“Greetings, new friends!” A cheerful voice bounced around the room. The man who glided toward us with a hip roll wasn’t far off from what I had expected, dressed in flowing black pantswith gold swirls. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, which allowed him to show off his tight muscles. The sunshine that spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over a nearby meadow glinted off his long blond hair. I got the feeling it was bleached so he could match the décor, but if that was how he wanted to spend money every few weeks, that was his own business.
But, more importantly, he was the picture of vibrance and health. There was no way this guy was sampling the product. I fought back a frown.
“You Goldie?” Keaton asked, standing to loom over the poor guy.
His smile wilted. “I’m Prosper Gold. You must be looking for my father.” A wrinkle formed on his brow and his Cupid’s-bow lips pulled down in a sad little scowl. “Please, don’t come here again. I try not to judge, you understand, but it disrupts my business.”
“Sure. Just let us talk to him, since we drove all this way,” I said, joining Keaton.
Prosper nodded and brushed his hair back off his shoulders. “Technically, the spa is his, but I’ve been running it for about ten years.” He glanced around with a wistful smile. “He used to be very invested in his work.”
“Today, dude,” Keaton said.
Prosper’s spine stiffened as he marched out of the room, and we hustled after him. We went outside via a side door, and he led us through the meadow full of flowers and beyond the tree line to a rundown small cabin in a gulley. I had a feeling that if Prosper could pick this sucker up and shift it farther out of the way, he would do it, even though it was out of sight of the main building.
“This is more like it,” I muttered.
“Dad, you have customers.” Prosper shot us a pitying look as he fled, and I didn’t blame him one bit. How long had hebeen living this way? No, getting rid of this asshole would help a whole heap of people.
The man who opened the door could’ve been an older version of his son if Prosper had stopped working out or eating regular meals. Goldie’s messy graying blond hair was up in a bun. The stained green tank top he wore billowed around him, and the legs sticking out of his shorts were sinewy, without an ounce of fat on them. Suspicion gleamed in his bloodshot eyes and he trained a gun on me in less than a second.
“Shit!” My breath caught.
“Who are you?” Goldie glanced between us.
Keaton was so fast I barely had time to register he’d tensed. His fist slammed Goldie’s face, and the old man went flying onto his ass. The gun skittered across the floor, and I didn’t see where it landed. My heart kickstarted into double time.
“You don’t sell meth to the trailer park ever again!” Spit flew from Keaton’s mouth and his eyes were wild. His muscles strained with the effort of keeping himself in check.
He was fucking magnificent. My heart was going to burst with some wonderful sensation I was becoming obsessed with.
“Which one?” Goldie cupped his injured face with a hand, looking baffled, as if he hadn’t expected we would take offense to having a gun shoved in our faces.
“Lakeview,” Keaton growled.
Goldie nodded, and Keaton spun, stomping off, my sexy fucking ogre.
Jesus. Christ.
There wasn’t much for me to add, so I bolted after Keaton until I was at his side. Purple and red flowers brushed against our legs as we nearly ran through the meadow. Damn, he was pissed off.
“I could’ve fucking killed that guy,” he said, hands clenching into fists.
“Would that have been so bad?” I said, mostly to myself, but he heard and raised an eyebrow in my direction. He chuckled at my “joke,” but I was serious. No reason to let him know that.
In less than five minutes we were on the road away from the absolute head trip that was Gold Mind and Body Spa.
“Are you feeling better?” I asked from my spot behind the wheel. The road spun away ahead of me, and I had a surreal feeling. I wanted to keep driving forever. The tidal wave in my brain wanted to swamp me, but I refused to stay stuck in thoughts of Mom. Dad. Their sad, strange end to life.
He glanced at me. “No. Goldie’s alive. Mom’s gone.”
“There are solutions for that.”
This time my words hung in heavy silence.
Keaton had taken some bereavement time from work, which meant he didn’t have much to worry about for a couple of weeks. Once we were home, I sent him to lie down because his head was obviously still killing him, but he was too stubborn to admit it.
That afternoon, Mrs. Carmine stayed for dinner after watching Ginny for us while we’d gone on our little excursion, and it was surprisingly a nice time. Before I knew it, one game of tag and a bath and about seven books later, Ginny was sound asleep.
