Page 52 of Rescued Faith

“Exactly.” He picked at a crumb on the table, then looked up at her, the tenderness in his eyes unmistakable. “So what do you say?”

“Sure.” Wait. What did she just agree to? Spendingmoretime with him?

“Yeah?”

Hope lit up his whole face. There was no way she could back out now. Not when he looked at her like that. Like she was the one he wanted to be with. Like he would do whatever it took just to be with her.

Oh, she was in so much trouble.

But maybe he was right. Maybe they’d both changed enough that this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe she’d learned enough to not completely lose herself this time.

Before she could say more, Olivia walked in. “I’m ready. Thanks for waiting.”

Right. The video. It had finished downloading. Penny cast it to the television in the room. The grainy images of people dancing played. The flickering lights made it hard to focus, but suddenly a familiar face filled the screen. Penny gasped.

“What? Is it him?” Olivia asked.

“No, but I recognize someone else.” Penny studied the screen. Finally.

“Who?” Bryce leaned over to look at her phone.

“Her!” She paused the video. “That’s Emma.”

“The girl who came on to me is your Emma Kemper?” Bryce sat straighter in his chair.

She came on to Bryce? But she’d seemed pretty attached to her boyfr?—

A sense of dread filled Penny. That little minx. “She was distracting you.”

Bryce balked. “Distracting me from what? The horrible music and lighting?”

Oh, she really shouldn’t be so relieved to know that Bryce hadn’t enjoyed clubbing last night. But a weird sense of victory surged through her.

“The man you thought looked like Sosa. What happened to him once she approached you?”

“I…don’t know. I didn’t see him after that.” Bryce shrugged.

It made sense. Bryce would stick out in a place like that, studying a crowd, searching for someone in particular. Not that women didn’t throw themselves at him all the time everywhere he went, but Emma was good at acting. She was on the run. She’d be on the lookout for suspicious people trying to track her down. Or her boyfriend. Because something inside Penny told her that this Sosa lookalike was the man that had ordered her to be burned in the warehouse.

“I think we need to go clubbing tonight.”

SIXTEEN

Bryce was a grown man. He shouldn’t sulk. But seriously.

“Isn’t this fun?” Penny sipped on a huge convenience-store fountain drink as she stepped into the back of the barbecue-food truck/stakeout vehicle. She threw a bag of sunflower seeds to Anthony and a package of beef jerky to Jude in the front seat.

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted to spend some more time with you,” Bryce grumbled under his breath as she dropped the bag of chips he’d requested into his lap.

Crammed into a van with little air flow and five other adults was not what he wanted at all. What he wanted was a chance to show Penny that he’d changed. A chance to see if they could be together again.

Because his mother was right. He didn’t belong with a sweet, quiet girl like Sarai. He belonged with Penny.

And chasing after Sosa? He was dead. There was no question about that.

Still, Penny set down her pop to help Olivia Tazwell strategically place her necklace with the hidden camera betweenher collar bones. Bryce averted his eyes from the tight dress she wore. In that outfit, even being blonde, Olivia would fit in with the crowd all right. And he wasn’t sad that she was the one going in undercover rather than Penny.

Penny would stick out no matter what she wore. Any hot-blooded guy in the place would be all over her. But, oh darn. Emma knew what she looked like and so did her boyfriend. So Olivia was up. Izan wasn’t so pleased. Not that he could do anything about it. Until the man got the guts to ask the girl out, he was in the friend zone. But Jude had let him ride along tonight since he knew the place and might recognize some of the players from Maria’s old group.

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