“The thing about Starla, though,” he said, “is that she likes to talk a lot of shit about her problems, but when something bad, like really bad, is going on, you can’t get it out of her until she’s ready for you to know it.”
Candace’s reply to that was inaudible. So was his reply to her reply, because they dropped their voices even more until she could hear nothing but vague mumbles.
Well, Brian Ross, such keen insight you have into my soul.
Okay, there was a worse feeling than letting him down. It was being the topic of his fucking serious conversation when she couldn’t make it out and she wasn’t in there to defend herself. Every nerve in her body screamed for her to march into the room and confront them. That was what the Starla they knew and loved would’ve done. This one, the one who everyone complained about, worried about, and whispered about, put her shoulders back, turned on her heel and walked back up front, her heart falling a little further with each step.
“Star!” Ghost bellowed just as she was about to round the corner into the front area.
“I’m here,” she said glumly, expecting it was her four o’clock showing up a little early—and stopped dead in her tracks. A lady was setting a bouquet of a full-dozen bloodred roses on the counter at her station. “Oh my God.”
The delivery woman smiled, wished her a good day, and retreated out the door. Janelle’s eyebrows were almost in her hairline, and Ghost maintained a sullen silence as Starla inched forward to pluck the card from its little plastic pitchfork.
Maybe things weren’t so bad after all. No one had ever sent her flowers before. Ever. Not in her entire life.
Janelle scuttled over to her side in excitement as Starla tore into the tiny cream envelope. Jared. Jared. Jared. Please be Jared. She jerked out the card. Flipped it over.
Love, Max.
The breath whooshed out of Janelle as Starla’s heart settled back in its usual place and beat its usual angry rhythm. She tossed card and envelope into her trash can and turned her back on the bouquet, something so beautiful that had suddenly become so sinister.
“Want me to get rid of them for you?” Janelle asked grimly as Starla walked away.
“Please.” Ghost frowned at her as she walked by. Somehow, she kept her mouth shut.
Chapter Nine
“When is Starla coming over again, Daddy?”
As if Jared hadn’t heard that question a hundred times in the last week and a half. Ashley finished pulling off her boots and looked up at him expectantly. Mia glanced up as well with her inquisitive brown eyes, interested in his answer, as if this time it might be different. She looked so much like her mother right then, it made him a little uneasy. “I don’t know.”
He’d grappled with the idea himself, even considered stopping by Starla’s work or house to check on her. Like a dumbass, he’d never thought to get her number, didn’t even know if she’d replaced her phone. Though it would be easy enough to look up her work number.
There were so many reasons to leave it alone, reasons he could explain to his daughters. More than he cared to count. Shelly hadn’t said anything further about it, and they’d remained civil if short in the past week. Whatever weirdness had befallen them last week, the girls seemed to be past it. At least kids were resilient, sometimes more so than their parents.
He’d thought about Starla a lot. He hadn’t been lying when he told her he wanted to see her again—he did. To delve a little deeper into the secrets behind those brown eyes. Obviously his girls thought about her a lot too.
“Why can’t she just come over and play with us?”
“She works at night, Ash. I don’t know when she’ll be off again.”
“Ask her,” Ashley said in her best “duh!” voice.
If only things could be as simple as kids made them. It saddened him to think about his girls learning some hard facts of life as they grew up. He wanted them to stay little and innocent and free of conflict forever, but of course, that wouldn’t happen.
“Call her, Dad!” Mia said.
“Yeah, call her.”
“I liked the way she read our story. And I like her hair.”
“She’s pretty.”
“I like her tattoos.”
“She smelled good.”
Sighing, he pulled off his own boots and stripped off the flannel shirt he wore over his black T-shirt. All the recent rain and storms had preceded a significant cold front, and there was a chill in the air outside. Then, with two sets of footsteps pattering after him, he escaped the mudroom and his daughters’ persistent observations about Starla. Yes, she was pretty. Yes, she smelled damn good. He didn’t need reminding.
“I’m hungry,” Mia announced.
“Can Starla cook for us again?”
Okay, he was about to bust out with a no-no word. “I can make something. What do you want?” he asked instead.
“We don’t want what you make. We want Starla to make us something.”
“Cookies!”
“Pizza.”
Jesus Christ. “Girls. I’m not calling Starla to come cook for you. Get it out of your heads.”
“Didn’t you like her?” Ashley asked.