They’d found a vehicle that matched the description of the car that had almost run Everleigh down that morning. It was dumped in a ditch not far from the grocery store, on a road that was no more than a long stretch of trees, so there were no cameras anywhere to show who got out of the vehicle. The cops told him that the car had been reported stolen that morning.
And the security cameras in the junkyard where it’d been stolen weren’t working.
When he went out to the kitchen to fill Everleigh in on the developments, he found a space empty of human occupation, with a note on the countertop telling him for how long and at what temperature to heat up his dinner. She’d gone to her room for the night.
Obviously expecting to be left alone. Her message couldn’t have been any clearer.
When he’d headed up to bed, hours after consuming two helpings of enchiladas, he’d seen her light on under her door. Had knocked and at the same time called out, asking if she was okay or needed anything.
She’d responded immediately, telling him she was fine.
And that was good-night.
She’d managed to defuse their...momentarily off course...situation all on her own. He was grateful to her. Really.
But he went to sleep and dreamed about being her boyfriend.
* * *
Everleigh called the prison to check on her grandmother before she’d even showered the next morning. She’d done the same each day since her own release.
Gram was fine, slept well, was eating enough, according to the guard who’d agreed to give her updates.
Everleigh hadn’t slept worth a darn, though. The strange bed...down the hall from a man she couldn’t get out of her mind.
For most all of her adult life she’d been tied to Fritz. Monogamous. Loyal to the vows she’d taken. Maybe her bizarrely strong awareness of Clarke Colton was just because he was the first man with whom she’d been in extensive contact since her husband’s death.
Or maybe her attraction to Clarke was just adrenaline overload, she decided as, naked in the shower, she could hardly touch her breasts or spend much time cleaning her other private parts without igniting the fire that seemed to be tingling there almost nonstop.
She hadn’t been that sensitive even in the first months of having sex with Fritz, and she’d thought that had been pretty amazing.
Someone still wanted her dead and was getting bolder...
Yeah, it was the fear, being shot at and almost run over...being framed for murder and sitting in a cell for two months. Gratitude to the man who’d proved her not guilty.
And living in the same space as him. Sharing accommodations and food.
Needing to rely on him for her physical safety.
But what about his scheme, pretending that he was her boyfriend? As she looked over the few outfits she’d brought, she thought about the party they’d be attending together that night—as boyfriend and girlfriend. She wanted to look her best. Wanted to show all the disbelievers that she’d not only survived prison, she was just fine without their support or belief in her.
Still, her stomach knotted with nerves every time she thought about the evening ahead. How did she pretend that the gorgeous, intense, protective Clarke Colton was involved with her, and not start to wish it was true? Or worse, start to get turned on by him? How did she hang on his arm and get turned off?
And how did she go there and not hang on to the support he was offering while she faced all of the people she’d loved all her life, knowing that they hadn’t known her, or believed in her, at all? What if it was one of them who had killed Fritz for some reason and might actually want her dead?
The knots turned to butterflies and she grabbed her newest pair of skinny stretch jeans, the name-brand pair, and the black sweater she’d paid too much for the week after Fritz had left her. Its softness was what had first drawn her to it, but the way it fit her breasts, slimming at the waist and hugging her just above the hips... Yeah, she needed that extra little boost of confidence.
The black boots were new, too, purchased from one night’s worth of tips also during that first week after Fritz left. That purchase had been on the day she’d found out that he’d been cheating on her for years. Her friend Larissa, another waitress at Howlin’ Eddie’s, had told her the way the boots zipped just to her ankles made her calves look sexy.
And she’d been feeling anything but recently.
Larissa had been there for her a lot during those horrible days of facing the truth about her marriage. They’d spent more than one night on the couch with glasses of wine, talking long into the night.
And Larissa was the one person who’d never vocally said that, once she’d seen the facts, she believed Everleigh killed Fritz. She’d never said she didn’t believe it. She hadn’t sided with Gram. Hadn’t come out and stated that there was no way Everleigh could have done it. But she hadn?
??t sided with the rest of those who’d known her her whole life, either. And that counted for something in Everleigh’s book.
Thankfully, Everleigh’s mother hadn’t invited Janet or any of the other waitresses from the bar, but Larissa was supposed to be at the party that night, too. She was the one sort of bright spot as Everleigh thought of the night ahead. Except that she dreaded the big deal Larissa would make of Everleigh having a new hunky boyfriend. A Colton, no less.