Nothinggood would ever come ofthat.
45
The WHP had just left,and she was beyond exhausted.Claudia and Zach had both finally been called away.Em and Junie had the girls at Gil’s.Em had covered the shift at the thrift store, then Junie had had a shift at the diner, but Gil had been there to watch all the girls, until Sage had gotten there to help him.Her cousin was an absolute godsend—Auggie was more and more convinced of that every day.And his wife was amazing.
She and the girls wouldn’t have gotten through the last five months without them.Thankfully, both Gil and Sage—and Claudia—were fully recovered from what had happened with Morris Preston too.
The good guys had won that day.Auggie had told herself that repeatedly over the last five months.
Then it was justher.
And him.
Calloway.
He hadn’t left.Even when she’d told him she was fine—he’d said he wasn’t leaving her to face any of it alone.And every time she’d looked up and needed him, he’d been there.She was still wrapping her head around that one.
It had been a long time since she’d depended on anyone other than Em, Junie, Sage and Claudia—and Gil.
And now…Cal.
She’d found time to shower earlier—while Cal had overseen the WHP.She’d left him with a Weatherby on each side of him in her living room.Three incredibly beautiful men, but Cal just stood out.Maybe it was because she’d watched him get right between his sister and Ransom Weatherby instinctively.Protectively.Or how he’d had to hug Markie and Tobi three times each—Tobi had insisted—before he’d helped them carry their bags to Em’s van.How he’d tried to reassure Em, Jan, and Junie that everything would be okay.
It made her feel even more twisted up inside.
“So…I can drive you to Gil’s.Or follow you,” was all he said after Ransom and Rex Weatherby had taken off, after their little troops of arrogance had left.Rex Weatherby had had thirty patrolmen parked in her front yard.Fanning out.
Looking for her father.
As if her father was still on her land somewhere.
Her father wasn’tthatstupid.She didn’t think.And two hundred acres wasn’t that big.Not big enough for him to hide from that many cops.No.Her father had most likely run to the end of the driveway, hopped into whatever car he had, and taken off hours before the Weatherbys had even shown up on her porch.
They knew that, too.
Today had been a gigantic waste of time.Or some sort of posturing.Poking at Claudia, Sage, and Joel for some reason.That was what Claudia thought, anyway.
“I may take you up on that.”She wasn’t going to be stubbornly stupid—the heroine left alone at night after the villain had been around usually didn’t work all that well in books and movies.And she had little girls who needed her tonight.“Not that I think he’ll be back tonight…I’m sure this was all over town today.He’d be an idiot to come back here, tonight.”
She wouldn’t put it past those Weatherby brothers not to have a patrol unithiddensomewhere along her driveway, for one thing.
“Probably.Why don’t I take you to dinner at the inn?We’ll get everyone in town talking about something else…Like talking aboutusand just what we are up to…” Then he was next to her, right there in her living room.And it was just them.Quiet, the lights were lowered, and it felt…intimate.“Then, I’ll take you to your cousin’s, before going home to my lonely bed.”
“Let me guess, where you’ll dream of me?”She’d read romance novels, after all.Her cousin Nikki adored romance novels.Em was almost as bad.Auggie knew how this worked.
Hot, sexy hero one hundred percent into the heroine…
Too hot for the heroine to resist…
“If you want me to.If not, I will tell my dreams to behave themselves.”His hands were on her waist and he was turning her to face him.Just like that, she felthimall around her again.“I can’t make any guarantees, though.Not…where you are concerned.But I would like to finally have that conversation.”
“You…I just don’t know how to take you.One day we were sworn enemies, now…Just what are you after, Calloway Ellis Grady?”
“You know my middle name?”
“I spent more nights atyourhouse with Cloe when I was in high school than I didanywhere,other than Uncle Bill and Aunt Susan’s.It was my safe place.I know your middle name.I even slept in your bed once, when Cloe and I painted her room that time.That weird yellow that lasted less than a year—remember that?We both camped out in your room and went through your drawers.I remember your mom yelling your middle name at you when I was a kid a few times.”
“So you know all my secrets.And that yellow was hideous.Cloe has always been the weird one.”
