Leaving the building after the meeting that had lasted three painful hours, most of which he’d participated in on autopilot, he looked for a cab. Finally, those idiots had seen reason, and just maybe he could keep them out of bankruptcy. Sleep first, and then he was going home and making her talk to him.
I should have tried harder, Newman thought, turning on his phone. Made her speak to him, instead of walking away because she’d asked him to. For once in his life he should have gone after what he wanted, and not done what someone else told him to.
Looking at the screen, he noted messages were waiting for him, and three missed calls from Cubby. He hit redial.
“What’s up?”
“Your girl’s in trouble, Newman.” He listened as Cubby outlined what had happened. How he’d found the backpack at her house, and how the Linears wanted Hope charged. His body shook with rage by the time Cubby told him that the governor had wanted to take Hope to Brook for questioning, because they thought Cubby would be too lenient on her.
“What! Tell me you didn’t let them?” Newman’s chest literally hurt at the thought of Hope scared and alone in Brook.
“Don’t insult me! Do you think we would allow that to happen?” Cubby roared down the phone at him.
“No, okay, sorry.” Newman exhaled.
“You should be!”
“Okay, so where is she then, if you didn’t let them take her?”
“I deputized Jake and Tex, and they locked her in the cells and handed her the keys, so only she can let herself out. I have the other set, and they’re hidden.”
He didn’t have a laugh in him, so he snorted. “I owe you, bud.”
“Yes, you fucking do, because it’s damn lucky I was voted into my job, or I’d be unemployed. That pencil dick Tyler and Daddy Linear are pushing my buttons, so to say the looks on their faces were pleasing when they didn’t get what they came for, is an understatement. Now get your ass home, because your girl needs you.”
“She did not say that.”
“She did actually, seems she has a thing for you. Now haul ass, bud.”
“On it,” Newman said.
The next few hours were the longest of his life as he thought about how Hope was suffering. One thing that had become abundantly clear to Newman as he walked into the Lair, tired and seriously pissed, was that Hope meant a great deal to him, and he wasn’t about to let her walk away from him again.
“Newman.”
“Tank.” He nodded to one of Cubby’s deputies as he entered the reception area. Seated on a bench was another man dressed in a black suit, who Newman guessed was there keeping an eye on things for the governor, and the Linears.
“Who are you?”
Newman looked at the man as he spoke. “And that’s your business why?”
“I’m on official business from Governor Tyler.”
“I’m sure I should be impressed, but as I’m not, you’ll excuse me,” Newman said, walking around the desk Tank still sat at, now smiling. He made for the cells.
“No, Hope, it’s knit one, pearl one.”
“Seriously, Ms. Roberts Haigh, I’m not sure knitting is for me.”
He smiled as he recognized Hope’s voice. Some of tension inside him eased as she came into view.
The entire book club was seated outside Hope’s cell, knitting.
“These squares are to be made into blankets and sent to those in need, Hope. It’s an excellent cause,” Helen Todd, local schoolteacher and Declan O’Donnell’s girl, said.
“I’m sure it is, Helen, but it’s hard.” Hope’s tongue was clamped between her lips as she concentrated. She looked so cute he felt warm all over.
“Ladies,” he said, but his eyes were on Hope. Her head shot up, and the flash of joy was very real in her eyes.
