CHAPTER 4
Beau
Noelle was trappedin Willow Grove.
It was official now.
The part I needed to fix her car was on backorder; not just delayed, not stuck in shipping hell. It wasn’t “on the truck” like they always said when folks came in pissed. Nope…it was backordered.
And even if I could get the part, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to fix the car. This thing…it was well and truly fucked. The more I looked at it, the stranger it got, too; it was like someone had intentionally cut the radiator hose with something serrated, then glued it back together just to hold for another ten miles. The crack in the radiator didn’t look like impact damage, either; it looked like a claw mark.
Not that it could possibly be a claw mark.
No animal couldcut through metallike that.
I ran my hand down my jaw and stared at the damn thing, hood propped up in the morning light, engine still cold. Milo sat at my feet, tail twitching, ears pricked like he was waiting for the verdict.
Waiting for me to say,“Yes, she’s staying. Your new favorite person is sticking around.”
But instead I frowned and shook my head. “Don’t know…she might have to take a bus out of town.”
Milo whined, ducking his head and looking up at me through long lashes. I sighed and crouched down to rub behind his ears.
“I know, buddy,” I said. “I like her, too.”
I did like her…more than I wanted to admit. Even knowing what I knew about how this town operated, about Delilah’s predictions for which Ward brother was gonna get married off next, I’d fallen under her spell.
It had only been one day, but I was already buying Delilah’s bullshit.
My phone rang in my pocket and I pulled it out to see Delilah’s name, a picture of her extending her middle finger toward the camera. I swiped up to answer, bracing myself for whatever she was going to tell me.
“Mornin’, Delilah.”
“So she’s staying, right?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Don’t stall, Beau. I had a dream last night,” she said, with the kind of gravity that suggested she thought this was solid evidence. “There were sunflowers and a mechanic’s jumpsuit and someone whispering the wordbridein Latin. It was either a vision or my subconscious bullying me.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “You two got stoned?”
“I don’t need weed to have prophetic dreams, Beau.”
I didn’t respond to that. On the other line, a glass clinked and a cat meowed.
“So,” she continued. “What’s the damage?”
I sighed, leaning against the fender. “It’s not good. Hosewas doctored…radiator’s cracked clean through. I checked every supplier in a hundred-mile radius and?—”
“Let me guess,” Delilah interrupted. “It’ll be at least a week.”
“At minimum.”
There was a pause, filled with the soft clinking of something on her end—probably a spoon against a mug.
“She’s not gonna be happy,” I muttered.
“Nope,” Delilah agreed cheerfully. “But she’s not gonna leave, either.”
