Page 27 of Puck & Make Up

“You needed a safe place to land,” he says. “But you’re hiding now, Dessie girl. And I can’t let you keep doing that.”

Pain spears through me. “What are you saying?” I ask again.

“You can’t keep working here, honey. You need to get back out there and start living again.”

“I—”

He cups my jaw for a second before he leans back and reaches for my legs, tucking them into my car, tosses my purse onto the passenger’s seat and says,

“You’re fired.”

And then he closes the door.

And walks away.

I don’t know how I ended up in the parking lot of the coffee shop on Main Street.

Maybe it’s because my uncle implanted the thought in my subconscious.

Maybe it’s because it’s only a couple of blocks down the road.

Maybe it’s…

Pure chance.

Regardless, I’m sitting in my car, completely unaware of my surroundings, when there’s the knock on my window that snaps me out of my haze.

I jerk my head to the side, see Fox’s beard first, then the concerned expression on his face when he crouches to look fully in through my window. Before I can pull myself together, he’s reaching for the door handle, tugged the metal panel open. “Sugar lips,” he asks, leaning into my space, inundating me with the heat of his body and his scent and all that is…

Fox.

“What’s the matter, baby?” he asks.

Heart aching, I look away. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

A sigh as he settles back on his haunches, one hand dropping to my knee.

The sensation brands me through my clothes, as though he’s touching my naked skin.

“Liar.”

I lift my chin. “Why do you always accuse me of lying?”

“Because you use your lies like a shield, sugar. And because,” he adds before I can protest that, “you’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes staring off into space.”

At that, the fight washes right out of me.

“Roger fired me,” I whisper.

That wipes the self-satisfied smile off his face, but he doesn’t hesitate, just reaches in, unbuckles my seat belt.

“Wh—”

He snags my arm, my purse, and then I’m out of the car, the cool morning breeze kissing my cheeks.

“What are you doing?” I ask as he closes the door, locks my car, and starts hauling me forward. I try to drag my feet, but there’s no stopping his strength as he hauls me out of the parking lot and toward the huge park that takes up a large chunk of the area just off Main Street.

It houses the Rec Center. And the soccer fields. Plays host to the farmer’s market on Saturdays. And it’s key to the numerous festivals the town puts on—including the annual Sip and Slide wine tasting event that had taken place last weekend.

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