“Hutch lets me buy it,” she said defensively.
Cam rolled his eyes. “No, I’m not going. I need to finish up those plans.”
She turned back to Hutch and smiled sweetly. “In that case I’ll go. Any chance you’d run me into Beaumont so I could pick up a few changes of clothes? I’d rather not . . .” She frowned and took a deep breath. “I’d rather not go back to the house.”
Hutch reached across the bar and took her hand. “Of course, baby. We’ll go wherever you need. They’ve opened a new grocery store over by the mall. Supposed to have a kickass meat counter.”
“Oh yum. Steaks.” She turned to Cam. “You’ll grill, won’t you?”
Hutch was so happy she was speaking in terms of being here awhile that he’d buy her an entire cow.
“You buy it, I’ll burn it,” Cam cracked.
She looked over her shoulder at Sawyer, who was still shoveling eggs into his mouth. “No, that’s Sawyer’s job.”
“Hey,” he said around a mouthful. “Like you cook any better? I’m thinking you make me look like a Food Network guru.”
“Don’t start, you two,” Hutch said with a groan. “Eat up, Reggie, so we can go.”
As she picked up her fork again, the phone rang. Oraphone. It wasn’t the main line. All three men looked around for their cell phones. Sawyer reached across the bar and snagged the offending phone, opened it and stuck it to his ear.
“Pritchard,” he said.
There was a long silence and Sawyer frowned. Then it turned into a dark scowl.
“Fuck. Are you shitting me? No, don’t do anything. One of us will be over to take care of it. Just sit on it until we get there.”
He closed the phone and dropped it on the bar with a grimace.
“We have a problem.”
“Obviously,” Cam said. “What is it?”
Reggie stared curiously at Sawyer, waiting for his response.
“Job site’s been shut down by the city.”
“Which one?” Hutch demanded. Plans were Cam’s thing. But Hutch and Sawyer oversaw the construction.
“The art gallery.”
“Why?” Cam asked.
“That I don’t know,” Sawyer said in a disgruntled voice. “That was Tom on the phone. Said someone from the city came out and cited three violations. Pulled the permit. Goddamn it. One of us is going to have to go down there.”
CHAPTER 21
Regina sucked in her breath as panic surged in her chest. She didn’t want one of them going off alone. It left the door wide open for whoever had a beef with her, or Hutch, or her father, or whoever the hell it was, to get to them.
“I can go,” Hutch said.
Sawyer sighed. “No, I will. It’s my project. You and Reggie need to get her shopping done.”
Shopping. Her brain worked overtime as she struggled to figure out how she was going to prevent them from splitting up. She couldn’t protect them if they were all in different places. Together, they posed a much more serious threat, and after two run-ins with the psycho trying to kill her, she’d had enough. Her body had taken enough punishment, and she had no desire for the wack job to get to her, any more than she wanted the guys in his line of vision.
“We could all go,” she blurted.
Three heads turned in her direction. Hutch frowned, and Sawyer stared curiously at her.
