Chapter 6
SIX
VERITY
Why am I here?
The beautiful female deputy is glaring at me like I’m an ugly stain on her favorite dress, and I have no idea if she somehow knows who I am and where I’ve been living for the last two months or if she and Warrick have a history and him holding my hand is making her want to pull out her gun and shoot me.
I try to slip my hand free of Warrick’s hold, but instead of letting me go, his hold on me tightens. A part of me expects him to turn and speak to me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he silently warns me to stop trying to get free, while he focuses all of his attention forward.
Did he bring me here to try to make this woman jealous? He asked me out earlier, but that doesn’t really mean anything. There were plenty of women at the club who got paid to have sex with the customers, then went home to their boyfriends and husbands without a care in the world.
Warrick and the deputy could have a relationship like that. Although, he’s not giving off any energy toward her right now. He hasn’t moved closer or called her by her name. I’m distracted from my thoughts when a tall man rounds the partition that hides the people in the back from the entrance.
“Hey Warrick, how are you?” the man says, greeting Warrick warmly.
“Hey, Cam. Sorry to bother you, bro, but I wanted to introduce you to someone.”
“Okay,” the man says, sounding curious.
Warrick tugs me forward and out from where I’ve been standing mostly hidden behind him.
“My new friend is going to be moving into my place, but we don’t know each other too well, and I told her you’d vouch for me.”
The deputy’s eyes widen for a moment, then a look of pure amusement spreads over his lips. Unlike Warrick, the deputy is tall but lean with floppy brown hair that falls haphazardly over his forehead like he’s tried to tame it, but he’s run his hands through it too many times for it to stay neat.
“This is Verity,” Warrick says, guiding me further forward without releasing his hold on me.
“It’s nice to meet you, Verity. I’m Deputy Cunningham, but you can call me Cam,” the male deputy says, stepping out from behind the desk and holding his hand out to me.
Reaching forward with the hand Warrick isn’t holding in a death grip, I shake his hand. “Verity Sanders, it’s nice to meet you, Cam.”
After half a moment, a tug on the hand still gripped in Warrick’s drags me a step backward, forcing me to let go of Cam’s hand.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cam laughs, looking at Warrick.
Not speaking, Warrick nods, and Cam shrugs and nods back.
Clearly, they’re having some kind of conversation that I’m not privy to.
I want to be annoyed and demand to know what they’re talking about, but I don’t know either of these men.
The only reason we’re here is so the sheriff’s department will know who to arrest if I turn up dead or abused in a ditch.
Jesus, what am I doing? This man is a stranger.
An attractive stranger, but a stranger nevertheless.
I should not have gotten in his car with him, and I definitely should not be considering going home with him, even if it’s only to sleep in his spare room because he found out I’m homeless.
“I changed my mind,” I say quietly, trying to tug my hand free of his hold. “I should go.”
Scowling, Warrick flashes me a lethal look, then turns to Cam. “Cam, please assure Verity that she will be completely safe with me.”
“He won’t hurt you, Verity. He’s a good guy, well-known and well-liked since he moved to town.
My sister lives just up the road from his place.
I’m going to give you her number and send her down to check on you.
If she’s even slightly concerned about you, she’ll get you out of there, and she’ll call me so I can make sure you’re okay,” Cam assures me, the amusement gone and replaced with seriousness.
“Your sister?” I question.
“Her name is Cora. Cora Barnett. She lives just a couple of minutes’ walk from Warrick’s place, and she’s crazy protective.
In fact, all the women in her family are, and the moment they meet you, they’re going to take you under their wings.
Would you like me to video call her so you know who she is before she turns up on Warrick’s doorstep? ”
Glancing at Warrick, I turn back to Cam and nod.
Taking his cell from his pocket, he taps at the screen, and a few moments later a female voice answers. “Hey Cam, what’s up?”
“Hey, Cora. Warrick made a new friend, and she’s going to be staying with him at his place, but he brought her to the department so that I could vouch for her safety with him.
I told her that you lived right up the road and that I’d let you know she was there.
Why don’t you say hey?” he says before he turns the cell around and offers it to me.
On the screen is a woman with bright red hair pulled up into a ponytail. “Hey, I’m Cora,” she says brightly.
“Hi, I’m Verity.”
“So Warrick, huh?” she asks.
