“Fuck!” James punched “end call” on his screen. Of all the times for Shay to pull mad girlfriend on him. She wasn’t answering her phone. He doubted she had listened to his messages since she hadn’t responded. He would pull over and text her again but he didn’t want to waste the time.
As he left Jaylynn’s drive, he had called in to his department in Charlotte. He wanted them to get Jaylynn on record while she was still scared. But he had an even more important reason for calling. “Get me someone in the Raleigh police department. I have reason to believe a woman there is in imminent danger.”
He used his emergency lights and a very heavy foot from Charlotte all the way to the city limits of Raleigh.
All he’d been able to think about on the drive was that he was responsible for the mess Shay was in, and that she had no idea how bad it was.
Worse yet, she couldn’t protect against what she couldn’t see coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Shay pulled up the hood of her heavy sweatshirt as she slipped out from behind the wheel. Being on the lake dropped the normal November evening temperature of the surroundings by several degrees. A damp breeze chafed her cheeks. Her cowboy boots made crunchy sounds on the gravel as she walked around to the rear of her car.
She gathered her grocery bags by their handles to haul them out of the trunk. Four bags’ worth was probably too much for a weekend. But she couldn’t decide what she wanted to cook for James. There were T-bone steaks, a fillet of salmon, sweet potatoes, greens for salad, fruit, eggs and bacon because she was pretty sure James was the kind of man who would want meat with his homemade waffles. On top were a couple of big doggy bones that the butcher had promised wouldn’t splinter and harm Bogart.
Yes, she’d spent too much of her final Halifax check on food but she didn’t care. Next week, probably, would be a different story.
She slammed the trunk and turned toward the cabin, still preoccupied with menus. How funny was that? She’d never thought of herself as the domestic type. She could cook, sure, yet longing to impress a man with her kitchen skills seemed so old-fashioned and subservient, until now. Now, she wanted all the schlocky moonlight and madness of a real romance. Go figure.
She was still mad as hell at James, sure. But after storming around the cabin for an hour, she had realized that he had been fighting back when she told him to get lost. He said he wanted this relationship. He said they were in this together.
That was a part of the argument that she hadn’t considered the first hundred times she refought their phone call in her thoughts. He thought there was a “them.”
She might not have a lot of experience with men in relationships but she had instincts. Her intuition told her that James was willing to fight for her, and that was worth something.
That didn’t mean she was going to let him off easy. She wasn’t going to text him or tell him where she was. He’d have to figure that out. He’d have to go into Raleigh, realize that she wasn’t home, and then figure out where she went to shelter when her world collapsed, as it seemed to be doing on a regular basis these days.
Shay smiled to herself as she climbed the two shallow stairs to the porch. With all her problems unsolved, and worried as she was about the rent, at the moment there was only one thing on her mind. She expected to be pursued.
James would pursue her. She had no doubt. He wouldn’t expect her to make it easy. That’s why she had taken Perry’s offer to leave at lunchtime, citing a lack of work for her. James might be furious that she was making him jump through hoops to prove his interest. But she needed him to make this final jump so that she’d know he meant what he’d said. They were worth fighting for.
When he arrived, and they had fought it out all over again, she would reward him with smiles and food, and love.
Shay bit her lip. Too soon to use that word. She didn’t want to come off all needy. It was another of those milestones in her life she had never before reached: the possibility of loving.
Maybe she was being foolish. Or maybe she was suffering from a new form of dissociative behavior. Whatever. The feelings inside her were a welcome alternative to fear and anxiety.
As she put down her bags to search for her key, light from the NightWatcher on the post near the front door fell across the bag nearest her. There was microwave popcorn and salsa and chips, and chocolate-covered raisins in that one. All the things she could think of that she liked but would never buy to eat alone. It was single-girl loser food. But not when shared with a boyfriend.
It took her a while to turn three keys in three locks but the knob turned easily enough. She picked up her bags. One shove and she was through.
Standing by her cozy chair near the fireplace with her only bottle of liquor, a cheap tequila, gripped in his fist was a man. He was big. Not tall but solid. Built like a cement block on end, balanced on a pair of hams.
She saw how he’d gotten in. Through the entrance to the kitchen she could see the battered back door leaning open and off one hinge. So much for locks and keys.