Kenny didn’t notice the tail, or Colton’s lack of attention. He rambled on as they ordered their sundaes and sat at an outside table in the shade at the Ice Cream Shack. Colton made Pudge sit as he waited for his doggie cone.
When the cute teenaged waitress brought the food to the table, Kenny’s tongue was hanging out nearly as much as Pudge’s. Colton smiled and watched the exchange between Kenny and the girl. Pudge stole all the attention—the shameless flirt—and the girl left with a smile and a handful of drool. Pudge’s, not Kenny’s.
“So, I’ve decided I want to go to the police academy,” Kenny said after the waitress left.
“Uh-uh. We can talk about that later. What was that all about?” Colton pointed after the waitress who’d disappeared back inside.
“What was what?” Kenny’s cheeks flushed pink.
The kid really needed to figure out how not to blush when he lied if he wanted to go into law enforcement.
“The girl, and the ‘Thank you, Morgan.’ And the watching her walk all the way back into the Shack.” He made his voice all dreamy sounding in an imitation of Kenny.
“I was raised to thank people who bring me food.”
Colton wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. “There’s thanking people, and there’s, ‘Thank you, Morgan.’” He exaggerated the dreaminess even more.
Kenny’s lips pulled up on the one side and he looked away. Classic.
“You like her,” Colton pushed, even bumping the kid with his elbow the way his older brothers had done to him.
“Maybe,” Kenny said with apparent disinterest, but the way he then glanced longingly in her direction when she came out again told Colton it was more than maybe.
“Why don’t you go talk to her? I can sit over here like a good wingman.”
“Nah. That’s okay.”
“You should ask her out.”
“No way. She would say no.”
“Are you a hundred percent positive she’ll say no?”
“Maybe like ninety-seven percent.”
Colton smiled both because Kenny had confessed to a chance that Morgan would say yes, and because they were using math in a casual situation. The teacher in him cheered proudly.
He pulled two twenties out of his wallet and put them on the table. “If she says yes, you’ll use this to take her to the movies. If she says no, you and I will go to the movies. If you don’t try, no one is going to the movies.”
“Seriously? You’re bribing me into asking her out?”
Colton grinned unrepentantly. “Yes. And don’t forget to smile. You’ve got a good smile.” It was true. The kid’s parents had probably paid a fortune for that smile, and Kenny rarely used it.
The boy took a deep breath, then stood. Two steps later, Colton stopped him. “Wait. Take the dog.”
Kenny looked down at Pudge, who was sitting and staring at Colton’s ice cream as if he ever shared.
“Trust me, the dog will get you in. Let her pet the dog, then say, ‘Would you like to go to the movies with me?’”
“Seriously? Just straight off like that?”
“Exactly like that. Don’t try too hard.”
“Do I get to pick the movie when we go, or are you going to pick it?” Kenny muttered, already resigned that she would say no.
“She’s going to pick it,” Colton said. “Now, go.”
While Kenny went to face his destiny, Colton noticed the SUV was still sitting in the parking lot. He could just imagine how annoyed they were, having to wait while a seventeen-year-old’s love life played out. He snickered softly. Too bad for them.
Kenny’s face was blank when he walked back to the table. Colton couldn’t decipher what had happened. Was it good or bad?
Kenny sat down.
“Well?” Colton asked, curiosity getting the best of him.
Kenny snatched the two twenties off the table and smiled. “Sorry, Mr. Willis, but you’re going to have to go to the movies by yourself. I have other plans.”
Colton smacked him on the back and laughed. “Good for you.”
“I can’t believe she actually said yes.” He seemed truly shocked.
“I’m sure it was the dog. Dogs are chick magnets,” Colton joked, then turned serious. “Make sure to be yourself. You’re going to be nervous, there’s really no way around that. But just be yourself. Always. Okay?”
Kenny looked incredulous. “That’s your advice? Be myself? You know me enough to know myself is not all that great.” He held out a hand and let it drop.
“No. You’re awesome. And she said yes because you asked. She’s smiling over here at you, and I know it’s you she’s smiling at because Pudge is licking himself and no one would be smiling at that.” He nudged his dog with his foot. “Cool it until you get home, Pudge.”
Kenny laughed, and twisted the napkin in his hands. “Thanks for making me do that.”
“I didn’t make you,” Colton protested. When Kenny raised a skeptical brow, Colton gave in. “Okay, but only because I was ninety-seven percent sure she would say yes.” He couldn’t help but put some math in there again. “So, you were saying you’re going to go into the police academy?”
“Yes.” Kenny’s eyes lit up with excitement. That was a good sign. “My parents were surprised, but they seem to be onboard. But then I printed out the application and panicked. I mean, what if I can’t do it? What if I suck?”
Colton ignored the men watching them from the SUV so he could focus on Kenny. This was important.
“Why do you want to be a police officer?” he asked.
No adult had ever cared to ask Colton that question. If he’d been given the chance, who knew what he might have said.
“Chicks like a man in uniform,” Kenny said, and smiled.
