Or worried.
“Oh. You really didn’t?”
“No.”
Another long pause stretched between them. “Okay,” she said finally, voice almost inaudible. “I just… Okay.”
“Summer—”
“I gotta go.” Her tone came out with an underlying urgency he didn’t like at all.
The call ended, and he lowered the phone, jaw clamped hard enough to ache.
None of this felt good.
He took off for the Black Heart Security office. He needed to talk to somebody before he climbed into his truck and drove straight into town.
Willow sat at the long desk with a newcomer to the ranch sitting beside her. The new trainee, Ayla, redheaded and freckled. Both women turned to look at him as he burst in.
“Morning,” Willow said.
He set her set of keys on the corner of the desk. “Is there someone I can talk to?”
Concern flickered over Willow’s face, and Ayla’s eyes widened.
“You mean besides me?” Willow chose her words with care.
“Yeah.”
“Rhae?”
He shook his head once. “No. I mean somebody on the security team.”
Willow pushed away from the desk. “What’s going on, Pope?”
“I’m concerned about Summer.”
She stood to face him. “What happened?”
He explained quickly about waiting outside the Stockyard to make sure Summer got to her car safe. Then the flat tire and how he took her home. When he told her about Summer’s phone call and how she thanked him for paying for them, Willow’s full lips had gone flat and Ayla’s cheeks grew pink with alarm.
“I’d like someone on the team to look into the matter. Find out who paid for Summer’s tires. If it’s nothing—a family member or a friend—good. But I didn’t like how quiet she got on the phone.”
“Oh dear,” Ayla said quietly, her freckles standing out even more thanks to how pale she’d become.
Willow’s gray eyes, a trait every Malone shared, filled with sympathy. “You’re right to ask for help for Summer, Pope. But she has to be the one to hire security.”
“I’ll pay for it,” he said. “Look, it’s important. It’s not just Summer I’m worried about—she has a young son.”
Worry crossed both women’s faces. Willow stared at him for a long second, and whatever she saw on his face must have made up her mind because she nodded.
Behind them, the office door opened. Carson Malone, eldest of the family and the founder of Black Heart Security, stepped in with an enormous coffee mug in hand, stopping when he caught the tension hanging in the air. “What’s going on?”
Willow didn’t miss a beat. “We’re going to the bar for lunch, brother.”
His brows drew together. “Layne was going to make us lunch.”
“We’re going to the bar.”
