She’s stubborn. That’s going to be a problem.
I move down the bar again, stopping near Shiloh. “We’re gonna have to rotate,” I say under my breath. “Keep eyes on her until I can make it look like I changed my mind.”
He nods. “Pretty sure she’s not going anywhere.”
“No,” I agree, glancing back at her. “She’s not.”
Not quietly, anyway.
“She’s going to push,” I add.
Shiloh gives a short laugh. “You have no idea. She’s…strong.”
I turn back to him. “What does that mean?”
Shiloh’s expression shifts, the easy edge gone from it. “We went out. Dinner, dancing. Everything was going really well. Then there was this…interlude, I guess you can call it.” he says. A look crosses his face that I don’t like. Guilt. Shame. Anger. “She thought it was me.”
I go still. “What?”
“She was dancing with me. She went to the bathroom, and I stepped away to grab us drinks. When I came back, she was…off.” His jaw tightens. “It was like she couldn’t reconcile that I was standing there in front of her and not…there. She thought it was me in the bathroom, and she was devastated that it wasn’t—” He cuts himself off, but he doesn’t need to finish it.
Cold settles in my chest, sharp and immediate. “You’re not making sense.”
Shiloh rakes a hand through his hair, several shades lighter than mine and kissed to gold by the sun, and lowers his voice to a hiss. “Some guy fucked her in the bathroom.”
“You mean she didn’t know who it was fucking her?”
Shiloh shakes his head once. “Not at first. I figure he turned the lights out or something…led her to believe he was me. She figured out otherwise when she came out and I was standing there with a couple of beers.”
My grip tightens on the bar before I realize it, fingers digging into the wood. That’s not someone making a drunk mistake. That’s not bad timing. That’s intent.
Whoever it was, he didn’t just pick her. He knew enough to make her think she was safe. Which means he was watching.
Nothing about this feels random. Not her showing up. Not Cal calling.
Not any of it.
We move back toward her just in time to hear her tell one of the servers her name. “Reva McEntire.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. Out loud. It catches both of us off guard.
Shiloh looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “What?”
I shake my head, still watching her. “You don’t get it?”
He doesn’t.
I push off the bar and head for the jukebox. A couple of button presses later, “The Night That the Lights Went Out in Georgia” spills through the speakers.
I lean back against the wall and wait. Her reaction is immediate. Her face tightens, shoulders going rigid.
There it is.
She stands abruptly and says something to Sonny, too low for me to catch, but I don’t need every word.
“Fucking assholes.”
Then she’s gone. The door swings shut behind her, and the bar noise fills the space she leavesbehind.
