Page 25 of Half Baked

He looked nervous as he said, “In case you haven’t already guessed, I want to go with you when you talk to Howard Bergan again.”

“When you saygo with me,do you mean I get to sit and watch you interrogate him, or will I be an equal partner?”

“This is an unofficial investigation,” he said. “So we’ll talk to him together.”

I still felt a tinge of excitement, but I told myself not to get my hopes up. “Let me go check if Trista’s here.”

Noah walked over to a table in the empty seating area and sat down, stretching out his long legs while I headed to the back.

Trista was clocking in, so I found Petra in her office and told her I was heading out for the day.

I grabbed my coat and purse and headed out to the front. Trista was standing at the counter, ogling Noah, not that I blamed her.

When he noticed me coming around the counter, he stood and smiled, and I could hear Trista groaning and muttering, “Why are all the good ones taken?”

“Ready?” Noah asked, his gaze firmly on me. If he’d heard Trista, he was doing a great job of ignoring her.

“Yeah.”

“I thought we could ride together in my car, in case we need to follow up on something. I’ll bring you back to your car when we’re done.”

“Sounds good.”

We walked outside in silence. He put his hand on the small of my back and steered me toward his personal car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and while I welcomed his touch, I felt like a yo-yo, bouncing back and forth—he wanted me; he didn’t want me. If he was going to help me with this, I wanted to him to help me without distractions.

He opened the door for me, and I turned to look up at him. “Look, I know you’re dealing with something, and I’ve never been one to make demands, so for the sake of working together, I think we should just do this as friends.”

Surprise filled his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, his head bobbing. “Right.”

“I know when we started this thing, I told you I’d be patient when you ran, but honestly, I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon or for so long. And if I’m honest, I’m still struggling to correlate the you before Christmas with the you now. So for the sake of this investigation, this seems best.”

He looked stricken. “Maddie, I’m sorry I’ve been an ass lately.”

I shrugged, trying to act more casual than I felt. “We both have a lot on our plate. The timing’s just wrong. But there’s no reason we can’t work together as friends.”

He looked like he wanted to protest, then stopped. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

I climbed up into the SUV. “I made an appointment for another tour at three-thirty. We better get going, or we’ll be late.”

He got in the driver’s side, and as he started driving, I asked, “What’s your mom doing while you’re doing this with me?”

“She’s reorganizing my kitchen.” He laughed. “It’s not as bad as that sounds. My gunshot wound scared her, and when she’s scared, she cleans.”

I cringed. “Sorry. I insisted they call her, but in my defense, Lance thought you were really hurt when he came to see me.”

“Given the circumstances, it was the right call. She’ll get over it.”

It was a short drive to the care center. After Noah parked, we got out and met in front of his car. He reached for me, then seemed to think better of it and let his hand drop to his side as we silently walked inside.

The receptionist smiled when we approached the desk. I couldn’t help noticing that her gaze lingered a little longer on Noah than necessary.

“I see you brought a friend today.”

Noah nodded. “Noah Langley.”

The receptionist glanced back at the office behind her then back to me. “Ms. Farrow is ready to talk about the financials.”

“Before we do that,” Noah said, resting his left forearm on the counter, “is there a chance I could look at the room you showed Maddie yesterday?”

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