Once I’d gotten to California and called Gramma to let her know where I was, I’d told her I didn’t want to hear a thing about what was happening in Gingham Lakes or its people. I’d told her the only person I cared about was her.
I’d wanted to shun it and hide it and pretend the rest never existed.
Of course, life here had just gone on.
Gramma had no idea what Janel had done to me. There’d been no reason for her to cut her loose.
“What’s wrong?” Jenny asked, taking a cautious step my direction.
“I...I didn’t know she was still working for my gramma. That she was here. It feels...wrong.”
So wrong.
So off.
Awareness pressed in. A thread tickling my consciousness, vying to make itself known.
“You knew her?” Jenny asked.
I barely nodded. “I lived with my gramma growing up.”
Jenny huffed. “Everything about Janel is wrong, Rynna. Make no mistake about that.”
She approached me, touched my cheek. Her expression turned pleading. “My son deserves to be happy. And my grandbaby? She deserves to be safe. Both of them deserve to be loved. The right way. And I know I don’t know you all that well, but I’ve always considered myself a good judge of character, and I’m betting you deserve it, too.”
I felt jarred when she suddenly stepped back and began to walk away. Just as she pulled the door open, she looked back at me. “I don’t trust her, Rynna. And you and my boy...your hearts are in the right places. But any sacrifice you and Rex are trying to make are only opening the door for her to hurt them all over again.”
* * *
My head was still spinning when I left the diner. Streetlamps shined down, twilight the deepest blue where it took to the sky, the Alabama air cooled by the shallow gusts of wind that blew through the quieted corridor, the shops lining the street shut down for the night.
I’d spent the entire day inside.
Working and cleaning and trying to process what Jenny Gunner had been trying to say. It’d felt like a warning. I’d pondered it until the windows had dimmed and darkness had begun to take hold.
I stumbled toward my Jeep parked at the street, my mind five miles away on that little house across from mine. I jerked back when I saw the man at Pepper’s windows, hands cupping around his eyes as if he were trying to get a better view inside through the tinted windows.
Slowly, he peeled himself back, ambled my direction.
Aaron.
Why was he looking in my restaurant?
Terror bottled in my throat, and I took a step back when he took one toward me.
He smirked, every slimy inch of his arrogant face lit in the lamps. This time, the asshole clearly knew who I was. “Well, Rynna Dayne. Thought you looked familiar before. Just couldn’t place you. You look good. Real good.”
He grabbed me by the wrist.
Something took me over. The fear gone, replaced by something fierce. I wrenched out of his hold. Disgusted. Anger burst free. “You didn’t recognize me? Why’s that? Because I wasn’t naked, letting you take advantage of me? Because I wasn’t following you around like a fool? Because I lost a few pounds? Which is it?”
He let loose a low, amused whistle. “Ah, I see the way you look isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Feisty. I like that.”
He went to touch my hand, and I jerked it back. “Don’t touch me. Don’t look at me. Don’t come around me. In fact, stay off this street. Don’t want to see you in front of this diner ever again.”
I ducked around him, trying to keep it together, pretending as if I weren’t shaking all over the place. I was seconds away from coming unglued. Unhinged.
A chuckle rumbled from his mouth, and he looked back at me, shaking his head. “Always in Janel’s way, aren’t you? Brave girl. Just wonder who she’s going to hurt most this time.”
