Page 50 of Then You Happened
Her smile widens and voice lowers. “You want to head out of here so I can show you just how active it is?”
“Thanks, Violet, but not tonight.” Or any night, for that matter.
“Okay then . . .” She runs a hand up and down the length of my arm. “When you’re looking to leave there, I could help you get a job in oil. They’re more than plentiful around here if you know the right people.”
“I take it you’re the right people?”
“I’m a lot of people.” She slowly slides out of the booth, smile still coy and expression still playful as she presses a napkin into my hand. It no doubt has her number on it.
“What’s this?”
“Just getting a feel for the water, is all.”
Hell if I haven’t been treading for way too long to know what it already feels like to slide under the water’s surface before begrudgingly fighting my way back to its top again.
“How’s it feel?” I ask.
“A little chilly at the moment, but I was just getting my toes wet. I have a feeling it gets warmer with time.” She offers me a wink and a soft chuckle before turning her back, hips swinging as she heads back to wherever she came from.
I blow out a breath and turn back to the game that I don’t care about.
Fletcher sure snowed this little town. Either that or Tate really is who they say she is.
My money’s on the former.
Hands down.
I lift my finger and ask for another drink before I’m halfway through the one I have.
Fire.
Beauty.
Pain.
Fucking Tate.
I’m going to need it if I have any hope of preventing myself from doing something I’m more than certain I’m going to regret.
Like knocking on her door.
14
TATE
Panic rifles through me as I stumble, still half asleep, to find out wh
o is pounding on the front door. Groggy as I may be, my adrenaline has spiked to the point in which I can feel my heartbeat in my throat and all I can think is that the lights that hit the windows moments before weren’t Jack’s, but Rusty’s.
“There’s been an accident.”
I keep hearing Rusty say those words and reliving the feeling of the bottom dropping out from under me as I struggled to comprehend him.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“I’m coming,” I yell to whoever it is. Flustered and so wrapped up in the memory that holds me hostage, I don’t even look at who is on the other side of the door before flinging it open.
“Jack!” I gasp in relief when I see him standing there. His hair is mussed, and his jaw is clenched, but it’s his eyes that knock every sense of panic out of my head. They’re intense as they pin me motionless, and anything else I was going to say dies on my lips.
