Page 83 of Timid (Lark Cove 2)

Thea crossed the room to stand by one of the windows in the front. I didn’t move as she watched the parking lot, waiting.

“There,” Thea said a few moments later, leaving the window. “She’s gone.”

She grumbled something else and pulled her phone from her pocket. With it pressed to her ear, she marched through the bar toward the back, probably to call Logan or Hazel. Or both.

I closed my eyes and took a breath, sagging into the door. My heart was racing and I felt like someone had just punched me in the gut.

Why was Mom here? Why now? What could she possibly want? Maybe I should have talked to her.

As my head spun, a pair of delicate arms wrapped around my waist from behind.

Willa’s cheek pressed against my back. “Want to talk about it? Or pretend it never happened?”

“Pretend it never happened.”

“Okay.”

Okay. That was it. She wouldn’t push. She’d just ride shotgun and let me navigate this.

I just wish I had a fucking clue which direction to go.

“Hazel is coming down here,” Thea announced as she returned, pissed off and snarling. “If that bitch comes back, I swear to god I’m going to beat her ass.”

“I’ll help,” Willa told her.

I chuckled. Only she could make me smile after having just thrown my mother out of my bar.

I loosened her hands from my stomach and turned, bending to give her a soft kiss. “I’m going to get back to work. Shake this off. Are you going to hang with me tonight?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

And she didn’t.

Willa sat stoically on a barstool all afternoon and evening, keeping a watchful eye on the door the entire time. Right beside her was Hazel, who’d come down minutes after Thea’s phone call.

“You should go home,” I told Hazel. It was one in the morning and she was yawning every other minute.

She yawned again. “I think I will. I’m too old to stay until closing anymore.”

“Thanks for coming down.” I leaned across the bar and kissed her cheek.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I told you, I’m fine. It was just a shock.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but I refused to talk about my mother’s surprise visit.

Thea had given Hazel all the details earlier, then the two of them had sat and ranted about it for a couple of hours. They’d pestered me for a while, wanting to talk about my feelings, but I’d told them I was fine.

I think Willa must have said something to the pair at one point while I’d been in the kitchen because when I’d come back out, the topic had been dropped completely.

Thea had left the bar shortly before dinner to go home and eat with Logan and Charlie. Hazel and Willa had stayed to eat here with me and bullshit with the random tourist who’d plopped down in the seat next to them.

“Will you call me immediately if she shows up?” Hazel asked, standing from her seat.

If? More like when.

I had no doubt Mom would be back, but I wasn’t going to play her games. “If she shows up again, I’ll keep kicking her ass out the door until she gets the hint.”