“Yes,” she replied but looked around the place. “The owner isn’t here?” she asked.
“Nope,” Rick answered and then threw Faith a look that screamed, I told you so, and then brought them over to an area where he already had the tattoo gun and ink lined up.
Faith took the opportunity to dash outside while it looked like no one was out there. It was nice to be somewhat alone for the moment. She dug out her phone, from where she’d tucked it into her back pocket, and then scrolled down her very short contact list to Cutty’s name. She’d sleep on the floor if need be.
She hit send and then end before it could connect. She was being ridiculous. She was a grown woman. She could handle being around a handsome guy and not fall into bed with him. Of all her current problems, this was what she was going to worry about?
“Faith.”
She looked up, startled to hear her name from that voice. She looked over to see Keith standing on the sidewalk, fifteen feet away. To someone who didn’t know any better, he looked like a clean-cut man in his forties, in a black suit and a white shirt, dressed to inspire confidence. Her knee jerk reaction was to run back into the shop but Lars wasn’t there anyway. She doubted Rick would be much help. She was on her own.
Then she remembered what Lars had said about the sidewalk and watched him. His toes came right to the edge but not a step farther.
“Why are you here?” he asked, like he had the right.
He looked down at the ground and frowned as if he sensed some invisible barrier. He couldn’t get any closer to her. She was safe as long as she didn’t cross that line.
She watched him for a minute without saying a word and he waited. She imagined him orchestrating the bloody message while she’d slept and something in her snapped. She took a few steps forward but caught herself before she got too close. She narrowed the gap just enough that they didn’t need to scream to converse and then she let him have it. “You sick fucking bastard, I can go wherever I want. I’m not with you. I will never be with you. Don’t follow me. Don’t come near me. It’s not going to happen. Ever.”
“You might reconsider after you hear what I have to say,” he warned calmly, as she was on the brink of a meltdown. Then again, he didn’t have people stalking him and writing love letters in blood.
Her hands clenched and she had to stop herself from leaping at him. “There is nothing you could say, nothing I give a shit about enough to want to be anywhere near you. Near any of you.”
“You sure about that?” he asked smugly.
“If you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”
A black sedan coming down the street drew his attention and the look on his face changed from smug to alert. The car quickly drew up beside him. He gave her one last passing glance and said, “You don’t know how much you’re going to regret this,” and then him, the car and driver were gone, speeding down the eerily empty street.
The car became a dot on the horizon and then she couldn’t see it at all. Instead of feeling better, a sick feeling was building. It was idle threats. That was all. Still, she walked back closer to the shop, leaning against the brick of the building but not going in.
She was with Lars and these guys but not really. She wasn’t alive but she wasn’t dead either. Her entire life seemed to hinge on being able to balance on a tiny pin point that she was doomed to fall off of and she kept waiting to see which way she’d tumble.
Five minutes later, and feeling no better for the lapse of time, Lars’ car pulled in the lot. He slowed, taking in her figure in front of the shop before he pulled back behind the building.
He was standing in front of her a few moments later. “What are you doing out here?” It wasn’t a scream but it was far from pleasant.
His bad attitude lit her adrenaline like a match to a container of Napalm. She pushed off the wall in his direction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to breathe outdoor air.”
She wasn’t surprised at all when he kept at it. “Were you going to tell me you had company?”
“I had every intention. But it looks like you’ve already got me under surveillance anyway so there’s no need.” She paced a couple of steps away, frustrated by everything in her life, Lars, the lack of control, and the unexpected visitor’s words the most.
“I walked in and asked Rick what you were doing out here. He said ‘talking to some guy.’ Since you don’t know anybody anymore, I suggest you start talking to me.”
She wasn’t a moron. She knew it looked bad and she didn’t need another enemy right now. In spite of how she felt about his approach of the subject, she swallowed back her anger and pride and told him, in the briefest terms possible, about Keith showing up. If she was going to fall one way or another, Lars and the guys were the preferred option.
She thought after she explained what happened, he’d calm down. He didn’t. He got worse. “Why couldn’t you stay inside?”
He was close to shouting, and she saw three heads in the shop turn away quickly when she looked through the window.
She stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. “Lars?”
“What?” he snapped.
“Back. Off.”
She wasn’t sure if her words would make him angrier or have the intended effect of getting him to actually back off. Either way, she’d reached her limit.
Fortunately, he seemed to calm down. He looked up at the sky, as if he were as torn and conflicted as her, before he walked to the farthest edge of the building. He perched his shoulder against it, looking down the road like he was simply taking the air.
“What are you doing?” she asked him, trying to figure out where the angry man had gone, along with the dragged out fight she’d been gearing up for.
He looked at her and shrugged his free shoulder. “I’m keeping you company while you breathe all this outdoor air in that you needed.”
Dimples she’d never noticed appeared on his cheeks. He wasn’t guarding her; he was protecting her. He relaxed against the wall as if he didn’t care if she took all day. It was the cutest thing anyone had done for her in a while; so cute that she didn’t even think about how she’d heard him clearly, even though he’d spoken softly from close to thirty feet away.
Chapter 16
All yesterday Lars had thought about how Faith had received a visit from Keith. He’d woken in the night thinking of it. When he’d stood there questioning her about it yesterday, and she’d gotten all feisty, something softened in him. He’d let the subject drop, or tried to.
Here he was, the next morning, and it was still plaguing him. He looked over where she was huddled under the blankets on his bed and cursed himself for going soft on her all the time. She was just another chick.
He walked over to the table where her purse sat as she lay sleeping. He dug around until he found her phone, refusing to play the sap to a pretty face. He flipped down the call list on her phone. Nothing. No messages other than a couple from the guys asking if she was having an okay day and if he was being mean to her.
She’d only been with him for a couple of days and the three of them were turning into mother hens. It was downright embarrassing. And to act like he would be mean? Why? Because he was the only one, other than Fate, trying to keep his head about the situation?
He looked at another text message, something about getting new shoes. She could be a spy and they wanted to take her shoe shopping.
Still, there was nothing on her phone. It was just as Cutty had said. He hadn’t trusted him when he’d said it, though. Cutty was probably the softest on her out of all of them. The way he was acting, he was practically forcing Lars to check up on her.
All three of them needed to stop being so soft. If he told them she’d been outside talking to Keith, maybe they wouldn’t feel so protective. But even though the suspicions had been eating away at him, he hadn’t told the guys yet. He just hadn’t had a chance. Maybe he should call Cutty and tell him.