“Wait, we need to talk—”
“No.” She sidestepped his second attempt to touch her. “Maybe in the morning.” Then she turned, hurrying out of the room and down the hall. The sound of her door closing made a resounding thump.
Jesus, he couldn’t have handled that worse if he’d tried.
He wanted to go after her. Explain to her just how fucking much he wanted her but why he also wanted to go slow. Heneededslow.
But then his phone rang.
He pulled it out. He had a signal again. Not much, but a couple bars were better than nothing. It was the station. “Jesse speaking.”
“Jesse. It’s Claudia.”
“Did you make it to the house?” He felt like shit for asking her to go out there in this weather, but this was important to him because it involved Aspen.
“The woman gave me hell, but I got in. Unfortunately, I need to order a new cable. It will take a few days to come in.”
Of course it would. “Okay. Did you let George, the owner, know?”
“I did. He said he’d prefer not to kick her out because he hasn’t had many bookings on the property and is losing money.”
Yeah, he’d gotten that feeling earlier. “Thanks for going out there, especially in the storm.”
“No problem. Also, my friend is still looking into Dylan Bollard. I can tell you that he hasn’t used his bank cards in days.”
Jesse frowned. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. Could be a coincidence. Or he could be trying to hide his movement. I did find one thing.”
“What?”
“I called his workplace. His employer spoke to me. Told me that as of a week ago, he took leave from work.”
Jesse’s muscles tensed, his gaze moving to the window. Leave from work and potentially concealing his location…it left a bad fucking taste in his mouth. “Keep looking into it.”
“Will do.”
Jesse hung up. He didn’t like this. Any of it.
CHAPTER 16
Jesse pulled up in front of Burt’s Pizzeria. Before getting out of the car, he checked his phone. Still nothing from Aspen. He’d sent her a text a few hours ago and she hadn’t replied.
“Why do you keep checking that thing?”
He glanced over at Luke in the passenger seat. “I’m not Aspen’s favorite person right now.”
That was a damn understatement. She’d come out to breakfast this morning but had barely said two words to him. When he’d tried to touch her hip, she’d slipped away from him and moved to the other side of the island.
“Uh-oh, what did you do?”
Jesse scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d either embarrassed her or made her feel unwanted. Maybe both. “I screwed up. Come on, let’s go.” He climbed out of the car before Luke could ask any more questions.
It didn’t take long for Luke to catch up to him. “Fine. But at least tell me if she ate the pizza last night.”
“She ordered pepperoni.”
Luke cringed, because yeah, pepperoni was the worst on the menu, and that was saying something. “Rookie error. I don’t know what it is about his pepperoni that makes it taste so…”
