Page 70 of Indigo Sky

“I think I might, um … I think I’ll get pancakes. Carbs sound good.” Her voice came out trembling, hushed and apprehensive.

This wasn’t her. This wasn’t how she acted with me. I furrowed my brow, ready to ask her what had just happened, when Birdy, our usual waitress, came to take our order. We told her, she left, and I turned back to Kate to find her acting as strange as before.

“What’s—"

“So, I didn’t tell you what happened last night,” she said, hurrying to interrupt.

I tipped my head. “Last night? At the club?”

She nodded, bringing her eyes back to mine. Her confidence was back. She was herself again. I was relieved, but that didn’t answer the question of what had happened just before to make her shrink under my stare.

“Someone was standing by my car when I left the club.”

My spine locked, now stick straight. My heart rattled, desperate and crazed. My hands balled into fists, pressed to my thighs beneath the table.

“What?” I asked, not intending to shout. “And you werealone?”

Kate shook her head. “No, Scott walked me out. We couldn’t see who it was—it was so dark—and they ran away when they saw us. Scott yelled at them to stay the hell away, but that was it.”

My mouth went dry, and before I tried to speak again, I took a quick sip from the glass of water Birdy had brought when we sat down. As I cleared my throat, I tamped down the urge to lash out in a fit of rage, angry with myself for not being there even though it hadn’t been my night to work.

“Why Scott?” I asked, my voice raspy and cold. “Where the hell was Saul?”

“He left with Wendy,” she explained. “One of their kids had gotten sick, so they left a little earlier. I took a while longer packing up, so Scott hung around to walk me out.”

I sucked in a breath and wished it would settle the frenzied beating of my heart a little more than it did. But Kate didn’t seem as shaken by it as I did, and considering she’d once dealt with a stalker, I thought that had to speak for something.

“Probably just some guy looking to rob my car,” she reasoned with a weak shrug.

“Oh, because that’s no big deal,” I said with an incredulous huff of a laugh.

“All things considered, it really isn’t,” she replied. “It was a random hit. I’m not being targeted or anything.”

Or so you think. I held the thought in though, not wanting to freak her out when she seemed okay. And for all I knew, she was right.

Still, I couldn’t help wondering.

So, after lunch, I left her with a kiss on the cheek and hurried home to shower, get dressed, and hopefully get in a power nap. Because even though I wasn’t on the schedule that night, I wasn’t going to let anyone else walk Indigo Sky to her car in a dark parking lot.

Scott might’ve let the bastard run away, but if it were to happen again …

I wouldn’t be so kind.

***

After several weeks of working at Midnight Lotus, it felt strange to show up in something other than a suit.

I stepped out of my car and stuffed my wallet and keys into my pocket as I walked over to Saul, skipping the line—a surprisingly long one, considering it was the middle of the week.

Twin deep lines formed between his bushy eyebrows at the sight of me, and he looked me up and down with a suspicious set of narrowed eyes. But he didn’t unclip the velvet rope immediately.

“The hell are you doing here?”

I lifted one brow and ignored the complaints of some guy down the line. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah, it does matter, Revan. You here to make a scene?”

I laughed incredulously at that. “Make a scene? God, dude, you are seriously paranoid.”

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