Colton chuckled, then said, “No, this is serious. At the end of the day, you need to be okay with this decision. You can’t sign up just because of what other people will think.”
Colton blinked, wishing someone had given him that same advice.
“You can be anything you want to be, Kenny. You got that?”
“Yeah, okay. I know.” He shifted in his chair and his cheeks turned pink. “When I was ten, I was riding home from a friend’s house. It was late afternoon and it was Mill Street. The one down from your house with all the trees.” When Colton nodded, he continued, “The sun was coming through the trees and I didn’t see there was a car. I turned my bike onto the street and blam! This woman hit me.” Kenny smacked his fist into his palm.
Colton frowned. “Were you hurt?”
“Oh, yeah. I was wearing a helmet, but my elbows were bleeding and my leg was broken. The woman was crying into her phone. A police officer was the first person on the scene. Everything was going crazy. I was kind of dizzy, my leg hurt, the lady was wailing, traffic was backing up, and cars were blowing their horns. But when the officer got there, he took care of everything. Even kept my dad back when he started yelling at me for not looking where I was going.”
Colton nodded, remembering when he’d been a beat cop coming up on a scene like that.
“I want to do that for someone else. In the middle of all the noise and craziness, I want to be able to step up and take control of the situation so they feel better and aren’t so scared. Is that dumb?”
Colton smiled. “It’s not dumb at all.”
In fact, it was a much better reason than what Colton could come up with for his own choice. This was the right reason.
Still, Colton would be remiss if he didn’t help prepare the kid for what he would face. “I’m not going to blow sunshine up your ass. It won’t be easy. But here’s the thing. You graduated from high school, which means you successfully passed classes you don’t care about. It will be different when you’re learning something that really interests you, about something you really want to do.”
“What about the physical part?” He looked down at his chest with a grimace.
Colton looked him over, as well. He wa
sn’t much skinnier than Colton had been at that age. The military had whipped him into shape. “Trust me, they’ll take care of that for you.” He grinned.
“Do you think I can do it, Mr. Willis?” The boy’s voice was filled with equal parts hope and fear.
“I do. If it’s what you really want, you’ll make it happen.”
Kenny nodded and threw their trash away with an extra spring in his step. “Should we take some ice cream back to The Mantis?” he asked, his voice lowered even though no one else was close by.
“No. She had to go away for a little while,” Colton said as fresh pain twisted the ice cream in his stomach.
“So I can stop by without having a gun pulled on me?”
Colton forced a smile, but didn’t make any promises. “Funny.”
Kenny didn’t say anything for a few blocks, then he let out a breath. “It’s probably better Angel isn’t around right now,” he said.
“Why’s that?” Colton asked.
“Because there are two men in an SUV following you.”
Colton shot him a surprised look, then slapped him on the shoulder with a smile. “You’re going to make a kickass cop someday, kid. Come on. Let’s have some fun.”
Chapter Eighty-Three
The good news was, Angel now had a disguise. The bad news was, she looked like the victim in a horror flick.
After her second fall—when she hit her head on a rock—she’d decided she would only travel by day, so she could see where she was going. Her hair was now crusted with blood, and the rest of her was completely covered in mud. She hadn’t eaten anything since the day before when she’d come across some raspberries. She’d found a small trickle of a stream where she could get a drink, but it wasn’t large enough to clean up in.
She’d found the perfect size stick to help support the weight of her left side, since her ankle was no longer up for the task. She was still moving forward, if slowly, so she was calling it a win.
At least for now.
She’d heard only four other cars pass by on the road in all this time. Being a city kid, it was difficult for her to imagine a place this remote. Surely, she would run into civilization at some point. So far, she’d been able to suppress the panic that maybe she wouldn’t.
It was early evening, judging by the blazing orange sky to her left. Her pace picked up when she saw light coming through the trees ahead. As she broke through the edge of the forest, she realized it wasn’t lights she was seeing but the reflection of the sunset multiplied on hundreds of windshields.
At first she thought she’d wandered into a large parking lot, but then she saw the condition the vehicles were in.
This was a salvage yard.
A smile pulled up at her lips.
She could work with that.
Chapter Eighty-Four
Three days had gone by and there was still no sign of Angel. No word, no hint, no nothing. The only thing Colton knew for sure was that she hadn’t been caught, because her photo was still being broadcast on the news along with a hotline number for tips.
He shut the TV off, wondering where she could be. Had she been abducted? That didn’t seem likely. Her kidnapper would have recognized her and cashed in the reward by now.
Could she be lying in a ditch somewhere? That depressing thought must have been dredged up by some buried parental gene. He shook the thought away. Angel was a trained marshal. She would be able to get herself out of any scrape.
Which left only one other possible answer.
She’d deliberately left him.
Again.
Did she have a list of men she’d protected in the past? Was she just working her way through them, a few weeks here, a few weeks there?
No. He didn’t believe that. She’d said she loved him. Well, she had almost said it, anyway. Angel Larson didn’t just blurt things out like that and not mean them. At least he didn’t think so.
But where the hell was she?
