by Meghan March
I open my mouth to deliver some snarky comment, but decide it’s not worth it. Cannon thinks I’m a world-class fuckup, so why reinforce that opinion any more than I already have through my actions?
“No. Nothing.” And because I still have the manners I was raised with, I add, “Thank you.”
“Anytime, Greer. You know both your brother and I would do anything for you. Including saving you from yourself.”
He could have left off that last little bit, thank you very much. I give him a pained smile and clear my breakfast dishes away. Cannon’s already out the door and starting up his car when I realize there’s no dishwasher. It’s not until I’m finished cleaning up the kitchen that I discover I’m completely cut off.
Cannon was correct—the old rotary phone doesn’t work. I have no cell. The cable is turned off. There’s no Internet.
Every single one of those things was missing in Belize, and yet I didn’t feel alone and deprived there because I had Cav.
And now I just have . . . me.
I can’t read another page in this book. My second Danielle Steel isn’t holding my attention. I’ve already read every detail of every page of Holly’s yearbooks from high school—she was adorable, by the way—and now I’m going stir crazy. Is this what they mean when they talk about cabin fever? I have to get out of here.
I opened the front door three hours ago, only to be met by Troy German with a stern order to go back inside. When I tried to chat, he stonewalled me and pulled the door shut. I made myself lunch with the ample groceries Cannon left, but now I need to do something before I start tearing my hair out.
During lunch and between my Danielle Steels, I watched Troy’s pattern around the house. Day is turning to dusk, and his pattern hasn’t changed. He stays stationed out front for twenty minutes and then spends five minutes “walking the perimeter.” Holly’s gran’s house doesn’t sit on a vast piece of property. I have no frame of reference for how big it is, but it can’t be much bigger than the footprint of my New York apartment building. Definitely not a city block.
So I start planning. Holly has told me the story about the night Creighton dragged her out of Brews and Balls, the bowling alley where she used to work and made her karaoke stage debut. I think Holly said it was less than a mile away.
I might be a city girl, but one thing I know I can do is walk. And if walking a mile gets me to some sort of civilization, then I’m down with it.
I dig through my available clothes, glancing out the upstairs window as Troy makes another round in his perimeter walk. I slip into skinny jeans and a blouse, shove some cash and my ID in my pocket, and make my way down the stairs. Peering between the front blinds, I catch him climbing back into his SUV and shutting the door.
It’s go time.
I’m breaking out.
Clearly, Troy doesn’t expect me to make this kind of move, because when I slip out the back door and haul ass across the grass to the dirt road that runs behind the back of the lot, I don’t hear him yelling. I duck behind a tree with a trunk double the width of my body and wait, my lungs heaving, for the shouts to come.
They don’t.
I wait another twenty seconds, counting slowly in my head, before I peek around the tree. Still nothing. I make another break for it, sprinting on my ballet flats to pause behind a shed at the back of the next yard.
All I can hope now is that I’m going in the right direction.
Twenty minutes later, I’m sure I’m lost. It’s almost full dark and this country road isn’t lit. I’m about to give up and turn back when I hear the thump of music in the distance and the glow of neon lights.
Thank you, universe.
I come around the side of the building to the front entrance and find Pints and Pins is written in large scrolling letters across the yellow block-and-sheet-metal building. I thought Holly called it Brews and Balls? But how many bowling alleys can there really be in Gold Haven, Kentucky?
Inside is a cacophony of sound as the crash of balls into pins, loud laughter, and blaring music engulf me. No one looks twice as I head toward the bar and grab a table—or so I think.
The harried waitress in her yellow-and-blue uniform takes my order—a cheeseburger, fries, and soda water with lime. I’m laying off the booze tonight, and probably forever if I were smart.
I’m congratulating myself on fitting in so well when a tall, broad-shouldered man in a red-and-black plaid flannel shirt takes a seat in the chair across from me without invitation. He lowers a frosty mug of beer to the chipped blue Formica table between us.
“She said I might see you here.” His deep voice carries only a trace of an accent.
“Excuse me?”
“Holly.”
I stare blankly at him, shock pooling in my belly while I consider how to respond. He knows who I am. Do I lie? Pretend he’s crazy?
No, if he knows Holly, then chances are he could google my picture in a hot second and it would be very clear that I’m lying. I’ve had too many lies in my life lately to want to go down that route.
I embrace the truth instead as his brilliant blue eyes scan my appearance. “Did she tell you to call her when I staged a jailbreak?”
He laughs, and the deep, rich sound drowns out the rest of the noise in the bar. “Not exactly. She told me to keep an eye out for you and take you home if I found you walking the streets. She didn’t expect you’d want to be babysat for too long.”
The waitress brings my soda water and lime. After thanking her, I raise my glass in a toast to the man across the table from me.
“Cheers to not being babysat. I’m twenty-six years old and capable of looking after myself.”
His chuckle has my gaze cutting to his blue eyes, which dance with humor when he says, “So I hear. You’ve done a bang-up job.”
“Don’t patronize me.” My words are snappish, at best.
“And don’t throw fancy words at me. I’m a simple country boy.”
