Chapter 2 #2
“What do you mean, ‘always owned’?” I ask, scratching the snoozing pooch behind his floppy ears. He chose our table to settle beneath and has been hanging out for the entire hour and a half that we’ve been here, snoring softly. “Maybe he’s a vampire dog?”
Shiloh snorts. “Get down to Louisiana and you Yanks think it’s all Interview with a Vampire, yeah?”
“Well…” I shrug.
The diner looks like it’s been around for at least a hundred years, so I don’t understand how Chappy could have always been here.
“There’s just always been a Chappy. Not the same Chappy, obviously—”
Obviously.
“—but every hound owned by the people who run this place is named Chappy.”
I tip my chin. “Creative. Have you always lived around here?”
He jerks a thumb in the general direction of the road outside. “I’m actually originally from a little town outside NOLA. ‘Bout another hour down the road, a little bit bigger’n this one. But yeah. I live in NOLA now, have for some time.”
The hair on the back of my neck lifts. Fucking New Orleans.
It’s a big city. The odds that he’s from the same place my quarry was last seen are small. Still…
I run my fingertips through the condensation on my glass of tea and glance away, trying to hide what the mention of the city is doing to my insides. The food I just ate is making a slow roll within my stomach and threatening to come back up altogether.
Lifting the glass, I take a sip to swallow down the lump in my throat.
“New Orleans. That’s actually where I’m headed.” My voice comes out scratchy, and I curse myself when Shiloh sends me a curious look.
“Oh, yeah? Sightseeing?”
“No. It was just… time for a change. So, what do you do for a living?”
“This and that. What do you do?”
“This and that,” I shoot back. He stares and after a few seconds and three French fries, I relent. “I’m an EMT.”
His eyes narrow, like he can’t quite figure me out. “Huh. What are you doing down in these parts?”
My phone rings, saving me from coming up with an excuse. “Hello?”
“Miz McEntire? This here’s Murray with Murray’s Garage and Tow. I’ve got your Explorer and wanted to call and give you an update.”
“Oh, thank you. How bad is it?”
“Not too terrible, actually. You have a belt that needs replacing, and since it’s American I’m able to get one pretty quick. I can have her up and running for you by midday, tomorrow.”
“That would be amazing. What’s the damage going to be?”
“As long as I don’t stumble on anything else, I can keep it to four-seventy.”
I close my eyes briefly, then open them.
Ugh. My money is going to run out fast at this rate.
Shiloh watches me closely. The man rarely takes his eyes off me, I’ve noticed.
“All right,” I say. “Thank you very much. Just call me when it’s ready, and I’ll figure out my way to you.”
“Yes, ma’am. You have a good night, you hear.”
We hang up and I raise my arms above my head in a stretch, rolling my neck. Shiloh follows the movement, his eyes tracking the lift of my breasts in my tank. He runs a fingertip along the fleshy lower line of his full bottom lip, saying nothing.
“Good news, bad news,” I offer as I lower my arms and set them back on the table, my voice husky.
“I gathered,” he says.
“I guess I should go check in at that hotel across the street. Get a shower. Maybe take a nap or something.”
I should.
But I don’t want to.
I’m choosy about who I sleep with—at the ripe old age of twenty-two I’ve had exactly three lovers—but there’s something about Shiloh…something in his laid-back confidence and his intent, hooded gaze, that tells me he’s not one I’m likely to forget any time soon.
I need that. Something to make me forget, just for a little while.
Picking up a discarded straw paper, I shred it into tiny pieces, wondering if I should just say what I want.
He leans forward on the table, the gesture making his biceps pop intriguingly.
“Why don’t you do that? And then, if you like, later I’ll come pick you up and we can head out for dinner…
maybe some dancing and a drink or two.” Reaching across the table, he draws patterns on the skin of my hand, making it go still on the straw paper. “And then…”
I lift my eyes to look at him. “Then?”
He shrugs a little. “I guess we’ll play it as it lays.”
I nod. “I like the sound of that.” I check the time on my phone. “Six-thirty in the lobby?”
He stands, tosses a bill neither of us look at on the table. “Be ready for me.”
Then he’s gone, weaving between the tables with an easy, twist of narrow hips and powerful thighs. I watch him go with a little shiver, then stand and follow.
