“Who hired them?” she asked. “And why my passenger’s seat?”
The sheriff’s jaw tensed. It seemed to pain him to bite out the name.
“It was Damon Tillman.”
James didn’t recognize the name, but Rose sure did. Her face seemed to drain of color. It was such a drastic change from what he was becoming used to that James reached his hand out under the table toward her.
His knuckles brushed the fabric of her sweatpants.
She didn’t react to it.
“Damon Tillman,” she repeated.
The sheriff nodded.
James waited for a follow-up explanation. The two of them simply stared in silence for a moment.
“Does anyone know where Damon is now?” Rose said after a moment.
Her calm voice grated on James. It didn’t seem appropriate for the topic, especially not when the sheriff was making no show of hiding his own anger.
“No. That’s what Darius has been doing. Trying to track him down. Four men were working for him and apparently not one of them can point us in any one direction. We just know he’s…around.”
A knock on the door timed eerily with his last words.
A woman with long braids and a very pregnant belly walked in after he called out. Her expression softenedslightly as she swung a smile to him and Rose before her gaze fell on Weaver.
“I’m sorry for the interruption, but I need to see you for a minute,” she told him.
Sheriff Weaver seemed to split between alert and soft. He nodded.
“Excuse me,” he told them.
James belatedly recognized the woman as Blake, the sheriff’s wife, after they left.
That, in itself, was a feat considering his attention was so fully wrapped around whatever it was that Rosewasn’tsaying.
Once the door was closed and it was just the two of them, James couldn’t stop himself. He fanned his hand out onto the thigh of Rose’s pants and patted twice.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Who is Damon Tillman?”
Rose stared straight ahead. She sighed out short.
“A consequence,” she said. “Mine, actually.”
James raised his eyebrow.
“Your consequence? For what?”
James kept his hand on her as the woman with a big attitude seemed to become incredibly small. He didn’t understand it. He didn’t like it.
If there had been more time, James might have taken a moment to wonder why he had gone from knowingofWildcard Rose Little toneedingto know her in such a short amount of time.
But, for the moment he was in, he gave all thoughts to her.
Rose shook her head. Pain contorted her face.
“For hesitating.”
