“No spinach, I promise.” He needed to get out of this store. Away from Erin and a rogue attraction he didn’t want to feel. “Sorry. I just—ah—remembered I need to follow up with some stores tonight to try and nail down the third spot for my central Tennessee show.”
“Of course.” She tucked a stray dark hair behind one ear and swept toward the gap in the plastic divider, her black tulle skirt floating along with her. “You’ll be in touch to confirm the day and time you’ll want to shoot?” She dug under the front counter and produced a business card. “All my contact information is on here.”
“Great. I’ll have someone from the shooting crew call you to go over all the details.” He took the card, careful not to let his fingers brush hers. “I’m glad you’re going to do this, Erin. I hope it’s really good for business.”
“I’m not going to lie.” She straightened a few pillboxes on a display near the register. “I hope we get a ton of great clothes for women who need them.”
He wondered how she could be so blasé about the store’s bottom line but not enough to linger in her amber presence to ask about it. His gaze had returned to her mouth a few too many times in the past five minutes.
“Me, too.” Normally, at the close of a meeting like this, he’d shake hands and walk away. But she didn’t seem any more inclined to make contact than him. She was sticking close to the register.
And the fact that she was as wary as he was only made him more curious about her. He backed up a step.
“Good luck finding that third business.” She picked up her phone and turned her attention to the screen.
“Thanks, Erin.” Remy recognized he’d been dismissed.
It’s what he’d wanted—to get out of the shop before the attraction ramped up higher. He pushed through the door and slid into his rental car, feeling oddly let down. He’d felt the spark of a connection, and he knew she did, too. In another lifetime, that might have been a cause for some joy. Pleasure.
Today, it made him determined not to go back.
Chapter Three
Sarah Weldon wasso dead.
Cranking the volume on her car stereo as she drove from Gainesville to Nashville, Sarah hoped the throbbing bass would drown out her own thoughts since she usually tried not to think about that idea.
Dead.
Her mother had been murdered two years ago in a house break-in while Sarah had been overnight at a friend’s home. So death was a real, sickening reality for her. In fact, her father would have a fit if she said the words out loud—I’m so dead.
But then, her father was stuck in his grieving. Evensheknew that, and she was just barely eighteen and in imminent danger of being kicked out of high school. There was a lot Sarah didn’t know, yet she was rock-solid certain that her father was more wrecked in the head than she was when it came to her mom. Sarah coped by trying new things, taking new risks and pushing her boundaries. Running fast and hard helped. She’d moved on, right? Her father, on the other hand,was stuck in the past and big-time overprotective of her.
Which was why she couldn’t tell him about the letter that had arrived for her last week. She rested her hand on her purse where she’d tucked the note, wishing it would magically disappear.
Squinting in the dark at the sign for Chattanooga, she merged onto Interstate 24 East just as her phone rang. She prayed hard it wasn’t her father. Or the family she was supposed to be staying with while her dad worked. Or the school field trip chaperone who would probably get fired for losing track of Sarah during the overnight visit to the University of Florida in Gainesville.
“Bestie,” chirped the Bluetooth automated voice, reporting the contact in a way that had made Sarah and her best friend, Mathilda, laugh for an hour when they’d given all of Sarah’s friends nicknames in the address book.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed the connect button on the call so it came through the car speakers.
“Don’t be mad at me,” Sarah blurted, her eyes glued to the road and the taillights of a semi she’d been behind for nearly an hour.
“Are you insane?” Mathilda whisper-shouted. “Where are you?”
Sarah pictured her friend in the hotel room where she’d seen her last, sitting on the king-size bed they were supposed to be sharing on the field trip.
“If I don’t tell you, you’ll be able to answer honestly when Ms. Fairly grills you tomorrow about where I went.” She chewed her thumbnail. It had been practically impossible not to spill this plan to Mathilda, but she didn’t want her to get in trouble.
Sarah had caused Mathilda enough problems in thepast two years, dragging her to parties she didn’t want to attend and convincing her to sneak out after their curfew so Sarah’s father wouldn’t know she wasn’t at home. Sarah couldn’t help that she liked to have more fun than Mathilda, but she’d been doing better lately. Behaving herself.
“That may be the dumbest thing you’ve ever said,” Mathilda hissed in the same urgent whisper. “I’m your best friend in the world, and if you’ve done something stupid, you need to tellsomeoneabout it so they know when to worry about you for real, Sarah.”
“See? That’s why it’s been so hard not to tell you the plan. You’re so smart and I knew you would think of all the details I forgot.” She was nervous enough about her decision to sneak away.
Students weren’t supposed to have cars on the campus for the trip, but Sarah had planned a week in advance, paying a boy to follow her all the way to Gainesville from Miami the weekend before so she could leave the car in the lot. Boys would do anything for the chance to attend a big deal college basketball game and Sarah had helped him do just that—although she’d probably also given him the impression she liked him, which she hadn’t meant to. Still, it had been a way to drop off her car ahead of time so she’d have it for her escape. She’d told her father she’d left it at Mathilda’s, not that he’d asked. He thought mostly about work these days.
“What plan?” Mathilda pressed. “Seriously, I love you, but I’m about a minute away from ratting you out because I’m scared you’re doing something dangerous. You know you’re not supposed to go running at night by yourself.”
