1. Renne #2
I approach the passenger window, and, since holding my daughter on my right side is getting too heavy, I drop my diaper bag on the sidewalk and shift Hanna to my left hip. “What do you mean, get in?”
“Get in, and I’ll give you a ride.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say as an excuse.
I’m not riding in the car with one of the Crossbow twins.
That’s crazy. I left my crazy behind in my hometown along with my entire identity.
Renne Richardson would’ve gotten into this man’s SUV and had a grand ol’ time with him, but not Ekatia Gruber.
Ekatia is a mom and a nurse who comes home and goes to work, and that’s all. She must stay invisible. Preferably be as boring as possible. This means I have to figure out a way to refuse Connor without making a big deal of it.
“Thank you so much for the offer, but I’ll take the bus home.”
He frowns. “Do you not need Dina anymore?”
I run a hand through my hair. “Nah, I’ll figure it out.”
“It’s about to rain again. You’re with a baby.”
All valid points. Tempting. Tempting. But I shake my head.
“Hey, I wouldn’t get into the car with me either, but I’ll go out on a limb and assume you need to drop your baby off at Dina’s because you’re going to work. The scrubs you’re wearing are a dead giveaway. When does your shift start?”
I sigh. “Eleven.”
“Unless you take the baby to work with you, you won’t make it anywhere. Besides, that baby looks like she could use a nap.”
On the other side of the road, the red bus 57 stops at the drop-off and pickup. I could ride back home and cancel the shift and leave that money I need behind. My bosses will be pissed as they rely on me, but I’m out of options. “I don’t know.”
“Which part is left to uncover?”
“I don’t know… I mean…”
“I don’t have all day. Get in the car, Ekatia.”
With the bus blocking traffic on one side and Connor parked where he shouldn’t be, waiting for me, the drivers in the cars honk.
Feeling pressured, I sweat more.
“For fuck’s sake. Fine. Fuck off.” Connor slides the window up.
I grab it with my hand and peer over it. “You don’t have a car seat.”
Connor’s eyebrows draw down. “There are eight unoccupied seats in this car.”
“A car seat is for the baby.”
Connor makes an O with his mouth and steps out of the car. He joins me back on the sidewalk with his hands resting on his hips. The car door is wide open, causing more traffic congestion. Drivers curse and honk as they maneuver around the SUV.
I shift my daughter back onto my right hip.
“Don’t you have a stroller?” he asks.
“It’s easier in public transport if I carry her.”
“Then eat more and build muscles so you can carry her for longer, because she’s not getting any lighter.”
“Thanks for the unsympathetic advice.” Asshole. I don’t say that because he might take offense.
“Welcome. I’m wiser than I look.” He pulls the bottom of his lip through his teeth. “Is there a specific kind of car seat she needs, or are they all the same?”
“I’m… I’m not sure. We don’t ride anywhere.” The city is walkable. Most people don’t need cars, and parking is a disaster, as I learned when I first got into town and drove a rental car. In fact, I was parked in front of Dina’s salon fifteen minutes before it exploded.
Connor jogs across the street and a little way down.
Where is he going? I frown.
When he kicks the window of a parked car and yanks out a car seat, I gasp. “Oh my God, this guy is crazy.”
The man jogs back but doesn’t pay attention to the traffic, and a car barely misses him. The driver brakes to a screeching halt and gets out, but Connor pulls out one of his pistols. Shocked, the driver quickly gets back into the car. People clear the streets, and the cars stop honking.
Connor is muttering to himself as he crosses the street, through now-stopped traffic, then he unceremoniously fits the car seat into the back and returns to his place behind the wheel.
I remain standing there.
Connor slides his sunglasses down his nose and looks at me with those piercing blue eyes. He doesn’t have to tell me twice. The gun is resting beside him and not holstered.
I fix the car seat as best I know how and put my daughter in it, then slide in next to her. The car smells of leather and man.
Connor adjusts the rearview mirror. “Come sit with me in the front.”
I pretend I didn’t hear him and fuss over my baby. I’m not sitting in the front with him.
Again, he mutters something, then he pulls away. I can feel his eyes on me in the rearview mirror.
“You should be watching the road,” I say.
“I don’t like having people at my back.”
“I’m afraid we’ll crash if you don’t watch the road.” He’s making me nervous.
Connor pulls over. “Then come sit with me.”
Torn between my daughter’s safety and my own comfort with this man, I double-check that the car seat is properly secured. It is, and Hanna is looking out the window. She’s a wonderful baby. Not fussy at all. Plays by herself in the crib for hours. I’m blessed.
I move to the front.
Being this close to Connor Crossbow makes me intimately aware of his cologne, the thick titanium ring on his thumb, other thick silver rings stacked on his fingers, his thick leather bracelets, and the skull tattoos on top of his hands. Connor is a whole personality of I Do Not Give a Fuck.
Renne would go out with him.
He seems to know where he’s going, but I haven’t told him where I live or what I’m doing, since even I don’t know what to do. “Do you know where I live?” I ask.
He slides me a glance. “No.”
Duh is at the end of that sentence, I can tell. I wring my hands in my lap and try to make a joke. “Don’t say you’re taking us to a cornfield to dump my body.”
When he doesn’t answer, I look at him.
Another side-eye. “I wouldn’t need to take you to a cornfield to dump your body. I could drop you right here in the car. Duh.”
There it is. Duh. “You can take a right here.”
“Why?”
“That’s where I live.”
“You’re not going home. You’re going to my house, where Dina is, so she can babysit for you, and you can go to work. I told you I’d help you out, but then we’re done.”
Works for me!