“Sure you are,” I mumble.
“And apparently one with very bad manners.” He reaches a hand across the table. “Logan Brantley, at your service, Ms. Karas.”
I take his offered hand, and mine is surrounded by his much larger palm.
“Please call me Greer.”
“Sure thing. Now, Greer, does your babysitter have any idea you’re out enjoying Gold Haven’s finest entertainment this evening?”
I swing my head toward the entrance out of instinct. Has Troy discovered my absence yet? I don’t see the bull-like man storming through the doors, so I’m going to take that to mean my escape is still a successful secret.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
“Well, damn, I guess you better enjoy it while you can.”
“That’s the plan. And find a phone so I can reach my best friend before she freaks out about where I am and loses her mind. She thought I’d be back in New York yesterday. And I would have been if Creighton hadn’t wanted to keep me out of the way.”
Logan produces an older model iPhone from his pocket. “It might not be the latest and greatest, but it’ll get the job done.” He slides it across the table toward me.
Glancing at him with surprise winding through me, I snatch up the phone and immediately open the messaging app. Banner’s number is one of the few I have memorized, mostly because she had the number chosen specifically for her when we were fifteen. 212-669-6969. I tap in the number and work out a quick message.
It’s G!! I’m alive!! I’m in Gold Haven, KY. They’ve got a security guy sitting on Holly’s gran’s house who thinks he’s GI Joe. Basically, I’m being held hostage by boredom, so I sneaked out to have some real human interaction. This isn’t my phone, but if you message me back in the next hour or so, I should still be with the guy.
I send the text and stare at the screen, anxiously waiting for the gray bubbles that would signal she’s texting back immediately. Nothing. Come on, Banner. Where are you?
I need my best friend’s advice. I’m tempted
to excuse myself to the ladies’ room and call her, but Banner is quick on the trigger responding to text messages, unless she’s busy with her latest conquest. Even then, I expect to hear from her soon.
Impatient, I lay the phone on the table between Logan and me, and look up to find his gaze on my face.
“Leave it there or go call her. Up to you. I’m the last person to claim to be a babysitter.” His easy nature drains a measure of my anxiety away.
The waitress returns with a tray holding two cheeseburgers, fries, and another beer for Logan. After she unloads it and walks away, Logan smiles.
“Hope you don’t mind me joining you for dinner. Thought it might be better that way. Keeps the vultures from trying to land on the fresh meat.”
Vultures?
I casually scan the room and find dozens of eyes on us. A solid fifty percent of them are on Logan, the eyes of all the females, but he’s right, there are plenty of men looking at me like I’m as delicious as the burger in front of me appears to be.
Dropping my gaze back to my food, I shrug. “And here I thought I was flying below the radar.”
Logan chugs a swallow of his beer before once again unleashing his deep chuckle. “I don’t think you understand the true meaning of flying below the radar, sweetheart.”
Picking up my burger with both hands, I lift it to my lips. “You might be right about that.” I take a huge bite, holding back a moan at the deliciousness of it, then chew and swallow before adding, “I’m not sure you do either.” I follow my words with a meaningful scan around the room at all the women who still have their eyes fixed on the attractive man across from me.
Logan digs into his own burger and washes the bite down with beer before he responds. “Most of the women in this town have one thing in common.”
“What’s that?”
“They didn’t think I was good enough before I left for the military, and didn’t think I was good enough when I came back from the military.”
“So, what changed?” I sip my soda water and take another mammoth bite while I wait for his answer.
“Money,” he says, his tone dripping with derision.
Honestly, the response doesn’t surprise me a bit. “That happens. People come out of the woodwork when all of a sudden you’ve got what you didn’t have before.”
“They can all go straight to hell, for all I’m concerned. I’ll take their money to work on their cars, but I’m not going to let myself get trapped by some chick who’ll just try to get knocked up to get a child support payment out of me for eighteen years. Or even worse, the ones who think I’d marry them.”
I’ve never before considered the intricacies of small town life. Never having lived it, I had no reason to. But now that Logan Brantley lays it out, it makes perfect sense. The women in this bar look at him like he’s the golden ticket out of their paycheck-to-paycheck lives. Now that he’s mentioned cars, I remember Holly talking about the garage he bought and expanded, and the cool work he did. She’s way more of a car chick than I am, so I’m a little ashamed to admit most of that went in one ear and out the other.
But I think he’s missing a major point. I set my hamburger down on the wax paper in the red plastic basket and pick up a french fry. “I think you’re probably right to a certain extent, but to put it crassly, I also think there are a lot of women in here who probably just want to take you home and let you bang the hell out of them.”
Logan chokes on his beer, and the mug lands on the table with a thump. He leans forward and coughs into his hand as I squeeze more ketchup into my basket for my fries and proceed to dip away.
“Did you learn your bluntness from Holly? Shit, woman.”
I smile. “Actually, no. That comes from years of not being able to say what I think. I embrace the filterless lifestyle whenever I can get away with it. If you think I’m bad, you should meet my best friend, Banner.”
“She’s the one you texted?”
I nod, my gaze dropping to the phone between us that hasn’t lit up with a response.
