“Just some girl.” I cross my arms. “You think she’ll buy that?”
“No,” he says honest. “But the rest of the club might.”
I stare at him, heart pounding for a whole different reason now.
“You can’t keep doing this,” I say. “You can’t keep showing up, dragging me into things, acting like I’m yours to protect.”
He holds my gaze, something fierce and complicated burning there.
“I know,” he says.
“Then stop.”
His mouth flattens
“I’ll try,” he answers.
It ain’t a promise.
And somehow, that scares me more than if it was.
Chapter 18
Oaks
Holler’s boat sounds like trouble before I see it.
That old outboard coughs and rattles like it’s personally offended by the idea of work, and the noise carries across Herrington Lake in a way that makes every head on the dock turn.
Brittany’s already outside on the porch when he pulls up, arms folded tight across her chest, bare legs flashing under sleep shorts that look like they were meant for a basement couch, not open water and club politics. Her hair’s a mess and her eyes are sharp, and she looks like she’d like to throw me in the lake just to prove she can.
She’s furious.
Good.
Fury’s better than fear.
Holler kills the engine and tosses the rope up to the dock post. “Mornin’, sunshine,” he calls like this is a vacation brochure and not a forced relocation.
Brittany steps forward. “You’re part of this?”
Holler blinks once, slow. “Part of what?”
“This,” she snaps, gesturing at the lake, the cabin, the whole damn situation. “Your Vice President hauling me across county lines in the middle of the night, kidnapping.”
I lean against the cabin doorway and don’t intervene. I let them have at it. If she’s gonna explode, better she does it at Holler than at the wrong person in the wrong place.
Holler climbs up onto the dock with a crate in his hands. “He didn’t haul you nowhere you weren’t safer,” he says evenly. “You want your supplies or you wanna yell first?”
She glares but takes the crate. “I don’t got any clothes,” she says sharp. “I got pajamas. That’s it.”
Her voice cracks just enough to tell me she’s embarrassed.
It shouldn’t hit me the way it does.
“I want to talk to Lottie,” she adds.
Holler nods. “You will. She knows you’re here. She’ll be over tomorrow with Mason.”
