Cash released her, stepping back to get on his bike.
She started to argue with him, but the obnoxious man couldn’t hear her over the roar of his bike as he rode away. He had said what he wanted to say and left before she could tell him to jump in the lake. Rachel stood staring at his dust with her hands on her hips.
He thought he could order her to be his woman? Did he not know her at all?
Rachel stomped angrily into the house.
Their next date wouldn’t go any better than their last. Maybe then he would realize it was useless to keep pestering her.
She went into the house, locking the door behind her, wishing she could lock her feelings away as easily. The feel of his body pressed against hers had aroused emotions she had thought his hurtful behavior had erased. Her traitorous body wanted him again, any way she could get him, while her mind screamed to tell him to get lost. She was a smart, intelligent woman; she would be able to keep herself under control.
She needed a backup plan that would prevent her from losing to Cash again.
*
Rachel nervously waited for her date to show up. This plan may not have been one of her brightest, but she was determined to go through with it. King’s restaurant was just as busy tonight as when she had gone out with Cash.
“Hi, Rachel.”
“Hi, Evie.” She had been watching the door so closely she hadn’t noticed Evie approaching her table. King’s wife and a member of The Last Riders was someone she didn’t know well yet had gradually become acquainted with because of Beth and Lily.
“You here alone?”
“Not exactly,” Rachel prevaricated.
“Cash meeting you?”
“No,” she said out of time, her date walking across the busy restaurant toward her.
“Hi, Rachel.” Scorpion smiled down at her then looked inquiringly toward Evie.
“Um… Scorpion, this is Evie. Her husband owns this restaurant.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” He held out his hand which Evie ignored, her gaze going to Rachel.
“I need to get back to the kitchen.” Rachel nodded her head as Evie left and Scorpion sat down.
“I was surprised you called and invited me to dinner,” Scorpion commented, ordering a glass of tea from the waitress who had come to take their order.
“I told you I would think about it when I saw you again at Pastor Patterson’s anniversary party.”
“I knew that something good would come out of me starting church again.”
Rachel smiled at his compliment.
“Why did you decide to start going to church in Treepoint instead of Jamestown?”
“Have you met the pastor in Jamestown?”
“No.”
“I don’t like to be told I’m going to Hell if I indulge in a beer.”
“Hell and brimstone?” Rachel laughed.
“That and the headaches he was giving me from the yelling.”
Rachel had suffered through too many of Saul Cornett’s sermons not to sympathize with him.
They ate their dinner and Rachel was pleasantly surprised at how well they got along.
“So, you work in the church store?”
Rachel nodded, leaning back in her seat. “I also study plants.” She found herself telling him everything about her schooling.
“I have a friend that works at the university.”
“Really. Who?”
“Dr. Alden.”
“He’s the advisor for my dissertation.”
“That’s cool. I’m buying some property. You’re welcome to look it over if you want.”
“I’d like that,” Rachel said enthusiastically.
After dinner, she was glad she had decided to meet him at the restaurant as they said their goodbyes in the parking lot; it took away the pressure of being alone with him.
“I’ll give you a call when the sale goes through,” Scorpion promised.
“Do that. I enjoyed dinner,” Rachel said and meant it.
There was no chemistry that had set her on edge, but she could see herself and Scorpion becoming friends.
He watched as she drove out of the lot.
She was sure Evie would tell Cash she had seen her with a date. As a back-up plan, it wasn’t the greatest, but Scorpion was just the first. She had every intention of beginning to date and put herself out there to find the type of man she was searching for.
Chapter 27
Cash walked into the factory, seeing Shade talking to Jewell and Bliss as they filled their orders. Nodding his head toward Shade’s office, Cash went inside and waited.
“What did you find out?”
“Nothing concrete. I talked to Jewell; she said that Lewis received a phone call about twenty minutes before he got off work, and he finished his order and left. You talked to her?”
“Yes, she told me the same thing.”
“I checked his phone records; it came from a pay as you go phone. I couldn’t find out who bought it,” Cash said grimly.
“Find anything at his house?”
“He was fucking someone. He had a bag filled with sex toys and condoms.”
“Willa?”
“I don’t know. If so, she wasn’t giving it to him; he was taking it. She hated him, but I don’t think it was her.”