The cops or feds in the SUV had given up on him the day before. He’d held out hope that she’d known he was being followed and would turn up as soon as they were gone. He’d stayed up late last night in anticipation of her arrival, but she never showed.
He’d even opened up her laptop, but after being faced with a password he didn’t know he’d turned it off again.
He looked down at the phone Thorne had left her. Colton knew Thorne would pick up immediately if he called. Wouldn’t he want to know she was missing? Wouldn’t he do something to help?
Colton had to try. He couldn’t sit here waiting any longer. He hit redial and waited the two rings before a deep voice said, “Yes?”
“Um, Mr. Thorne, it’s Colton.”
“Where’s Angel? Has she been taken into custody?”
“No. She’s not been taken in. At least I’m pretty sure she hasn’t. The thing is…” He ran his hand over his hair, thinking maybe he shouldn’t have called, after all. “I lost her.”
“What do you mean you lost her?”
“I mean, we were at a motel and the police showed up, and she jumped off the third-floor balcony, and I can’t find her.”
“Did you look on the ground under the balcony?”
Colton scowled at the phone. Seriously? “Yes.” He had checked, and was very glad she wasn’t there.
“She’ll turn up.” Thorne’s voice was nothing but confidence.
How could he be so damn sure?
“That’s it? She’ll turn up?” Colton burst out.
“Yeah. She’s a trained marshal who can get out of anything. If she’s not lying dead on the ground, it means she’s mobile and she’s fine.”
Colton had serious doubts about this man being like a father to Angel. Generally speaking, fathers were a lot more concerned when their children went missing. Even adult children, he assumed.
“You’re not going to look for her?”
“No. She’ll get in contact with me if she needs something.”
“But I have her phone.” Obviously. He was speaking into it at the moment. “She has no money, no credit cards, no identification. Just the clothes on her back and maybe a broken down car.”
“She will find a way.” The man actually sounded proud.
“You do realize she’s a human, right? Not a real Angel, or a superhero with magical powers.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. If she doesn’t show up in the next week, call me again. She might not come back to your place if it’s hot.”
Colton knew he wasn’t talking about the temperature. He meant people watching. He hadn’t seen anyone since yesterday, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Were they keeping Angel from coming home?
Not that this was her home. Not really.
“I take it that SUV following me isn’t your guys,” he said, wanting confirmation.
“Nope. Not us.”
“Okay. I’ll keep you posted.”
Thorne grunted, then disconnected without so much as a goodbye.
Colton tossed the phone on the sofa and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He set the bottle on the coffee table, knowing it was a waste of time to put it away.
He was officially losing it.
The woman he loved was out there somewhere and he had no idea if she was safe. Or if she planned to come back.
The rest of the summer lay before him with no plans. He could afford to spend one of those days recovering from a night of drinking. It didn’t matter that it was barely six o’clock. Who would know? It wasn’t as if he had any friends or family.
He just wanted to find a way to stop his brain from playing the endless reel of horrible scenarios that could be keeping her away. Everything from human trafficking to Bigfoot flashed into his head. The worst thing he’d thought of was if Redgamer3 had been watching her and found her. If he had taken her—
Colton again tried to block the horrific thoughts.
Where was she?
Pudge tilted his head and let out a whine. Apparently, he’d asked
that last question out loud.
“Perfect. I’m back to having conversations with my dog.”
He finished off the first glass of whiskey in one gulp, and set up the next.
“You were just a puppy when she left us the last time. You used to sit by the door and cry. I envied you. When puppies cry, it’s endearing. When men cry, it’s pathetic.”
He held up glass number four—or six—and shot it down, hoping the pain would go away soon.
Pudge put his chin on Colton’s knee and looked up at him with sad brown eyes.
“I know. I miss her, too. I’m sorry you can’t drink. It does help a little.”
Unfortunately he knew from experience that drinking was only a temporary fix. But if he could have one night of peace, he would take it.
He’d deal with everything else tomorrow.
Or the next bottle.
Chapter Eighty-Five
When Colton woke up on his sofa, he cursed at the woodpecker that was ruining his oblivion. Fucking birds and their bird noises so early in the morning.
Except it wasn’t morning. It was dark. It was only eleven.
The woodpecker tapped again, and Colton realized it wasn’t a woodpecker. It was tapping. On glass.
Where the hell was his dog? He looked around to see Pudge was nowhere to be found. He usually told him when someone was at the door. Had he lost his damn dog, too? Christ, his life was a frigging mess.
An answering bark came from outside. He’d let the dog out and forgotten to let him back in. He was such a piece of crap.
He was halfway to the door when he realized Pudge couldn’t have been knocking. The dog was brilliant, but knocking at the door was beyond him. Which meant a person had knocked. At his back door.
His gun was…somewhere. He wasn’t sure. Oh, well. It wasn’t as if the person was going to find Angel here. Because she was gone.
He opened the door and blinked.
“Angel.”
She blinked back at him. “God, you might look worse than me,” she said, and pushed past him.
He put his hand out to brace himself so she didn’t knock him over. He wasn’t too steady. In fact, there was more than one Angel in his kitchen.
Wanted for Life Page 21