This time, he dropped his hold. His eyes were hidden in shadow.
His silence unnerved her, forcing her to lash out again. “And don’t even think about trying out your little threat from last night.”
“You mean about dragging you home?”
“Yeah, that one. You even come near me at the Round Up, I’ll scream bloody murder. And believe me, you wouldn’t stand a chance. I know all the bouncers there.”
“Yeah, I’ll just bet you do. Have you fucked them all, too?”
His vicious words sliced her neatly like the fine blade of a surgeon’s knife. Before she even knew it, she’d raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face.
He stared at her, the ugly red imprint of her hand staining his cheek. He opened his mouth, and she had the awful feeling he was going to apologize.
She couldn’t stand that, not when she knew she’d asked for everything he’d said, had, in fact, pushed him to it.
Max took the coward’s way out and ran to her car. Driving away, she glanced one last agonizing time in the rearview mirror.
But it was Jules’s dead eyes that chased her as she sped into the night.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cameron? He didn’t answer. He wasn’t there. He hadn’t followed her.
She knew why. He hated the Round Up, hated that she went there. It was the only place on earth where she couldn’t feel him beside her when she needed him.
Fine. It was the only place she could get a little peace.
At a red light, Max rummaged in the glove box for Witt’s cell phone. She set it on the front seat next to the Mag-Lite still laying on the camel leather, evidence of her late night sojourn. The light turned and she pulled away, then reached once more for the cell phone. She turned it on, then let it lay beside her again.
“What the hell are you doing?” She asked the question aloud. She’d gotten so used to talking to Cameron that when he wasn’t there, she’d started doing it for him.
The truth was, despite the childish way she’d stormed off, she wanted Witt to call. Sort of. In an odd way. For reassurance. Just to be sure he didn’t take anything she’d said personally. Not even the slap.
On second thought? Not. Her feelings were too complicated to explain. He’d get the wrong idea, think she was interested.
“You mean you don’t have the guts to apologize,” she scolded the way Cameron would have. Then she reached to turn the phone off.
It rang before she could touch it. She picked it up, gaze switching back and forth from the road to it. It was illegal to use a cell phone while driving. It was also a damn convenient excuse not to talk to Witt while at the same time knowing he’d tried to get hold of her.
“And it isn’t a matter of guts,” she said aloud. “I’m letting him cool off.” No sense starting a fight all over again.
The thing started ringing again as she entered the parking lot at the Round Up. This time she didn’t pick it up, didn’t scold, but merely smiled. Immature or not, it was nice knowing the man wasn’t giving up so easily.
The lot was nearly full. She drove down first one aisle, then another, and finally ended up on the side of the building where foot traffic was lighter and light poles fewer. The bright side was that Witt wouldn’t find her car so readily. If he followed.
She tucked her keys in her blazer pocket, along with her license and a few dollar bills she’d need for the first beer. Then, her backside swinging in her short skirt, Max rounded the end of the building. She smiled at Hildie the cashier, held out her hand for the ultra-violet stamp from Marsha, and punched Bubba the bouncer’s meaty arm as she passed. She was tall in her three-inch spikes and had plumped her hair up with a mountain of goo. Bubba towered over her and was twice as wide.
“Hey, Max, what’s up?” he yelled over the music, the jumble of voices, and hooting of laughter from the Barber Chair as some sucker downed shots of whiskey.
Bubba was actually a * cat, bald head, beady black eyes and all. If you stayed on his good side. “Hey, Bubba, how’s it hanging?”
Bubba grabbed his crotch, gave it a hefty pump, then grinned. “When ya gonna take it for a test drive, darlin’?”
“Soon as you dump Hildie, Bubba.”
“Ah, shee-it, Max. You’re such a damn tease.”
She was. She loved it. He loved it, too. She’d never slept with Bubba or anyone else working at the Round Up. It wasn’t a matter of standards. It was a matter of protection. They were there when she needed them, and she’d needed Bubba a time or two when she bumped and ground a little too hard into the wrong guy.
“I’ll be watching you, little girl, so keep your nose clean.”
Max smiled as she melted into the din and the crowd, then pushed her way to the edge of the bar, found a sliver of space and crowded up against the wood.
“The usual?”