Chapter Ten
Marti
Attempting breakfast was brave of me, but I was normally pretty competent in the kitchen, since I’d been the one who had to cook for all of us when my mom died.
Like my dad would ever have been caught dead next to a stove unless he was digging beer out of the refrigerator, and neither would any son of his.
I was pretty sure Jackson hadn’t even been allowed to microwave anything by himself.
Maybe Rendi had a point about my dad always being horrible. Thinking about it now, he definitely had ideas about women and their place in the world before Mom died.
“You don’t have to cook,” Sutton said from a few feet away, and that competence I’d just congratulated myself on moments earlier went up in flames.
Almost literally, because the pancake I’d been flipping toppled completely out of the pan, the corner coming perilously close to the open flame of the gas range.
I quickly swatted at it with the spatula, digging it out from under the pan and away from danger, unsurprised to feel my face flush as hot as the stove. “It’s something I can do…” I trailed off, chuckling slightly. “Usually. Don’t you have something to do?”
“Nope,” he answered simply, making me whimper. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
He’d stepped closer, so when I turned to nod at him, his handsome face was close enough for me to admire the slight crease of his crooked smile on that one cheek. “Yes.”
He laughed, booping my nose before sliding behind me toward the coffee pot, his warm hand pressed to the small of my back.
My entire body overreacted to the stimulation, and I launched forward, jostling the handle of the pan and nearly falling onto the stove.
Moving quickly, Sutton reached out, wrapping one arm around my waist from behind and stabilizing the pan on the stove with the other. “Easy,” he crooned softly, his breath fanning through my hair and warming the skin just below my ear, making goosebumps pop up along my arms and legs.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands. One was still gripping the spatula in a death grip, but the other was just stuck in the middle of the air, palm out and fingers flared. Not knowing what else to do, I dropped it onto his wrist.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” It sounded like he was trying not to laugh, but I wasn’t exactly convinced that he hadn’t done it on purpose.
“It’s fine.” I mumbled. “I told you it would be dangerous having me here.”
His arm tightened, and his lips brushed my ear as he whispered, “I’ll risk it.”
My goosebumps turned to ostrich skin, and I sucked in a sharp breath, trying hard to process what was going on.
He chuckled again as he stepped away, and my other pancake nearly burned as I watched him the entire time he poured his coffee up until he took his first sip, trying to decipher that smirk on his face.
Breakfast was a little browner than I usually made it by the time he took his distracting self out of the room and upstairs to shower, with a warning to not answer the door. Since it was his fault, I gave him the less palatable stuff.
The diner was busy. I’d been moving constantly for about two hours, and I was glad.
As much as I actually enjoyed working with my best friend and her Mom, I was counting the minutes until I got off today, just like I had the last couple of days.
It was definitely childish, this cracked out butterfly feeling I had in my stomach, but every time I glanced up at the clock and realized another thirty minutes had flown by, my stomach would dip excitedly.
I had been telling myself over and over that I shouldn’t get all moony and hopeful, but clearly, I’d done both.
It was just really hard not to feel like he liked me just a little when the man seemed to touch me all the time.
If we were in the same room, he would brush against me or put his hand on my back or waist. He’d even brushed my hair away from my face a couple of times when he was telling me something, and I was standing there staring up at him in a way that would probably embarrass me if I could see it myself.
“You look stupid like that,” Rendi said somehow echoing my thoughts from the little window between where I was getting table five’s drinks ready and she was manning the prep station, since she was still banned from the grill.
I pointedly looked at her hair net and raised an eyebrow right before a piece of lettuce hit me in the forehead.
“Rendi Bennett,” her Mom snapped. “I am running out of things for you to do, and the Good Lord knows you don’t have any real skills.”
Rendi gasped indignantly, and I laughed, glancing out of the big window on the front of the building, watching the ghosts hanging from the tree in front of the founders’ monument across the street dance.
A cold front was supposed to be coming in, and in Oklahoma, that usually meant temps dropping twenty to thirty degrees in less than an hour.
Not to worry, they’d be back up in the seventies in a few days.
Someone moved away from the trunk of the tree.
I hadn’t even noticed him standing there, and even before I processed what I was seeing, chills spread up along my scalp, and I jerked, spilling sticky sweet tea over my fingers.
My heart was racing as he took two, three, four more steps toward the diner.
Something about my face must have alerted Rendi, because whatever she was in the middle of snarking to her mother stopped.
“What’s wrong, Mar?” she demanded, sounding serious for once.
I glanced over at her, opening my mouth to tell her, but she was already moving away from the little window, so I looked back toward the monument, my stomach dropping when I found an empty spot under the tree where the person had been before.
“What’s going on, Martina Leann?” Rendi asked beside me, reaching out to take the glass of tea from me and setting it on the counter.
I shook my head as I moved toward the giant window slowly, like I was expecting someone to crash through it at any second.
Jackson wasn’t that bold. He wasn’t that dramatic.
He’d always been the silent sneak to my dad’s volatile violence.
While my dad seethed with anger at the smallest thing, Jackson had always been smiling as he watched and smiling as he struck.
