Page 47 of Rope Me In

I take a long inhale before blowing it out. I don’t know if she’s mad at me for what I said, but it seemed more like she was afraid, afraid that I’d figured a part of her out.

And now I have a million questions. I want to know if it’s Derek she’s running from. I want to know where she came from and why she picked Randall. I want to know everything.

Ping!

My gaze falls to the seat Presley just vacated to see her phone. I pick it up only to find the screen isn’t locked and there’s a text from this Derek guy. I shouldn’t look. I should respect her privacy. But I’ve never been good at doing what I should do.

DEREK: This is your replacement. I just gave her the job.

Replacement? What job? I tap the phone and see an image attached, an attractive blonde woman in a selfie with a man I assume is Derek. He’s got dark-red hair and tattoos up his neck and piercings on his face. He looks like a total douche with a smarmy grin and fake smiling eyes.

A new message comes in, and now I’m too curious to stop looking.

DEREK: You should hear her play.

DEREK: You fucked up the chance of a lifetime, Sweetheart.

I feel queasy at theSweetheartnickname. I remember how she reacted when I called her that the first day we met, and now I understand why. God, I was a dick to her. Granted, I’ve been a dick to everyone lately.

I press the side button on her phone so the screen locks. She’ll probably know I’ve looked, but it’s too late now. Shame hits me, and I have the urge to come clean to her about what I just read.

I turn my focus to Night Hawk and see a group of people filtering in, the typical crowd that comes in for line-dancing night: women from surrounding towns and the city dressed in their shortest shorts and tightest tops with cowboy hats and boots. Normally, I look forward to these nights where I can dance and flirt and maybe get a horizontal partner for the evening. But that’s not anything I want right now.

I want Presley back in my car so we can talk. And not just surface-level chatter, either, but real talk about things that matter. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted that with a woman. At least not in a long time.

How’s that saying go? Curiosity killed the cat? I hope I don’t end up going through more of my nine lives trying to figure out this city girl.

I thread my hands through my hair that’s in serious need of a trim before grabbing my hat from the backseat and placing it on my head. When I look in the rearview mirror, my hazel eyes stare back at me, and I fix a smile on my face, one that will get me through tonight.

I put my hand on the door handle to hop out of my truck, but then the passenger door flies open, and Presley climbs backin. Her wide eyes see her phone in my hand, but she doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, she closes the door and then stares straight ahead. After a few breaths of silence, I start to get worried.

“Presley?” I ask. “Everything okay?”

She turns her head to me like she forgot I was even here. “I can’t go back in there.”

I think of the texts I just saw. “Is it something to do with this Derek guy?”

She blinks, her eyes darting to her phone in my hand then back to me. “Did you read my messages?”

I hold her cell out to her, and she snatches it. “Just the newest ones,” I admit. “Your phone was unlocked, and—fuck, that’s no excuse, but I looked.”

Her brow pinches as she taps in her password to see the messages. Her body stills, going silent like the trees before a big storm.

“Presley?”

She squeezes her eyes shut then mutters something under her breath. It sounds like another grocery list—I think I heardchicken,dinosaur, thenbaseball bat. Her body only grows stiffer, the hand around her phone turning white before she reaches into her purse to pull out her hippie vape thing. She inhales then holds the vapor in before exhaling it out again. The smell of peppermint hits my nose, making it tingle a bit. She inhales another drag, then another, before she finally seems to calm down.

“Do you want me to take you back to the ranch?” I have no idea what happened inside Night Hawk, but it must have triggered the anxiety she mentioned to me yesterday. The texts only seemed to have sent her over the edge.

“We can’t leave Jake. He’ll fire me.”

I shake my head. “He won’t fire you. If he fired people, I would’ve been fired a long time ago.”

“I don’t want him to think I’m lazy.”

“You’re not lazy. I saw you work yourself to the point of passing out yesterday. I’d hardly call that lazy.”

She shifts uncomfortably, probably remembering how embarrassed she was by the incident.Way to go, Kade.I hold back a sigh and take my phone out to make a call.

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