Chapter 7
Jesse
Wherever Edie had gone the night before, she didn’t come back until after Jesse had dragged herself off to bed, her arms aching from the effort of scrubbing the cabinets until they were as clean as possible. It seemed like the least she could do since Edie had refused to let her pay for the damages or even punish her for being so careless. The guilt still sat heavy in her chest and as she’d laid curled up in her bed, she wished she hadn’t left her Daddy behind.
Then again, the spanking she was in for when she finally returned home would be more than enough to cleanse any lingering guilt over Edie’s kitchen. Which was both comforting and terrifying. Sitting on the edge of her bed the next morning, phone in hand, she stared down at the black screen and nibbled worriedly at her bottom lip as she debated the wisdom of calling him and at least letting him know she was safe.
But if she did that, he’d be able to see her phone’s location on the app she’d insisted on downloading so they could keep track of each other since they both traveled so much. And once he knew where she was, he’d be on the first flight to Lost River. And even though she missed him so much it was a physical ache in her chest, this was something she needed to take care of herself. If she couldn’t work things out with Edie today though, she’d need to at least send him an email from the library or something.
But her reconciliation with Edie was going to have to wait a little longer, apparently, since Edie’s truck was already gone when she finally made her way downstairs. She hadn’t set an alarm, assuming she’d wake up when she heard Edie getting ready for the day. But either she’d slept like the dead or Edie was quiet as a fucking mouse in the mornings.
Dammit.
Since she didn’t dare touch the stove again, Jesse made her way back upstairs and hopped in the shower. She’d just get herself prettied up, head down to Joe’s Diner, and get some breakfast before she went hunting for her wayward hostess.
Edie McDowell could run, but in a town the size of Lost River, she couldn’t hide for very long.
Grant
Stepping out of the sleek rental car that had been waiting for him at the airport, Grant Carter scanned the surprisingly busy Main Street of Lost River, South Carolina. The way Jesse had spoken of this place, he’d expected a ghost town. But there were people everywhere, moving in and out of the shops lining the street.
His gaze landed on the fifties-style diner across the road and for the first time in two days he felt a wave of relief. His Little girl had a weakness for greasy diner food. Even if she wasn’t there right this second, it seemed like a good bet someone had seen her.
If she was even here. There was no guarantee she was, but nobody in her inner circle had seen her since she’d vanished with nothing more than a hand-written note telling him she had ‘some business to take care of’ and she’d be back in a week or less and not to worry.
Right. Like he was just going to sit at home and pretend everything was fine when her phone was off and none of their friends had any clue where she’d disappeared to?
It would have been laughable if he wasn’t so fucking worried.
The diner was just as busy as the street outside, but to his surprise the patrons barely glanced his way when he stepped inside. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t that surprising given how close they were to Charleston. He was probably just one of many tourists passing through as far as they were concerned.
Stepping up to the glass case housing an array of cakes and pies, he smiled at the woman behind the counter as she hurried back and forth, boxing up what appeared to be to-go orders. “Excuse me.”
The woman didn’t even pause, and barely looked at him as she placed two styrofoam containers in a large paper bag. “Be with you in just a minute, sir.”
He might have been born and raised in California, but he knew enough about the South to know good manners and polite words got you farther than barked demands.
So he waited while she rang up orders and chatted easily with the other two customers in line. And while he waited, he watched.
That was his superpower, Jesse said. Watching people. Learning everything he could about a person by the way they carried themselves, the way they spoke as much as the words they actually said. And perhaps it was a superpower, seeing as how he’d leveraged that ability to help grow his father’s struggling restaurant into one of the most successful chains in the world.
He didn’t know a damn thing about food. But he knew plenty about people.
So when the door opened again, and a little pixie of a woman entered, dark sunglasses covering half her face, her nearly black hair chopped even shorter than Jesse’s, and her back straight but not defensively tense, he took notice. And he took even more notice when the woman behind the counter’s smile brightened several notches at the sight of her and nearly half the diner waved in greeting.
A local. But not just any local—the kind of woman everyone knew and respected. Perhaps not liked, because even with the sunglasses on, the firm set of her jaw told him she didn’t take anybody’s shit unless she had a damn good reason to. Which, in a small town like this, likely rubbed some people the wrong way. But he’d bet his very hefty portfolio that even the people she annoyed respected the hell out of her.
“Be with you in just a minute, Edie.” The woman behind the counter—Wendy, according to the name tag pinned to her pink and white striped uniform—turned to him with a significantly dimmed version of the smile she’d given Edie. “What can I get for you, sir?”
“A slice of that pound cake, if you don’t mind.”
Her smile widened a bit. “Excellent choice. It’s my grandmother’s recipe. We’ve got some fresh cream and strawberries to go with it if you like.”
“That sounds amazing.” His stomach rumbled in agreement, reminding him it was nearly noon and he hadn’t eaten yet.
