“Sorry it’s not much,”I said as I put a plate in front of her. I’d thrown together some sandwiches for dinner, just from the meager supplies in the fridge.
“Looks good to me.”
“Want to eat on the deck? There’s a picnic table.”
Keira cast a pointed glance around. “Seeing as you have nowhere to sit in here, that makes the deck an ideal option.”
Her sarcasm had been out in full force, not giving me a break for a single minute, but if anything, that reassured me. She wouldn’t be snarking so much if she were traumatized after the car chase.
I’d take an angry Keira over a sad, silent one.
We sat side by side on the picnic bench, looking out at the starry night sky instead of at each other. It was chilly, but not too bad. I wasn’t worried about our security here either. Great thing about fifty acres. You could put motion-activated cameras in the key directions and set them up with phone notifications.
While I’d been making dinner, Keira had called her mom, Stephie, and Brynn to let them all know she wouldn’t be home tonight, in case they’d planned to stop by her place.She’d assured them everything was fine.Just needed a change of scenery.
That was one way to put it.
She’d kept the call with Brynn nice and short, clearly avoiding Brynn’s questions about what the heck was really going on. Brynn had no idea what we’d been up to today, but she had keen instincts and knew something was up. Keira and I would need to get our stories together.
I just wished I knew how Keira was really handling things. What she was thinking. Aside from thepissed off at Deanpart. That, I had down.
Suddenly, she gasped.
I leaped up to standing, my plate clattering and the last few potato chips flying to the ground. My hand was on her before I knew what I was doing.
“What is it?” I asked. “You okay?”
“Uh.” She blinked up at me. “Remembered something. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
My hand slid around to the back of her neck. With her soft skin under my palm, it made me think of how I’d held her after the car chase. How she’d leaned into me. I knew she hadn’t forgiven me for the ways I’d screwed up before, but in that moment in my truck, with her head on my shoulder, I’d wanted to pretend.
I carefully lifted my hand away from her. Sat back down, straddling the bench to face her. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“I’m not that delicate.” Her tone said she was annoyed at me, once again.
“You remembered something?”
“The ring the man was wearing today. I remembered where I’d seen it before. It was the night of the shooting. The same roadhouse where I argued with Donny Phelan.”
“Someone else was wearing a ring like that?”
“Yes. There was a man sitting next to me at the bar that night. Beard, pale blue eyes. He offered to buy me a drink.”
“Did you sayyes?” The question came out far more accusatory than I’d intended.
She tilted her head. “If I did, what’s it to you?”
As if I had the slightest right to be jealous. We hadn’t even talked about whether or not she was seeing anyone.
But if she had a boyfriend, and the guy hadn’t been hanging around her house, getting in my face when I suddenly showed up back in her life, then what the hell was wrong with him?
I cleared my throat. “Nothing at all. Just trying to get a clear picture of what happened.”
She frowned at me another few seconds. “I did not accept a drink from the man. I didn’t think anything was off about him, though. He seemed…fine. Wish I’d asked for his name.” Her eyes moved to the darkness beyond the house, as if she was remembering. “How could it be a coincidence, though? Seeing someone else with that same ring today at Phelan’s house. Then someone in a demon mask chasing us and trying to run us off the road.”
“I agree. It has to be connected.”
“We have to find out how.”
