Travis stepped to the side, but Cody mimicked the action, blocking his line of sight. “Don’t evenlookat her. And if you push me again, you better be ready for me to push back. I didn’t set Eastern on you. If he decided you were a possible suspect,that’s fromyouractions, and you have no one to blame but yourself.”
A scowl crossed his face. “You’re a dead man, Walker.”
“Is that a threat?” Cody’s voice was so dark, Harper almost didn’t recognize it.
Dayne grabbed Travis’s arm. “Come on, man. Let’s go. He’s not worth it.”
Travis shook his friend off. “Not a threat. Just a warning that I’m not happy. And when I’m not happy, no one is.”
He turned and stormed down the street in the other direction. Cody didn’t move immediately, instead waiting until they were a good distance away. When he finally faced her again, there was visible anger in his eyes, but it wasn’t conveyed in the soft tone of his voice.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “You?”
“Yeah. Just ready for the assholes to leave us alone.” This time, he didn’t just take her hand, he slid an arm around her waist and led her across the road. She didn’t miss how his gaze continued to move down the street, almost like he expected Travis to come back.
Sugar and Spice was full of people, with half the tables filled and Mrs. Sandler busy behind the counter, serving customers. Cody led her over to an empty table. She was about to sit when her phone rang, Ivy’s name popping up on the screen.
“I’ve got to take this, Cody. It’s my old boss returning my calls.”
He nodded, and she moved to a quieter corner of the shop before answering. “Hi, Ivy.”
“Hi. Sorry it’s taken me so long to return your call. You havenotbeen easy to replace. I mean, I’ve replaced you, but jeez, I’m only just realizing how much you did and how efficient you were.”
She cringed. “Sorry. If my situation was different, I would have stayed and trained the next person.”
“Hey. I know you. I know you’d only have left for a good reason. Whatever the family emergency is, I hope it’s getting sorted out.”
Nope. Not getting sorted out at all. “Family is kind of why I’m calling. Did you happen to share the town I’m in with any of my family?”
“Actually, your mother stopped by. I couldn’t believe how much she looked like you, just older! She was quite upset, said there was a big problem and you weren’t reachable, but she needed to send you something and asked for your address…”
Harper closed her eyes.
This was all her fault. Illegal or not, in a small southern town like Hamilton, ofcourseIvy wouldn’t have hesitated to give her address to her mother. She’d never shared any of her family issues with her old boss, and what kind of person didn’t want their own mother to know where they were?
Just her.
“Sorry, I…I know I shouldn’t have done that,” Ivy hastened to add, after Harper’s obvious silence went on long enough to turn awkward. “I just thought—”
“It’s fine.” Her eyes popped open. It wasn’t fine, but what else could she say? “Thank you for being a great boss, and I hope my replacement catches up on everything quickly.”
Keeping his eyes on Harper,Cody pulled his phone out of his pocket and called his brother. Eastern picked up on the second ring.
“Cody—”
“Travis is damn unstable.”
There was a small pause. “Did something happen?”
“He just threatened me on the street while Harper was with me. Basically threatened her too.”
“Whoa, back up. Start from the beginning.”
Cody took a breath to try to calm the rage that coiled inside him. “He saw me and Harper, rushed over, and started spewing shit about how I already fired him and got him labeled a thief, and now I’m the reason he was taken into the station and questioned about the attack on Harper in the alley. His exact words were, ‘You’re a dead man, Walker.’”
“Jesus. Okay, I’ll handle it.”