“Coming right up.”
Awareness crawled up his spine, and he had to work to resist the urge to turn around. The little pixie was sizing him up. He didn’t want her to know he knew she was watching him, so he pretended not to notice the weight of her gaze on him.
“You on your way to Charleston?” Wendy asked, her blonde ponytail bobbing as she boxed up the strawberries and cream.
“No, actually. My… friend lives around here and I was hoping to surprise her with a visit. But I got here and realized I don’t have an address for her. And she isn’t answering her phone, so I’m just hanging out until I can get a hold of her.”
“Oh?” Curiosity, the weakness of nearly every human he’d ever met, shone in Wendy’s eyes. “Who’s your friend? Perhaps I can help you find her.”
“That would be amazing. Her name is…” He hesitated for a second, torn between using her stage name and her real name. But surely people in her hometown would use her given name, the way he did, right? “Jesse. Jesse Walker.”
Wendy’s face lit up. “Jesse? She was just in here this—” She cut herself off, her gaze flicking to Grant’s right before shifting back to his face, her expression suddenly much more guarded. “Nope, sorry. Afraid I can’t help you.”
It took him all of two seconds to realize the woman standing beside him must have signaled for her to shut up.
Interesting.
He smiled for Wendy, because even if she had been cut off before she could give him any actionable intel, she’d told him exactly what he’d suspected all along: his wayward Little girl had come home for a visit. “I appreciate it, anyway.” After swiping his card, he took his paper bag and sent her a little wink. “I’m looking forward to grandma’s pound cake.”
It was exactly the right response, judging by the pink that blossomed on Wendy’s cheeks before she thanked him and shifted her attention to her next customer.
Grant carried his bag out to his car and settled in to see where the mysterious little pixie went next. If anybody in this town could lead him to Jesse, his gut told him it would be her.
Edie
“What do you think that was all about?” Wendy dropped her voice to a stage whisper, as if everyone in the diner wouldn’t be talking about the mysterious stranger who had come around asking after Jesse Walker.
The very handsome mysterious stranger, Edie couldn’t help but notice. Tall, possibly even taller than Matt Crawford, with broad shoulders that stretched his expensive-looking polo shirt to the max. His face looked as though it had been carved from stone by an artist who must have been feeling particularly generous that day, other than the slightly crooked tilt of his nose suggesting he’d broken it at some point and it hadn’t healed quite right. But even that small imperfection only served to add an air of danger to a man who looked like he’d be more at home in a boardroom than a small-town diner.
And those eyes. Jesus. It wasn’t that they were a particularly interesting shade of brown, but there’d been such a depth to them, like he saw everything, even the parts most people would like to keep hidden. Those eyes had nearly knocked the breath from her lungs, which wasn’t a feeling she was particularly comfortable with.
So, yeah, as pissed as she was about Jesse’s sudden return to Lost River, she wasn’t about to give some nosy stranger the smallest hint as to her whereabouts. She supposed there was a chance he was Jesse’s Daddy, but wouldn’t her Daddy know where she was, or at least how to find her? More likely, it was some celebrity gossip mag asshole who’d followed her out to Lost River.
“I’m not sure,” Edie said at length. “But until we know more, I don’t want anyone telling him where Jesse is. Spread the word.”
“Will do.” But there was a glint of curiosity in Wendy’s eyes as she bagged up Edie and Noelle’s lunch. “Hard to tell him where she is, anyway, when nobody really knows. She’s not at the B-and-B, and if anybody’s rented to her from that app some of the folks around here use, nobody’s fessed up to it just yet.”
“It’s a mystery.” Swiping her card to pay for the food, Edie grabbed the bag and headed for the door without offering any additional fuel for the gossip mill.
Their mysterious stranger was in his car, right in front of Edie’s store. Which was just fine by her, even if it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up a bit when he watched her jog across the street.
“Anybody comes asking around after Jesse Walker, you don’t know anything,” she said as she shoved open the door of her shop.
Noelle looked up from the papers scattered across the counter in front of her, one dark brow raising in what might have been amusement as Edie stepped inside. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” Edie snapped, sending Noelle’s other brow to match its twin at her hairline.
Taylor had apparently filled her in on the drama to date, which meant Noelle was aware of how well Edie was not handling Jesse being back in town. “Why, exactly, are we protecting the bitch who broke your heart?”
Leave it to Noelle not to mince words. “Because she might be a bitch, but she’s still one of ours. And until we know who he is or what he wants with Jesse, nobody knows anything. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.” There was only a hint of sarcasm in Noelle’s voice, which was honestly rather impressive for the snarky brunette.
“Good.” Edie opened the bag and took out the styrofoam container holding her sandwich and fries, then headed back toward the front door. “You can let the other girls know.”
“Wait! Where are you going?”
At the door, she paused to grin at Noelle over her shoulder. “To see just how far our mystery man is willing to go to get what he wants.”