Leni glared at his smug expression as she picked up the plate of macaroni and cheese and handed it to Riley. “Go on, eat your lunch before it’s cold. I’ll bring your chocolate milk in. Just give me a minute, all right?”
He nodded, then pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen as she’d asked.
As soon as he was gone, she reached beneath the counter. Holding the envelope in one hand, the flaming tip of a long-nosed lighter in the other, she touched fire to the edge of the court order. She held Travis’s gaze as she let the document burn.
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that, Leni. I thought you were the smart one.”
She threw the burning envelope at him. He batted it away, then stomped it out with his boot when it drifted to the tile floor.
“Get out of my diner,” Leni said. “Both of you, stay out of our lives.”
Enoch sneered. “I told you, son. She’s a dumb slut, just like her sister.”
“Dumb sluts get hurt,” Travis said. “Sometimes, they disappear.”
“Are you threatening me? You’re not out of prison two days and you’re already itching so much to go back you’re going to threaten me in front of half a dozen witnesses?”
He swung a glance at the diner full of people, all of them watching and listening now. Enoch curled his gnarled fingers in the sleeve of Travis’s coat. “Come on, son. We’re obviously wasting our time with her.”
“Yes, you are,” Leni agreed. “So, go.”
They took their time about it, but after a few moments they were gone.
Leni sagged onto her elbows on the counter. What had she just done? She couldn’t let them intimidate her, but dammit, she hadn’t meant to escalate the situation, either.
Shuffling footsteps approached from the other side of the counter. Then a hand landed gently on her bent shoulder.
Old Claude heaved a long sigh. “Lenora, I’m worried for you. Don’t you realize it’s dangerous to draw a line in the sand with folks like the Parrishes?”
She lifted her head. “Yes, I know that. Maybe it’s time someone did it anyway.”
CHAPTER 18
Leni came back to the house just before sundown, carrying a sleeping Riley in her arms.
Knox met her at the back door. After prowling the confines of the house like a caged animal all day, he’d been counting down the seconds until nightfall when it would be safe for him to run out and hunt for a blood Host. Now that Leni was back, his only concern was the look of utter fatigue on her beautiful face.
The defeat he saw in her eyes disturbed him even more.
He’d never seen her so dejected, not even after his boorish behavior with her yesterday.
Worry pulled his face into a scowl. He reached out to take her burden. “Let me help you with him.”
“No.” A single word, crisp with finality. “I can manage. He conked out after supper in the diner. I need to put him to bed.”
She walked past Knox without meeting his gaze. Her continued cold shoulder irked him, but the tension he saw in her spine and carefully schooled expression hinted at something more than just aggravation with him.
Knox’s scowl deepened, along with his concern. “Did something happen today, Leni?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
With that quiet statement, she walked up the stairs to the bedroom on the second floor.
Knox waited below as the old floorboards creaked under her soft footsteps. After a few moments, he heard her make her way from Riley’s room to the master bedroom at the other end of the hall. She closed the door behind her and didn’t come out.
Ten minutes passed, then several more.
Knox swore under his breath. If she thought he was going to play along for another round of avoidance, she was sorely mistaken. If being near her without wanting to feel her in his arms was a torment he could barely withstand, being ignored by her was even worse.
