Chapter 7 #2
Outside, a car passed on the highway without slowing. The refrigeration unit hummed its low, constant note, and the world beyond this booth felt very far away.
She skimmed his arm with her hand. “Thank you for telling me about him.”
His gaze roamed her face, stopped on her lips. He took a piece of hair that had escaped her bun and rolled it between his fingers and thumb. “I appreciate you giving me the chance.”
She’d been so lonely for so long. Even before her father died and she’d moved home, she hadn’t had any serious relationships. She’d tried a few casual dates, but even with that, she didn’t know how to be casual. Didn’t know how not to try and control it.
Her mother and father had been married for almost thirty-two years before he’d passed. They’d gone to school together and started dating in high school. Her mother always said they had a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love.
Regan had always wanted the same.
Yet here she was feeling desperate for anything. Any connection. Just something to make her feel less lonely.
No, not just lonely.
Alone . Even living back home with her mom, she felt so damned alone.
She leaned closer, licked her lips. He sucked in a breath and tilted his face toward her. Their lips were only an inch apart. She met his eyes, so green and steady. She was ready to press her lips to his, and…
His phone rang.
They both jumped back.
He cleared his throat and glanced at the screen.
She composed herself in the space of a breath and was grateful the bar was dark enough to hide whatever had just happened to her face.
The phone rang again, and CB seemed torn. “Go ahead,” she said, before he could explain. “Answer it.”
He did. “Claire? What’s up?”
She couldn’t hear the other end clearly, just the brisk cadence of a woman’s voice. She watched CB’s face instead, and wished she could slide under the table and hide.
“When can you come?” he said. A pause. “Two o’clock. We’ll be here.”
He hung up and set the phone on the table.
She waited.
“The C&D will be ready before Friday,” he said. “Kristina’s drafting it tomorrow after Claire takes our statements at two. They’ll go into the federal file.” He paused. “She said this gives them a thread on the Outlaws they’ve been waiting for.”
A federal file. A thread the FBI had been waiting for. A cease and desist that would be in her hands before the men who’d been threatening her showed up at her door on Friday.
Three days ago, she’d been alone in this bar with an envelope and no idea how she was going to protect her mother.
The tightness in her chest loosened. She reacted before she thought about it, launching herself at him and hugging him.
Her arms went around his neck, and she pressed her face against his shoulder, hard enough that he made a small sound of surprise.
“Thank you,” she said into his shirt. “Thank you, CB.”
His arms came around her.
He was solid and warm and smelled like soap. For a moment, she just stayed there, and it was the first time in longer than she could remember that the weight she’d been carrying felt like it had somewhere to rest.
His hands went to her waist, and she took one more deep breath before she drew back. Her hands were still on his arms, and his face was close. The relief that had cracked her open felt raw and needy. She kissed him.
Soft. Brief. Her lips against his, barely a brush.
He went still. His hand came up to the curve of her jaw, and she leaned into it. His lips found hers and moved unhurried, certain, the same way he did everything. The bar was quiet, and he was warm. She forgot, for a moment, why this was a terrible idea.
The kitchen door swung open.
“I forgot my?—”
Lucy stopped.
CB was out of the booth before Regan had fully registered her mother’s voice. One moment he was there, and the next he was behind the bar with a towel in his hands, doing something very focused with a tap handle.
Regan sat where she was for one suspended second.
Lucy stood in the kitchen doorway with her cardigan folded over her arm and a very small, very controlled smile on her face. “Don’t mind me,” she said pleasantly. “I just came down for my —”
The front door opened, the bell chiming.
All three of them looked over.
Carl Purcell, a rancher from out on Route 9 who came in twice a month and always ordered the same thing, stepped inside, looked around the quiet bar with mild surprise, and settled onto a stool. “Slow night?”
“Carl.” Regan was on her feet, hustling behind the bar. “The usual?”
“You know it.”
She waved CB away and pulled the beer. Her hands were steady. She was proud of that.
CB backed off and rearranged a few liquor bottles on the shelf. Lucy, cardigan still folded over her arm, turned back toward the kitchen. At the door, she paused and looked at Regan with an expression that contained an entire conversation Lucy was absolutely going to finish later.
Regan set Carl’s beer in front of him and avoided glancing at CB.
CB just polished the tap handle, but out of the corner of her eye, she didn’t miss the smile on his lips.