Chapter Four
S loan delivered a plate of eggs Benedict to the judge—who didn’t seem to have a name other than his title—with a smile. “Let me know if I can get you anything else.”
“I know that accent.” He studied her from beneath his bushy gray eyebrows. They gave him the look of a quizzical owl. “East Coast…New York?”
She froze, then mentally berated herself into relaxing. “Philadelphia.” It wasn’t the truth, but Philly natives’ accent was close enough to Boston’s for someone to mistake the faint trace of accent she had if they weren’t familiar with it.
His frown cleared. “Ah, yes, that’s it. You’ll have to tell me sometime how you came to end up here in our little town.”
Sloan’s smile slipped. “Of course. Another time, if that’s all right?”
“Yes. Go, go. Don’t let me keep you from your work.
” He focused on his breakfast, releasing her, but her panic didn’t dissipate as she headed for the kitchen.
She’d thought leaving her past in the past would be as easy as relocating and starting a new life.
It had never occurred to her that everything from the way she carried herself to the way she spoke could give her away.
It doesn’t matter. None of these locals care where you came from, other than wanting a good story.
Knowing that didn’t change the fact that the walls felt too close.
Sloan stopped just inside the door to the kitchen and concentrated on breathing in slowly through her nose like Jessica, the yoga instructor, had taught her this morning.
Three breaths and she wasn’t in danger of fleeing out the back door and never returning.
Another five and she even managed to turn around and head back into the main dining area.
All her hard-won calm disappeared when she saw Jude lounging in the corner booth. Lounging wasn’t the right word. He looked like a big cat who was as likely to tear out her throat as purr and rub against her.
Rub against…
She tried and failed to shut the thought down. From there, it was a slippery slope to thinking about what she’d done last night while picturing him.
It was almost enough to make her flee into the kitchen again. Or it would have been if not for the knowledge that Marge had given her a chance, and the woman wouldn’t take kindly to her hiding in the back when there were customers to be served.
Sloan took a careful breath and approached Jude. “What can I get you?”
“I feel like I’m perpetually apologizing to you, but I left abruptly last night and I’m sorry.” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Come out with me after your shift.”
She blinked. Did he just… “I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m going to take you out. Tonight.” His intense dark eyes never wavered, though she was wondering how she ever labeled them cold. Right now, they were so hot, they were liable to turn her into a pillar of flame.
The only question was if she’d perish in the fire or emerge as something altogether different.
That thought should have scared her, but she’d been afraid for so long.
Maybe it was time to do more than think about taking the first step into the future.
Maybe she needed to actually put herself into motion.
Sloan licked her lips, aware of the way he tracked the move.
Everything about Jude was intense. He’d toned it down for her last night, but he wasn’t even trying right now.
She shifted her stance, still torn. “I’m not exactly in a good place to date right now. ”
He considered her, and she suddenly got the impression that he was choosing his words with care so as not to spook her. “What is it, exactly, that you think I’m asking?”
“I, ah…” She clutched her little notebook to her chest, painfully aware that the handful of diners in the place were blatantly eavesdropping. “I don’t know.”
He lowered his voice to the point where she had to inch closer to hear him clearly. “Let me show you.”
And, suddenly, she wanted to do exactly that.
Sloan found herself nodding even though every instinct she had said that Jude was trouble in the worst way.
But, whatever he was, he was vitally different from her brothers and father back home.
He might seem brutal and dangerous and intense to a criminal degree, but this wasn’t Boston.
This was Callaway Rock. No matter how dangerous he seemed, odds were that he wasn’t a man who had skeletons in his closet—literal or otherwise.
That made him safe in a way none of the men she’d ever known were.
Jude’s gaze sharpened. “That’s a yes.”
“That’s a yes.” Her voice was too breathy, too irregular to pass for anything other than nerves, but she didn’t care. If she fell flat on her face, at least she was living .
Get control of yourself .
She cleared her throat. “Can I get you something?”
“You.” He drummed his fingers on the table, ignoring her jaw dropping. “In the meantime, some coffee to go would be great.”
Did he…He didn’t…He did.
Sloan walked back to the kitchen in a cloud of white noise. She’d never been talked to like that. She wasn’t even sure it could be considered flirting, because he wasn’t feeling her out in any manner—he was talking to her like their being together was already predetermined.
Like she was a sure thing.
She wasn’t certain he was wrong.
***
Jude knew he’d crossed the line with Sloan, but there was something about the woman that drove him to it. He couldn’t help pushing, poking, prodding her into a corner just to see how she’d react. The interest that had flared in her eyes at his blatant invitation had been reward enough.
Kind of like the dazed look on her face when he told her exactly what he wanted.
Well, not exactly. He could have gone into explicit detail about every single thing he planned on doing to her body, but she’d already been half a second from freezing up or bolting.
You’re supposed to be pumping her for information. Not pumping…
He shut the thought down as she scurried back to him, a coffee mug and pot in her hands.
Marge was an old battle-ax who used to have no problem sending people down to the beach with paper coffee cups, but the second those things started showing up in the sand and ocean, she drew the line.
So she allowed ceramic mugs to travel outside the diner, and people sure as shit brought them back when the alternative was to be eighty-sixed out of the only decent place to eat without leaving Callaway Rock.
He waited for Sloan to pour the steaming hot liquid before he spoke again. “What time are you off?”
“Three.”
“Good.”
She started to say something, seemed to reconsider, and then hurried away, her head down and shoulders bowed.