“He offered me his spare room to stay in while I’m in town,” I tell her, hiding the truth that I’m homeless and have been living in a tent.
Cora’s lips purse, then she slowly starts to nod. “Okay. I’m guessing you guys just met?”
“Yesterday,” I admit.
“Makes sense,” she says, sighing lightly. “I’ll come visit you tomorrow, but be warned my crazy-ass husband and kids will probably be with me, and I’m eighty-five months pregnant, so I’m waddling and I look like I’m about to give birth to a whale, not a baby.”
“I don’t want to…” I start.
“It’s fine, I need to get out of the house.
Plus, I’m exaggerating. I’m actually barely eight months pregnant, it just feels like it’s been eighty-five months since he knocked me up again.
But real talk, Warrick is a softie. You’re safe with him, I promise.
But if he does anything that you don’t like, leave and head up the hill and keep going till you hit a house.
You’ll either find Hal’s place—he owns the Williams Ranch—or our house, and one of us will help you and call the cops no questions asked.
But you won’t need to, because I’m pretty confident in saying that Warrick would never let anything bad happen to you. ”
Oddly, even though she’s a complete stranger too, something in her words reassures me.
I’ve seen women lie a million times before, and despite not being great at it myself, I’m pretty good at knowing when someone else is lying, and Cora isn’t.
She truly believes that I’m safe with Warrick, and unless I’ve seriously lost my touch, I believe her.
“Thank you,” I tell her earnestly.
“You’re welcome. It’s nice to talk to you, Verity. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I agree.
“Have my brother give you my number. If you need anything, just call.”
I nod, then hand the cell phone back to Cam, who thanks his sister, then ends the call. After he pushes his cell back into his pocket, he hands me a business card with two printed numbers on it and a handwritten one.
“Those are my numbers and my sister’s,” he tells me.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“Thanks, Cam,” Warrick says, turning me and steering me toward the entrance. “Let’s get some food, amore mio.”
The next hour is kind of a blur. Warrick walks me back into his car, then drives us to a food truck that makes deep-dish pizza so thick I’m full after one slice. Instead of sitting at a table with a server, we sit opposite each other on a wooden picnic bench, eating in oddly peaceful silence.
“Are you ready to head home?” he asks, after I’ve refused more pizza for a third time.
“I guess,” I say, suddenly nervous. I don’t know anything about his house or where it is.
Honestly, I don’t even know where we are now.
I’ve walked the main stopping streets of this town dozens of times, but I’ve never ventured much outside of the hub of tourists and shops.
Traversing the winding streets in a car is a completely different experience, and I’m worried that I’ll never find my way on foot again.
I’m so lost to my inner thoughts that I don’t notice Warrick getting up and moving toward me, until his hand is held out in front of me.
Eyeing it, I wonder why he keeps trying to hold my hand.
Is it a man thing, or a Warrick thing? I’ve never had a boyfriend.
No one has ever wanted to hold my hand, not even my dad when I was a kid.
His parenting method was keep up or get left behind, so I learned to keep up at a really young age.
When I don’t reach for him, he reaches for me, curling his huge, callused hand around mine, gripping me firmly and not giving me an opportunity to slip free.
“Let’s go home,” he says, his voice low and gruff, but somehow soft and sweet all at the same time.
Home. It’s been months since I had one. Years, really, since anywhere has actually felt like home, like permanence. I doubt this town will become that for me, but something about the sentiment makes tears prickle at the backs of my eyes.
I don’t speak, but I let him gently pull me to my feet and guide me to his car. I let him open the door for me, then wait while I slip into the seat, closing my car door before he climbs into the seat beside me and we pull out onto the street.
It takes me almost ten minutes to realize that instead of there being more buildings, the road we’re on seems to be heading toward less and less, until the only things around us are woods and fields and nothingness.
“Where are we?” I ask, the fear that had been missing since he held out his hand to me surging back.
“My house is up the mountain,” he says calmly, like it’s totally normal and not at all remote and isolated and terrifying.
“The mountain,” I repeat, sounding like an idiot.
“Yeah, we have amazing views,” he says, like it’s a selling point.
“How far would it be to walk down to town?” I ask.
Keeping his eyes firmly fixed forward, he drops a bomb. “Oh, it’s too far to walk to town from there.”