Frankie leaned out the window and gave him a lazy little wiggle of her fingers. Not a goodbye. A coronation wave. The most infuriatingly calm middle-finger in history.
They turned the corner and vanished.
His phone rang again. Unknown caller.
“You forgot your cat,” he snapped.
“Hammer? It’s Harriet. I’m intrigued by this ‘public acts of minor aggression’ Frankie exhibited while leaving town. Can we discuss?”
He saw red. Of course, Harriet had seen it. She probably had drone footage.
“No,” he growled, and hung up.
He stomped inside, tracking vengeance across the floors, and reached for his keys.
Empty hook.
He rifled drawers. Checked last night’s pants. Even the fruit bowl. Nothing.
She either had his Jeep keys or that damn cat had hidden them.
Out of options, he flung open the carriage-house doors and stared at the single remaining vehicle.
The bedazzled golf cart.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, buckling the world’s most insulting seat belt.
The cart chirped to life. He floored it—twelve heroic miles per hour—and glided toward town.
If she’d stopped at the diner, he’d find her. If not, he would chase her to Manhattan in a golf cart to say what he wanted to say.
He slid into the square and immediately hit a wall of people. It was eight a.m. on a Sunday. Weren’t these folks supposed to be at church? Or Denny’s?
He nosed the cart to the curb, swung out, and a fringe of rhinestone beads along the canopy shivered to the ground. The crowd parted.
Frankie.
She stood by a lamppost like a queen accepting tribute. Her new friends leaned in, hungry for the story. Ziggy hovered beside her, proud and lethal.
Marcus, still mud-spattered, crossed the square at a clip. Frankie turned, saw him, and smiled.
Not an ounce of regret.
He stopped a few feet away, jaw tight. “Have you lost your ever-fucking mind?”
The crowd gasped. Poppy clutched her necklace.
Vivian pressed a hand to her sweater. “Oh my,” she whispered. “You’re right. He’s not a morning person.”
Ziggy beamed. “You have no idea how many nots he’s not.”
Marcus threw a hand in the air. “What does that even mean?”
“Do not yell at my friend,” Frankie said coolly. “He hasn’t done a thing to deserve your tantrum.”
He pointed at his shirt. “The mud suggests otherwise.”
“For a man who enjoys a little dirt,” she said, head tilted, “you’re awfully precious about wet soil.”