He was angry now, though. Furious even. I’d known when I rode to the station in the police cruiser, that I couldn’t go back home after that.
I’d seen the way he watched me as they gave me a ride so I could give them my statement.
His anger didn’t feel hot and wild like our dad’s.
It felt cold and focused, and solely for me.
After I’d given my statement to the police, I’d had them drop me a few blocks from the bus station, telling them my friend was picking me up from there, and I’d gotten out of there.
I’d known it would eventually come to this.
I’d known that when they started looking for me to show up as a witness my brother would probably find out where I lived and come after me.
I was surprised it had taken this long, really.
“What’s wrong?” I was suddenly pulled into a warm, strong body, and I melted into it, accepting Sutton’s support.
“Nothing. I just...” I pulled my attention away from the window and glanced over at my way over-qualified bodyguard.
“I thought I saw Jackson, but I’m not sure.
One second he was there, and then suddenly he wasn’t.
” I shook my head. “I’ve been thinking I’ve been seeing him everywhere. It’s probably my imagination.”
It wasn’t like Jackson had the ability to just disappear into thin air, right?
Sutton led me to an unoccupied table in the middle of the room, pointed to the chair and threatened me with his eyes until I complied and sat down.
The bell jingled overhead as he walked out the door.
Langston followed right behind him, and they both split up, moving with an ease that seemed funny given how big and gruff Langston was.
“Has Langston been here the whole time?” Rendi asked, and I frowned as she sat down in one of the other chairs.
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember him showing up.”
“Probably because you’ve been walking around in a love-sick haze all day,” she mumbled, dropping her chin to her hand as she propped her elbow on the table. “Do you think you really saw Jackson?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking I’ve been seeing him sometimes, but I’m also really starting to worry that I might be running on straight paranoia at this point.
What if that tape was just a mistake. What if I went back into the house for something and just completely forgot.
What if I have everyone all worked up about nothing?
There’s no reason to even think that Jackson would be able to find me. ”
Rendi cringed, wiggling slightly in her seat. “That might actually be my fault. You remember Carmen?”
I nodded, I didn’t need to ask “Carmen Who?.” I’d only ever known one Carmen in person.
She’d been a sweet girl who’d lived down the street from me back before I’d gone off to college. I was pretty sure she’d become a hair stylist or something like that, but I hadn’t seen her in a while, since she’d moved away from the neighborhood before I’d moved back.
“I don’t remember telling her that you lived here, but I did invite her to come live in one of our rentals a couple of weeks ago. What if she mentioned where she was moving to someone who knew Jackson, and Jackson realized you were probably with me? What if I’m the reason he knows where you are?”
I pursed my lips and shook my head. “It’s not your fault, Ren.
Even if that’s how he found out. I doubt it since he’d never set foot in a salon.
He cuts his own hair. Always has. They’re probably looking to serve me.
I had a feeling a court appearance would be coming up.
There is no telling who he’s managed to talk into giving him my information. ”
“If he was here, he’s not now,” Sutton said as he walked back in from the back of the diner.
“It was probably just my imagination.” I blinked at him as he moved closer, suddenly realizing how quickly he’d appeared when I needed him. “Have you been here the whole time, waiting in your car?”
“I thought you knew that. I’m not leaving until I know for a fact that your brother isn’t around.”
“Oh good,” I mumbled dryly, curling my lip. “You really are watching my every move now. I’m sure that’s not going to be an issue.”
“Do I make you nervous?” He crowded closer, and though I didn’t scamper backward like a little rodent, I shuffled quickly, catching my belt loop on something.
Sutton moved fast, grabbing the planter I’d been about to topple with one arm and catching me with the other, easily separating me from my captor while drawing me close. I sighed, dropping my head to his shoulder. “Do not laugh.”
“I’m sorry. I have to watch you just in case.”
“I know.” I probably sounded a bit petulant. It was incredibly embarrassing that he understood just how nervous he made me, simply by getting close. I had to admit, though, it was nice feeling cared about.
After a moment, he lightly gripped my chin, tilting my head back, so I could look up at him. He was smiling softly, but I could see the humor in the twitching of his lips and the brightness of his eyes. “I really don’t mean to make you nervous.” His thumb grazed my bottom lip so, so lightly.
Then you should probably stop doing that. “I know. It’s not your fault I’m like this.”
He lowered his head, his arm tightening around my waist, holding me even closer. His eyes were on my mouth, and then his breath was against my lips. I could almost feel the soft brush of skin against skin...
“Hussy,” Rendi whispered close to my face, making Sutton and me both jump.
Once again, he had to reach out and steady the planter, since I’d bumped it and nearly sent the stupid thing flying. Why had Livy even put that there? It was probably Rendi. She’d put it there against the bare little half wall in the middle of the diner, just to make me look like an idiot.
She laughed as I glared over at her, but whatever she was about to say to me was cut off when Langston stepped up next to her, frowning down at her. “Nice hair net.”
I snickered as Rendi screamed, throwing her hands over her head and running toward the kitchen like a crazy person. When I glanced over at Langston, he was trying to hide a smirk, but the evidence was right there for anyone to see.