Page 45 of In The Weeds
“You get mad about veggie sandwiches, huh?” She digs her finger into the line between my eyebrows and I cuff her wrist with my hand. She’s so small, my fingers easily overlap. “What’s got that look on your face?”
“Someone was a dick to my sister,” I explain. I let our hands drop between us, indulging and swinging our arms back and forth once. Her skin is sosoft. “I’m going to go take care of it.”
Evelyn blinks at me. Without a second of hesitation, she reaches for the discarded sweatshirt slung over the back of one of the dining room chairs. She pulls it over her head, arms punching through the sleeves, her hands lifting her long ponytail to pull it from the collar.
“What are you doing?” I ask, a little mesmerized and a lot distracted by all that hair.
She slips her feet back into the shoes she kicked off right at the end of the hallway and gestures towards the door with a nod.
“You think I’m going to let you go alone?” She shakes her head decisively. “I want that veggie sandwich. I’m coming with you.”
CHAPTER TEN
EVELYN
Angry Beckett is… an experience.
Tense forearms, a deep groove in the center of his forehead. Hard eyes and his mouth in a flat, severe line. He keeps taking deep breaths during the drive into town, letting them out slow. His hands flex on the steering wheel and he mutters something aboutbeach blonde sonofabitchunder his breath.
Frankly, it’s working for me.
Not that there’s much Beckett does that doesn’t work for me.
Watching him in the fields this morning was like a glass of water set just out of reach. The flex and release of his arms as he thrust his shovel down. The spread of his shoulders and the strong line of his jaw. It didn’t help that I know what his body looks like under all of those clothes. The way his hard chest tapers down into narrow hips, the stacked muscle across his abdomen that I definitely sunk my teeth into during our time together.
“Where are we going?”
His truck slows as we hit the edge of town, a painted wooden sign welcoming us to downtown Inglewild. It makes me smile every time I see it. The difference between downtown and the rest of it must be two square blocks. Beckett turns left at the firehouse and rumbles down the street, his gaze focused out the front windshield. I feel like maybe I should turn on some guided meditation, calm him down before he finds whoever it is he’s looking for.
“Beckett,” I try again. “Where are we going?”
I’m starting to think his plan is to drive his truck right through someone’s living room.
“The bar,” he answers. Two words. Nothing more. I watch his jaw flex and pop.
“Who is at the bar?”
“Carter Dempsey.”
I nod like that name means anything to me. “And what are you going to do to Carter Dempsey?”
Beckett smoothes his hand over the gear stick and slows us to a stop. In a series of practiced movements, he maneuvers his behemoth of a truck into one of the parking spots that borders the main road. Never in my life have I been so turned on by parallel parking. Beckett shifts into park and levels a look right at me.
“I’m going to kill him.”
Okay, well. That is probably not a great idea. He kicks open his door and strides across the street like he’s off to happily murder someone. I struggle to get my seatbelt unbuckled and follow after him with quick steps, jogging to catch up with his furious walking.
“Did you want to get ice cream instead?”
He shoulders his way through the wide wooden door, keeping it open with his palm so I can slip in beneath. “No.”
“They had a new flavor a couple of days ago.”
Chocolate waffle cone with little bits of butterfinger mixed in. Layla and I got three cones in a row. He grunts at me and heads towards the long counter that stretches across the middle of the space. It’s dark, even during mid-day, and no one is standing behind the bar, the place empty except for a man slouched in a booth in the corner. He raises a hand in greeting as Beck stomps his way to a stool, kicking out the one next to him in what I assume is an invitation.
“Jesse working today?”
“No, it’s Carter,” the man in the corner answers. “Though I don’t know where he disappeared to.”