He’d take it personally, but she seemed to default to that body language when she wasn’t paying attention.
The few times he’d seen her straighten and stride forward with purpose, it had very obviously been something she’d made herself do.
Once again, he caught himself wondering what the hell her story was.
And who had hurt her.
Jude made an effort to unclench his hands.
That was the crux of it—someone had hurt her.
People didn’t walk around trying to squeeze themselves into as little space as possible without a damn good reason—without conditioning to do exactly that.
He rubbed a hand over his chin, considering what he could find out about her.
Sloan wasn’t a very common name, and adding in her likely connection to the Sheridans would narrow the search further.
He could tap a couple of his sources and see what shook out.
Or he could wait and talk to her and see if she told him anything.
He almost smiled. Giving people the benefit of the doubt wasn’t what he did.
If his family’s history had taught him anything, it was that if left to their own devices, people would barely wait for a person to turn around before stabbing them in the back.
It was smarter to go into any situation, whether it was a date or a confrontation, with all the cards and a plan for every contingency.
Jude pushed to his feet and headed for the door.
He almost made it, too.
Jerry Steinback, town mayor and all-around pain in the ass, appeared as if out of thin air, a wide smile on his face showing off too-white teeth.
Everything about him was trying a little too much.
Skin too tanned to come from Oregon summers, hair too perfectly combed, clothes always impeccably pressed as if he’d just put them on.
There was nothing overtly wrong about him, though, other than his making it his personal mission to find out Jude’s story.
He held out a hand. “Nice to see you in town.”
Torn between the desire to walk right over this little man and the need not to make a damn scene, Jude gritted his teeth and took his hand. “Jerry.”
The mayor gave him a significant look. “Our new waitress has perked everyone’s curiosity.
I knew you’d be in eventually.” He extracted his hand from Jude’s with a grimace, which was what made Jude realize he’d been gripping it too tightly.
Jerry continued, undeterred. “So, you and the new girl, huh? One town stranger and another, traveling across untold distances to end up living right next door to each other. It sounds like something out of a novel, though not one of yours, of course.”
That was the other thing about Jerry that pissed him the fuck off—the man had more imagination than was good for him. Jude took a drink of his scalding hot coffee and strove for patience. “If you’ll excuse me…”
“Right, right. Those words won’t write themselves.” He stepped out of the way quickly, almost as if he was uncomfortable being in Jude’s shadow. “It was nice seeing you in town for a change, though. We’re a family here, for better or worse.”
Jude wasn’t staying. Even if by some freak accident he ended up stuck in this little town, he sure as fuck wasn’t interested in a family.
He’d lost the only family he’d had before he knew them and he wasn’t looking for a replacement.
Caring about people was like issuing handwritten invitations to his enemies telling them how best to hurt him.
He couldn’t afford to miss a step because he was worried about anything other than his mission. He wouldn’t allow himself to.
But he couldn’t say any of that to Jerry. The man was already too curious by half, and while Jude wasn’t above taking out problematic individuals, he’d hate to have to kill a man because he couldn’t keep his shit together.
So he faked a smile. “See you around, Jerry.” Then he walked out the door and into the cool summer morning.
The interaction had served to remind him what he was here for. It wasn’t Sloan. She might be a source of information, and she might be an enjoyable distraction in the meantime, but she wasn’t his endgame.
Which meant he had no reason to play nice.
His questionable honor only went so far, after all.
Jude walked out onto the beach, putting some much-needed distance between him and the rest of the town. Only when there wasn’t a single person in sight did he pull out his phone and dial. It only rang once, just like always.
“What?”
“I need some information and I don’t have much to go on.”
Stefan snorted. “When do you ever have much to go on? It’s a good fucking thing I’m a goddamn miracle worker, isn’t it?”
It was true that no one seemed as adept as ferreting out information as the hacker.
Jude had only met him in person once—and only because he refused to work with someone he hadn’t seen face-to-face—and Stefan reminded him of a mole or some other underground creature.
He kept his apartment closed off from the outside, not even opening the curtains, and surrounded himself with more computer monitors than any man had a right to.
From what Jude could tell, he lived on Cheetos and Mountain Dew and didn’t leave his nest, but none of those things mattered, because he was the best at what he did.
Information.
“You’re wasting my fucking time. Give me what you got and I’ll get you what you need.”
Jude glanced over his shoulder, but there was still no one in sight.
Even if there had been, the sound of the tide coming in would have drowned out his low words.
“A woman—dark hair, dark eyes, petite. Her name is likely Sloan, and she’s just as likely got a connection with Boston and/or the Sheridan family. ”
Stefan barked out a laugh. “You really like making things interesting, don’t you?”
“I’ll pay double if you can get me the information in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Forty-eight.”
He clenched his jaw. It was never simple with Stefan. “It is of the utmost importance that I have this goddamn information as soon as humanly possible.”
“That’s fucking fine, but you’ve given me shit-all. This girl could be a cousin to a cousin of some rando who works for Sheridan. Or she could be not named Sloan at all. Or a hundred different options. I know my work, asshole. You want it that fast, you’re paying triple.”
Jude turned to stare out over the ocean.
Arguing wasn’t going to accomplish a damn thing.
He wanted that information, and he’d pay dearly for it.
Stefan knew it and he knew it, so there was no point in negotiating.
“Fine. Hurry the fuck up.” Jude hung up and headed for his house.
He had several hours before Sloan would be finished with work, and he fully intended to put them to good use.