet.
Frankly, he was out of place. He looked like he belonged in New York City, or L.A., doing corporate work or parading through a courtroom. He definitely did not match with the laid-back aura of Misty Glades.
“Jenna,” he greeted, “I’ve been wanting to speak with you. Things were said between us the other day—”
Jenna raised her hand to silence him. “No, Q. Just because words came out of your mouth directed at me does not mean they were said between us. You said things that were out of line. I walked away.”
Lynnette bit back her smile. Her bestie hadn’t always had the backbone to speak up so clearly. Guess I have to like Jon. Which she supposed meant forgiving him for dropping a body in her truck the previous week.
She shifted her focus back to Quetzal. He’d spoken with a hint of a Hispanic accent, which wasn’t surprising from his appearance. But, somehow, the coincidence nagged at her.
Quetzal’s brow pinched, his attention still focused on Jenna. “I was too forward, yes,” he said. “I never meant to upset you.” He pulled a hand from his pocket and gestured while he spoke. “I mean only to protect you. Even now, your lover has left you all alone. Again.”
Jenna scoffed. “Protect me? Is that what you were doing when you stood back and gaped while I jumped in front of a gun last week?”
Lynnette’s eyes widened. It took her a beat to remember it had, technically, been last week when Jenna’s bakery had almost been robbed.
The incident that ended with Lance in her hospital.
Quetzal had been there?
She said he’s a customer.
Quetzal sighed. “I could have handled that better.” He said it as if confessing a terrible sin. “I am here to rectify my previous behavior.”
Jenna scoffed and folded her arms over her chest. “All you’re doing is making me highly uncomfortable.
Prying my address out of some town gossip so you can show up unannounced and uninvited at my home, for your own agenda?
If all you wanted was to smooth things over, you could have waited until my bakery is open again.
Or the next time we run into each other naturally. ”
He absolutely could have, and Jenna’s accurate assessment had warning bells sounding in Lynnette’s head.
Quetzal didn’t flinch. If anything, Jenna’s words seemed to irritate him. His eyes pinched and his jaw clenched for a moment before he relaxed his expression. “It is not safe for you here any longer,” he said.
Jenna reared back. “I beg your pardon?”
Lynnette took the final step forward, up to Jenna’s side. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
For the first time, Quetzal’s eyes flicked to her in acknowledgment. His stare was cold. Empty. It was like looking into a void. Then he refocused on Jenna and said, “The department may still be targeting you. If that mercenary understood nuance, he would never have left you alone. Vulnerable.”
Lynnette locked her jaw as she processed what Quetzal, supposedly just a customer who’d been a bit too forward, had said.
“Marine,” Jenna snapped, her tone revealing her agitation. “Jon’s not some unthinking ape and he’s not a mercenary. He’s a Marine. And that is the last time I’ll listen to you badmouth him. Now get off my driveway.”
No. The situation was much worse than it presented. Lynnette wanted to be proud of Jenna for clapping back at the creep, but this was a classic case of wrong time, wrong target. We need to go.
Quetzal took a step forward, which also served as a step onto community sidewalk, but never looked away from Jenna. “Come with me.”
Jenna sucked in a sharp breath. “Excuse me? What in the hell makes you think—”
The sharp, successive chirping of a bird far closer than it should be interrupted Jenna’s words and drew Lynnette’s attention. Both women twisted on reflex, and both stilled as a colorful bird swooped down to land … on Jenna’s shoulder.
It rustled its feathers, tucked its wings in, then looked straight at Lynnette and let out a shrill cry.
The sound was jarring, both literally and metaphorically, but while Lynnette kicked herself for allowing a bird to distract her, she also couldn’t abandon Jenna.
And there was the small concern of the fact that the creature—a wild animal, possibly a bird of prey—was perched on Jenna’s coat-covered shoulder.
Jenna, for her part, was standing stiff as a mannequin. Her eyes had blown wide and half the color had drained from her face, her gaze angled down in an attempt to keep sight of the creature using her as a pedestal.
“Just walk calmly with me,” Quetzal said, as if nothing bizarre had was happening, “and there won’t be any need for violence.”
Lynnette slowly, carefully, turned her focus back to the man before them. This was all significant somehow, but the reason was eluding her. “I don’t know what drugs you’re on,” she said, keeping her voice steady for the sake of the bird, “but my friend said no.”
Quetzal again shifted his stare to her and his eyes narrowed.
And this time, Lynnette thought she saw something strange in his eyes.
His irises were brown, and his pupils were the right shape, but there was a hue or a film over them, almost like the light was hitting them from an entirely wrong angle.
Yet it was clear he could see her. It wasn’t like looking into the eyes of a blind man at all.
“I recognize you,” he said, speaking to her for the first time.
His tone shifted accordingly, losing the veneer of warmth or kindness and roughening like a weathered stone in a frigid sea.
Cold, set, and waiting to mercilessly crush the fool who got too close.
His strange eyes flicked down, appraising her.
“You’re the one who beat up my men the other day. ”
“What?” Jenna breathed.