Page 10 of Born for Starlight

“It’s the only one you’re getting.” I smiled.

“So, you’re cagey too.”

“Looks like.” I nodded.

She gave me a delicious slow smile. Then laughed.

I liked it. A lot.

“Goodnight, Matthew.”

“Goodnight, Angelica.”

Bruno was waiting by the rental with his keys already in hand, and he didn’t say a word until we were both inside with the doors shut.

Then he lost it. He had to stop chuckling before he spoke. “She turned you down.” He said it like he needed to hear himself say it to believe it. “The great Matthew Grainger, blown off like you were at her door to sell magazines.”

“Tonight she did.”

“I see your ego is still intact.”

I didn’t respond.

Bruno pulled out onto the dark road, still laughing under his breath every few seconds like the joke kept refreshing itself.

I thought about that smile and laugh. The way it hit me in the gut.

Shit. That was the last thing I needed. This was a job.

Still, it was one hell of a smile.

Bruno stuck around Jasper Creek for two weeks after the engagement party, which was two weeks longer than I’d expected him to.

He stayed with his brother, Renzo. I stayed at the LeeHy Motel, which had a flickering vacancy sign, a mattress that I was pretty sure didn’t have bedbugs, and a bathroom that was rusty, but was clean.

“You’re staying where?” Bruno had asked it like I’d told him I was sleeping in a ditch.

“The LeeHy.”

“Why in the hell would you do that to yourself?”

“To build character.”

Bruno had strongly suggested that I stay at the Whispering Pines Inn. He said his brother had mentioned the thread count of the sheets. When I clarified we were talking about the former Navy SEAL, Jase Drakos, it took a while for us both to stop laughing. I continued to stay at the LeeHy.

Bruno had stayed longer than expected because Jase worked at Onyx Security, and there was a case they were assisting the Sheriff with that had touched Zoe. They took it personally. Nash had asked for help running down the supplier behind the low-level dealer they’d already caught who wasn’t talking.

I tagged along with Bruno, wanting to enmesh myself into the Drakos family and Jasper Creek so it would be easier to keep tabs on Angelica. As well as see her again.

Bruno continued to pitch in during his visit before his own job called him back east. When that happened, I told everybody I was bored, at loose ends between contracts and happy to lend a hand while I figured out my next move. That part wasn’t a lie, exactly. It just wasn’t the whole truth either.

Bruno left town giving me the side-eye. He said he’d be checking up on me. I knew he would be, because he knew I wasn’t telling him everything.

I turned that fact over more than once, late at night in a motel room that smelled like somebody else’s cigarettes. It made me jones for the old days when a cigarette or two at night would help me think, at least I thought it did.

I smiled.

I pictured Angelica.