“Jenna,” he greeted, “I’ve been wanting to speak with you. Things were said between us the other day—”
Jenna raised her hand to silence him. “No, Q. Just because words came out of your mouth directed at me does not mean they were said between us.Yousaid things that were out of line. I walked away.”
Lynnette bit back her smile. Her bestie hadn’t always had the backbone to speak up so clearly.Guess I have to like Jon.Whichshe supposed meant forgiving him for dropping a body in her truck the previous week.
She shifted her focus back to Quetzal. He’d spoken with a hint of a Hispanic accent, which wasn’t surprising from his appearance. But, somehow, the coincidence nagged at her.
Quetzal’s brow pinched, his attention still focused on Jenna. “I was too forward, yes,” he said. “I never meant to upset you.” He pulled a hand from his pocket and gestured while he spoke. “I mean only to protect you. Even now, your lover has left you all alone. Again.”
Jenna scoffed. “Protectme? Is that what you were doing when you stood back and gaped while I jumped in front of a gun last week?”
Lynnette’s eyes widened. It took her a beat to remember it had, technically, been last week when Jenna’s bakery had almost been robbed.
The incident that ended with Lance in her hospital.
Quetzal had been there?
She said he’s a customer.
Quetzal sighed. “I could have handled that better.” He said it as if confessing a terrible sin. “I am here to rectify my previous behavior.”
Jenna scoffed and folded her arms over her chest. “All you’re doing is making me highly uncomfortable. Prying my address out of some town gossip so you can show up unannounced and uninvited at my home, for your own agenda? If all you wanted was to smooth things over, you could have waited until my bakery is open again. Or the next time we run into each other naturally.”
He absolutely could have, and Jenna’s accurate assessment had warning bells sounding in Lynnette’s head.
Quetzal didn’t flinch. If anything, Jenna’s words seemed to irritate him. His eyes pinched and his jaw clenched for amoment before he relaxed his expression. “It is not safe for you here any longer,” he said.
Jenna reared back. “I beg your pardon?”
Lynnette took the final step forward, up to Jenna’s side. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
For the first time, Quetzal’s eyes flicked to her in acknowledgment. His stare was cold. Empty. It was like looking into a void. Then he refocused on Jenna and said, “The department may still be targeting you. If that mercenary understood nuance, he would never have left you alone. Vulnerable.”
Lynnette locked her jaw as she processed what Quetzal, supposedly just a customer who’d been a bit too forward, had said.
“Marine,” Jenna snapped, her tone revealing her agitation. “Jon’s not some unthinking ape and he’s not a mercenary. He’s a Marine. And that is the last time I’ll listen to you badmouth him. Now get off my driveway.”
No.The situation was much worse than it presented. Lynnette wanted to be proud of Jenna for clapping back at the creep, but this was a classic case of wrong time, wrong target.We need to go.
Quetzal took a step forward, which also served as a step onto community sidewalk, but never looked away from Jenna. “Come with me.”
Jenna sucked in a sharp breath. “Excuse me? What in the hell makes you think—”
The sharp, successive chirping of a bird far closer than it should be interrupted Jenna’s words and drew Lynnette’s attention. Both women twisted on reflex, and both stilled as a colorful bird swooped down to land … on Jenna’s shoulder.
It rustled its feathers, tucked its wings in, then looked straight at Lynnette and let out a shrill cry.
The sound was jarring, both literally and metaphorically, but while Lynnette kicked herself for allowing abirdto distract her, she also couldn’t abandon Jenna. And there was the small concern of the fact that the creature—a wild animal, possibly a bird of prey—was perched on Jenna’s coat-covered shoulder.
Jenna, for her part, was standing stiff as a mannequin. Her eyes had blown wide and half the color had drained from her face, her gaze angled down in an attempt to keep sight of the creature using her as a pedestal.
“Just walk calmly with me,” Quetzal said, as if nothing bizarre had was happening, “and there won’t be any need for violence.”
Lynnette slowly, carefully, turned her focus back to the man before them. This was all significant somehow, but the reason was eluding her. “I don’t know what drugs you’re on,” she said, keeping her voice steady for the sake of the bird, “but my friend saidno.”
Quetzal again shifted his stare to her and his eyes narrowed. And this time, Lynnette thought she saw something strange in his eyes. His irises were brown, and his pupils were the right shape, but there was a hue or a film over them, almost like the light was hitting them from an entirely wrong angle. Yet it was clear he could see her. It wasn’t like looking into the eyes of a blind man at all.
“I recognize you,” he said, speaking to her for the first time. His tone shifted accordingly, losing the veneer of warmth or kindness and roughening like a weathered stone in a frigid sea. Cold, set, and waiting to mercilessly crush the fool who got too close. His strange eyes flicked down, appraising her. “You’re the one who beat up my men the other day.”