“She’ll get back to you.”
I smile weakly. “I hope so. But if she doesn’t, at least she knows where I am so she won’t freak out any more than necessary.”
“And what about the press? You’re supposed to be laying low.”
“You shouldn’t insult my friend by assuming she’d tell the press anything. She wouldn’t. She’s good people.”
He holds up a hand in a placatory gesture. “Didn’t mean any harm. I’m still recovering from your blunt-force honesty.”
With a shrug, I grab another fry. “It’s the truth. There are generally three camps of women—the ones who want what you’ve got to offer in bed—of which Banner is a perfect example, the ones who want what you’ve got in your bank account, and then the ones who just want you.”
Logan’s blue eyes fix on me. “Which camp do you belong in?”
“We’re not talking about me.”
I told myself when Cav walked into the picture that I could be in the first camp. Just have a fling and move on when it ended. And then in Belize, I started falling for the man the same way I did three years ago.
What is it about him? Why do I feel like being around him paints my life with a completely new layer of happy I can’t get anywhere else?
“I don’t even need you to answer to know you’re one of the rare category-three women. And somehow I’m always a day late and a dollar short when it comes to finding them. You’re really hung up on this Hollywood guy, aren’t you?”
My head jerks up and a french fry goes flying across the table, narrowly missing Logan’s arm to land on the floor.
“You don’t have to throw food at me just because I’m right.”
I bite my lip to stifle the laugh. “I can’t believe I just did that.” Standing, I move to clean it up, but Logan’s hand stops me.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not the first fry to end up on this floor, and it won’t be the last.”
He waits until I resettle in my seat to ask his question again. “So, it’s serious with this guy? Holly seemed to think so.”
“Does Crey know you talk to Holly about stuff like this?” I have a hard time believing my possessive big brother would be cool with this guy being chatty with his wife.
“Who do you think told her to set up a second line of defense after you slipped away from the retired Rambo?”
Of course, Crey would.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about Cav. I don’t know what’s going on there, mainly because . . . well, you can’t build a relationship on a lie.”
Logan pauses, his hand on his beer mug. “Normally I’d agree, but something drew you in about this guy. So, why would you give up that easily? Just throw in the towel and not demand an explanation?”
I shrug, my shoulders hunched over the plastic basket, my burger and fries suddenly looking less appetizing. “I’m not exactly in any position to demand an explanation while I’m on lockdown in Kentucky.”
Logan lifts his beer to his lips, but before he drinks, he says, “I’m sure you’ll get your chance, Greer. It’s up to you what you make of it.”
Banner was harder to find than I expected. I didn’t have her number, and her office wouldn’t give me her address—apparently New York isn’t impressed with Hollywood fame, so I had to turn to social media. Thankfully, she posted a selfie a half hour ago and tagged the location.
I’m on the hunt, and I’m not leaving until I have a lock on Greer. Creighton Karas has the resources to send her anywhere, as is clear from our trip to Belize. But it’s even more clear that Greer would let him send her anywhere. She follows her brother’s orders too well, in my opinion, especially when his orders are contrary to mine.
This time, I won’t give her a choice. She’ll hear me out. I’m a man on a mission, and I’m willing to step over the line to get what I want from her. Greer has no idea what’s coming, but she will soon.
I walk into Jamison’s Pub, thankful t
hat Banner isn’t spending time at some ritzy martini bar where I’d be recognized within moments. Jamison’s is a neighborhood bar, and it’s packed tonight. She’s sitting on the lap of a skinny guy who obviously has no idea what to do with a woman of her caliber. Poor sap. She’ll take what she wants from him and won’t leave her number in the morning. That’s my expert assessment of the situation, anyway.
I stop at the end of the booth and clear my throat to get their attention. Banner pulls her mouth away from the man’s neck, and he looks shell-shocked.
“Whoa, Hollywood. You got some hella big balls to stand in front of me. Hope you’re ready to lose them.” She hops off the man’s lap and reaches for a dinner knife. “You fucked with the wrong girl, because I will cut you for hurting her.”
A shard of guilt lances through me at the memory of Greer’s face twisting in pain. It’s the last thing I wanted, and yet I’ve always known it was inevitable. But she was supposed to let me pick up the pieces and fix things—not let her brother drag her off to God knows where.
“Uh . . . maybe you should put the knife down.” This comes from the guy adjusting his glasses and trying to smooth his hair back into its faux-hawk style after being destroyed by Banner’s wandering hands.
“No. This guy needs to pay.”
She doesn’t expect me to reach out and yank the knife away from her. Once I’ve liberated it, I slip it into my pocket.
“What the fuck, dude?”
“Where is she?”
Banner crosses her arms and glares at me mulishly. “Why would I tell you a damn thing?”
“Because I’m gonna make things right.”
Uncrossing her arms, Banner props her hands on her hips and tilts her head. “How the hell could you possibly do that? From what I hear, you’ve been lying since day one. She trusted you with her ass, and you broke that sacred trust. There’s no coming back from that.”
The guy coughs out a laugh, and my gaze cuts to him. “You repeat a word of this conversation and you’ll end up floating in the East River.”