Chapter 22
Avalon found Corbin sitting on the bargelike sofa petting Chick Pea, who was Buddha-like in her loving acceptance of all mankind, even cheating jerks.
“You got a dog?” he asked.
As the proper response to this was also “Duh” she said, “You couldn’t find the front door? You had to creep around the freaking house? What the hell are you even doing here?”
“There aren’t any lights out here. I mean,any. Almost didn’t find the driveway.”
“We’re still installing the perimeter lighting.”
A beat of silence. “We’re?”
“Yes. You met my contractor.”
“Big Guns out there? In more ways than one? Boy, for a Coltrane, he’s sure come down in the world, huh?”
She leveled an amazed look at him, a look that contained such withering incredulity and scorn he dropped his eyes and began rubbing a nonexistent spot on his jeans.
Chick Pea moved over to lean against Avalon.
“Rented a car. A Prius.”
She said nothing. Though that could explain why they hadn’t heard him drive up. Priuses tended to move on little cat feet, to paraphrase a famous poem about fog.
“Lots of stars out here, though. Wow. Can’t see them in San Francisco with all the lights,” he added.
This was the kind of inane small talk two people who had never before met would struggle through until the bus arrived or someone they actually knew showed up at the same party.
If one of them had a pronounced hostile bias toward the other, that was.
She didn’t reply to that, either.
She was still thinking of Mac out there, standing in his underwear and pointing a gun at Corbin as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Mac had been on watch somehow. That was his instinct.All I want is for you to be safe.
She drew in a shuddering breath. Her eyes burned.
“Avalon... that guy out there...”
She shot him another granite look. Daring him to ask some kind of question he had zero right to ask. She was in no mood to indulge guys tonight.
“Knows his way around a shotgun? Yes. Yes, he does.”
He dropped it. He heaved a sigh. He looked around the place.
“This is that sofa from your parents’ basement, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Mentioning the sofa, remembering it, was a crafty little move. Because it linked them to their shared history: two Thanksgivings ago, hanging out in her parents’ basement with her siblings, playing Nintendo, drinking beer, and laughing.
All it did was make her sad, and the sadness swelled and morphed into fury, which flatlined into nothing but a wish for him to leave.
“This house is amazing. I can see why you snapped it up. I just roamed the downstairs a little. I had no idea there were houses like this out here.”
“Yes.” She was instantly protective of it. She did not like the idea of Corbin roaming around, assessing things.
“I talked to Rachel Nguyen. She was looking for a conference center property in the North State.”
