“You did it, Mark.”
He shrugged that off. “I’m nothing without you, bro. We just gotta figure out the interior restructuring now. Let’s see if we can pull images off the internet.”
The sound of Lizbeth clearing her throat startled both of us. She stood near the couch. Her fingers fidgeted with the bottom of her shirt. Mark sat down next to me, laptop in hand.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Ah, quick question. Are either of you going into town tomorrow?”
Mark and I both shook our heads.
“Oh.”
“Do you need a ride?” Mark asked.
“Yes, if possible. I, uh . . .” She cleared her throat and lifted her chin. “Have a dinner I need to go to in Jackson City.”
“Oooh?” Mark drawled dramatically, eyebrows waggling. “Hot guy, Lizbeth?”
She refused to look at me, which was fine. Because something was burning in my throat, and if I had to speak, I’d croak. Like an utter imbecile.
“Ah, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just a dinner. I was supposed to borrow Mav’s SUV, but he’ll be using it. With my car in the river . . .”
“I’ll take you.”
The words came from me, but I’d had no intention of saying them. Or even realized that they were in my head.
She blinked. “Great. Thanks. I, um . . . you don’t have to do that, though. Maybe I could just drive it? Then you don’t have to wait around?”
I shrugged. “Not a big deal.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “You’re just going to wait in Jackson City while I’m on a date?”
So it wasn’t just dinner.
“Sure. I have some errands I could run.”
She pulled in a breath, opened her mouth, and paused. Mark looked at me with a grin I didn’t care to acknowledge.
“I mean . . . do you not want me to drive the Zombie Mobile?” she asked.
“You could try,” Mark offered, “but it doesn’t have power steering, and the floor is about to fall out.”
He wasn’t kidding.
“Plus,” Mark added, “if this guy ends up being a serial killer, the Zombie Mobile isn’t your best option.”
I punched him in the arm. He grimaced.
“Serial killer,” Lizbeth muttered with deep annoyance. “Seriously?”
Mark shrugged.
She shook that off, then tucked a strand of hair behind her ears and pulled her shoulders back. “Got it. Okay. Well, thank you, JJ. I’m sorry if this is inconvenient.”
“Not at all.” I shook my head. “It’s good.”
“Thanks.” She shuffled back a step. “I’m going to finish up some work in my cabin.”
Like a flash, she disappeared out the back door with her laptop clutched to her chest. The heaviness in the air seemed to hover for several long moments before Mark broke it.
“You’re a friggin’ mess, JJ.”
“Shut up.”
“What? Tell me you don’t see it in her eyes when she’s looking at you all day long and tries to pretend she isn’t.”
“I don’t see it in her eyes.”
“Then you’re choosing to be blind.”
I frowned. “I’m practically her employer.”
“Correction: I am her employer. Adventura is in my name, per your request. You are an investor and employee in the company that’s contracted her to work for a very short amount of time.”
“Mav would kill me.”
“Nah. You’ve earned your way into his good graces with the fact that you’ve saved her life one and a half times.”
“One and a half?”
“I don’t count the fire.” He smirked. “She would have left on her own.”
I rolled my eyes, which only made him laugh. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Mark.”
He sobered. “What has you so freaked out?”
“Who said I was freaked out?”
“The fact that confident JJ has suddenly gone all weird? The fact that you won’t ask her out, which is a dead giveaway. Not every woman is Stacey, you know. That witch was something else. You lucked out, brother.”
A thousand memories whirled through my mind. A beach. Candles. The strange feeling of nausea and anticipation in my stomach. Then Mom crying. Dad’s stoic, pressed-together lips. A dusty day at Adventura when they announced the official demise of their marriage, then bickered like children.
The feeling of being rent in half when the family fell apart.
Of being the only one on the outside.
“Nothing,” I said.
He stood up. “Okay, brother. Tell yourself you don’t like her. Tell yourself you’re not raving jealous. Tell yourself you’re not scared. But it will only work for so long. And if you don’t ask her out yourself, I might. And we both know she’ll fall madly in love with my charms once I fully unleash them and you won’t have a prayer.”
He shuffled out the front door, likely to talk to the real estate agent. I simmered on the couch for a few minutes. My jealousy was new, and that bothered me. My annoyance wasn’t entirely new, but it really bothered me.
The sudden sense of fear that cropped up at the idea of Lizbeth out with some other guy? Definitely new.
Definitely bothered me.
Friday night came a little too quickly.
Before I knew it, Lizbeth and I were ambling along the snowy path to the bridge that crossed the river. It was a thirty-minute drive to Jackson City from there. The way things were going, it would pass in total silence. I’d already been grumpy and concerned over this “dinner.” Then I saw her sleek black pants, flowing white top, and the pop of her eyes in makeup.
After that, I was downright irascible in my head.
Lizbeth cleared her throat and said, “I had you bring me a little early. I hope that’s okay. There are a few things I need to pick up.”
“That’s fine.”
“Tyler’s email said to meet at Belle Vie at five.”
Tyler was his name. Interesting.
“Where do you want to go first?” I asked as we pulled onto the highway. Belle Vie was a fancy upscale restaurant with a hundred-dollar-per-plate average. Which all but firmly refuted my hope that this was a punk college kid. Also destroyed the idea of this being just a dinner. This Tyler guy was taking her on a date.
And damn if it