I hadn’t counted on this trip starting out with a just-for-tonight encounter with a sexy man, but I’m not sorry about it if that’s what happens, NOLA connection or not.
Not in the slightest.
Tucked safely in my hotel room, I stare at my phone like it’s going to bite. I’ve put off calling my foster father as long as I can, but I officially can’t put it off any longer.
Twelve missed calls.
Eighteen unanswered text messages.
He’ll send out a search party if I don’t answer him soon.
Cal’s name sits at the top of my favorites. He’s the only person I’ve ever been able to talk to without pretending I’m fine.
I hit dial before I can talk myself out of it.
He answers on the second ring. “Where the hell are you? You turned your location off on the app.”
No hello. No softness. Just the question.
“Hello to you, too. I’m on a road trip,” I say.
Silence replies, the kind that breathes. Then—
“Reva.”
Just my name, flat as a warning. It makes me feel like I’m fifteen again, caught in a lie about Tommy Westerman’s party I wasn’t supposed to go to.
I exhale through my nose. “Down south.”
“Mm. How far down south.”
“Florette, so far.”
A beat. Two.
“Turn the fuck around, Reva.”
I give a short, humorless laugh. “You’re not the boss of me, Cal.”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing, Cal.”
“You think you do.” His voice stays even, but beneath it worry swims. “Are you alone?”
“Mostly.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I shut my eyes, irritation flaring. “I broke down and a guy stopped. My truck needed a tow. I’m fine.”
A breath huffs out. “Jesus H…what’s his name.”
Cal doesn’t ask questions. He states them, flat and unequivocal. I hesitate. “Shiloh. I don’t know his last name. He just stopped to help.”
I feel his sigh more than hear it. There’s another beat, too quiet. Too sharp.
“Don’t go anywhere alone at night,” Cal says.
I bristle. “I’m not twelve.”
“No,” he agrees. “You’re not. Which means you’ll do something stupid and call it adulting.”
My jaw tightens. “Dammit, Cal, why are you like this?”
“Because I’ve buried enough people who thought they were in complete control of shit they didn’t know anything about.”
I swallow, throat suddenly dry. “I didn’t call to ask for permission.”
“I know,” he says. And there it is—something edged under the calm. “But I’m still telling you to get your ass back here.”
“I’m not coming back. Not yet, anyway. Not until I get some answers.”
A low, frustrated fuck sounds. Then, even quieter, “Just…be careful who you talk to.”
My grip tightens on the phone. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you don’t know the men down there,” he says, and it’s the first time his control slips enough for something like anger to show. “And you don’t know what you’re walking back into.”
“And I take it you do? Maybe you should have told me—” I break off, biting my cheek.
Cal used to work for my father, part of the necessary personal security that followed a very wealthy man.
After he managed to gain custody of me in the wake of my family’s murder, he never wanted to talk about any of the demons that haunted either of us. That’s not his fault.
I get it. I don’t want to sit down and have a chat about it, either.
I just want answers.
“I’m not a kid,” I repeat, but it sounds thinner now.
“No,” he says. “You’re my family.”
The words hit wrong—too raw, too possessive. Like he heard himself say it and hates it. Tears spring to my eyes, and I squeeze my eyelids shut, willing them back. Neither of us expresses affection easily or gracefully. This is the closest it comes to Cal telling me he loves me.
He exhales once, controlled again. “Text me when you’re inside somewhere with a lock.”
“I’m not going to be reporting in, Cal.”
“You damn sure will,” he says, and it’s not a threat. It’s certainty. “Or I’ll come get you.”
My pulse kicks. “You don’t even know where I—”
“And turn your fucking location back on.” The call ends.
I stare at the dark screen until my reflection looks back at me like a stranger, and I realize something I don’t want to admit.
Cal wasn’t guessing. He was scared.
I turn my location back on.
And then, just for good measure, I dig down into the bottom of my bag, scouting among the crumbs, spare M&Ms, ink pens, and tampons, until I find the tiny round disc that’s been in there for I don’t know how long…an AirTag Cal slipped in at some point and probably doesn’t even know I’m aware of.
I’ll have to make sure it’s still operable.
Just in case.