“Alexia.” Noah warned.
“Thank you, Rob. How long will it take to get a new radiator?” She nodded into the phone. “Thanks. Let me know as soon as it’s done. Goodbye.” She turned back to Noah. “For your information, my Dad works on cars for a living so I have my way around them. I don’t need some white knight riding in to save me.” She moved toward him to poke her finger into his chest. She was trying to hold onto her anger towards Noah so that she wouldn’t go to pieces in front of him.
He grabbed her finger. “Stop that, I’m not some damn white knight, Alexia. So sue me for trying to help you when you are too stubborn to ask for it.”
“I know how to ask for help you Neanderthal, and how the hell do you know how stubborn I am?” She tried to get up in his face.
He crossed his arms. “Darling, you’ve got stubborn written all over you. Now tell me what your mechanic said.”
“Somehow I think you could write the book on being stubborn.” She started to walk past him to her house.
He grabbed her arm, stopping her and bringing her so close their shoulders touched. She looked up at him, then back down to where he still had his hand around her arm, then back up to him with one eyebrow raised.
“Lexi, please, tell me what he said.”
“Are you going to be making a habit of grabbing my arm and stopping me when I walk away from you?” She held up her hand for him to stop. “Nevermind, don’t answer. If I tell you will you let me go?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. There’s a hole in my radiator. It appears that someone went to some trouble to make a hole the correct size and correct place on my radiator so that it would overheat after I had been driving for a few miles.” She tried to block out the fact that meant her car would breakdown where there were no houses. Keeping her breathing steady was what she needed to do in order to stay calm.
“Do you have any idea who would do something like that? What about the guy you saw? Do you think they’re connected?”
“There is no one here who would do something like that. Plus, for all I know it could be my overactive imagination that created a guy standing there in the woods. It was probably some kids messing around.” Why wouldn’t he just drop it? She had to get home. Her head was rapidly approaching migraine status.
“This is not open for discussion. You can just lower that right now.” He tapped his finger on her eyebrow. “When we get to your house, I’m going through it from top to bottom. I also want to make sure that everything is locked up before I leave. I want you to keep your cell phone by the bed and call me no matter what.”
“Is that it?” she asked sarcastically, folding her arms across her chest.
“Yes, that’s it because what I really want for you to do is to stay at my place where there are three other people and an alarm system until we get this all figured out. Or, I could camp out on your couch. However,” he held up a hand to stop her from talking, “I know there’s no way you’d go for either of those options, so I suggested the one you would say ‘yes’ to.” He crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow, mimicking her, and waited for her response.
“Fine, let’s go.” She turned and walked toward her house.
“How come I get the impression you are saying ‘asshole’ every time you say ‘fine?’”
“Maybe because I am?” Lexi just wanted to get rid of Noah. She needed to make a phone call without Noah around.
CHAPTE
R SIX
By two A.M., Lexi knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep. She spent hours telling herself there was no possible way it could be who she thought it was. He wouldn’t lower himself by hiring someone to mess with her after all of these years. He enjoyed seeing the havoc he created, not hearing about it. He was still in prison. She’d called the authorities in San Diego County after Noah left, but she couldn’t get any information since the supervisors had left for the day. The last thing she wanted was to call her parents and worry them, especially if there was nothing going on.
Her mind kept revolving around who else could have sabotaged her car. There wasn’t a high crime rate here, but there were always kids looking to cause trouble. Could it be as simple as that? If that were the case, then she really had nothing to worry about. It wasn’t like someone was targeting her.