Chapter Eight #3
Hayes said nothing, and in one smooth movement, he picked my purse up off the ground and held it out to me. “Doesn’t look like nothing,” he noted.
“I’m fine. Just a long morning,” I assured him, hiking my bag over my shoulder.
He folded his shades and hung them from his shirt collar. “Look,” he sighed, “if you don’t tell me, I’ll just ask Joey.”
My eyes flicked to the bar owner. “He isn’t going to tell my business.”
“Yes, he will,” Hayes said at the same time Joey muttered, “Yeah, babe, I will.”
“Why would you tell him about my problems?” I demanded to know. “I barely know either of you.”
“You’re one of Margo’s girls,” Joey deadpanned. “That’s enough for both of us to have the right to be concerned.”
I pressed my lips together, not really understanding his logic.
A sudden wave of exhaustion hit me, and I didn’t have the energy to attempt to explain to them how this had fundamentally fucked my next two weeks.
“Marg sent me home for the day,” I told Hayes, not meeting his eyes.
“I don’t have my car and came down here to… find a ride.”
He was silent for a moment, a muscle jumping in his cheek as his jaw worked. Then he lifted his chin to Joey and gestured to his Jeep. “I can take you home, Angel.”
There was no sense in arguing with him. Margo had told me he wins every time.
I let him take me home, and when my house came into view, he pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered a curse under his breath just as my eyes landed on a blue truck in the driveway.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“That would be the current pain in my fucking ass,” he said, pulling the Jeep up to the curb.
A second later, Ash came around the side of the house, carrying the large tree limb that had fallen in my backyard last fall.
My jaw nearly dropped.
“Why are you pissed at him?” I wondered aloud, my cheeks heating at the sight of Ash’s bare arms, his muscles glistening in the sunlight.
A thick silence filled the cab, and it took all the strength I had to glance over at Hayes.
He was glaring at Ash, and part of me wondered if he’d even heard me. “Hayes?”
“I think it would be best if you went inside, Angel. You need to rest.” His words were slow, calculated, and cool. His elbow was resting on the door, and he rubbed his finger over his top lip, his jaw hard.
When I didn’t move, he did, dropping his arm, popping open his door.
I watched him walk around the front of the Jeep to my door with Ash standing in the front yard, taking the scene in.
His face was neutral, and the shadow of the old baseball cap on his head hid his eyes.
My door was opened, and Hayes helped me down.
It was unnecessary, but still, I muttered a thank-you.
He closed the door and stood behind me as Ash dropped the tree limb near the curb.
His gray T-shirt and blue jeans were dusted with bits of leaves and dirt.
Yet he was still the most handsome man I’d ever seen.
As he approached, he gave us a nod while pulling off his gloves.
He stopped in front of me, his dark eyes on full display under the brim of his hat.
They were warm, reminding me of my favorite Earl Grey tea swirling around in my oldest mug.
“I was wondering where you were,” he said to me, his voice cautious, breaking my train of thought.
What?
My brows came together. “What do you mean?”
His lips twitched and he gestured to my home. “Told you last night I’d come by to look at your breaker panel.” A thought hit him then, and the warmth in his features was flushed out. “Did you forget?”
“No, I had to work this morning.”
He blinked and lifted his eyes to Hayes for a moment before dropping them back to me. “Angel…you went to work?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “That’s what I just said,” I told him, tipping my head back to meet his eyes.
“Marg told her to take the day off and rest,” Hayes informed him, his voice monotone.
“That’s what you should’ve been doing in the first place,” Ash said to me gently. “There was no reason for you to go in today.”
I pressed my lips together, feeling the burn in my throat again. Not even a second later, my eyes began to sting. Great. More tears. In an effort to conceal them from Ash for a moment longer, I turned to face Hayes. He was still staring at Ash. “Thank you for bringing me home. I appreciate it.”
Margo’s boyfriend didn’t take his eyes off Ash as he pulled out his wallet and held out a business card to me.
“This is Red Snake’s number. No matter when you call, one of us will answer.
You need us for anything, Angel, you call.
” He dropped his green eyes down to me. “You get me?” he softly prompted.
“This isn’t…I appreciate it, but I don’t need—”
“It’s a good number to have, Angel,” Ash interjected from behind me. He sounded closer now. A small twig snapped, and then his heat was at my back. “Take it,” he whispered, his breath skating across my neck.
Once the card was in my possession, Hayes dipped his head, gave me a small smile, and walked around the Jeep.
He left without a word to Ash. I stood there, at the end of my driveway, utterly dumbfounded by this.
I was under the impression that the members of Red Snake Investigations were relatively close.
“That was rude,” I said, watching the Jeep disappear down the hill, turning into a sea of pine trees. “He could’ve acknowledged your presence at the very least.”
“He did.” Ash chuckled, the sound sending goose bumps down my spine. “He glared.”
I turned to look up at him and his wild beard. “You didn’t have to get that limb.”
He looked down at me, crinkles coming to the corners of his eyes. “It’s not a problem, Starlight.”
Starlight?
I blinked, jerking my head back. “Starlight?” I whispered.
He ignored me, cleared his throat, and flipped his baseball cap around. “Let me inside so I can get started. I don’t know how long this is going to take, and you need your rest.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked, guilt twisting in my gut.
“Just an hour.”
“Oh.”
“Figured it would be rude to break in and fix it while you were gone, so I started cleaning up your backyard a bit.”
I nodded and looked at the tree limb. “Yes, there was a bad storm last fall, and it knocked that down—wait!” I shook my head. “Did you just say break in? How on earth were you going to do that?”
A slow, wide smile stretched across his handsome face, and at the moment, the sun decided to stretch its rays through the trees above us, highlighting his excruciating beauty. “Yeah, it’s best if you lay down. Clearly, you’ve forgotten what I do for a living.”