“Did you find my mom?” Waylay asked.
“Maybe we should talk in private,” he suggested. “Knox, be a good neighbor and take Waylay up to the house while I have a few words with Naomi.”
“No way,” Waylay said, crossing her arms.
“Fuck no,” I agreed.
Our staredown lasted until Naomi rolled her eyes. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with. Please tell me what you found.”
My brother suddenly looked uncomfortable, and my interest piqued.
“Guess I’ll just get right to it,” Nash said. “I didn’t find your car yet. But I did find something interesting when I ran the plates. It was reported stolen.”
“No, shit, Sherlock. Naomi did that this morning,” I reminded him.
Nash ignored me and continued. “It was reported stolen yesterday by one Warner Dennison III of Long Island, New York.”
Naomi looked like she wanted the earth to swallow her up.
“You stole a car?” Waylay asked her aunt, looking impressed. I had to admit that I hadn’t seen that one coming either.
“It’s my car, but my ex-fiancé bought it. His name was on the title with mine.”
She looked like the kind of woman a man would buy cars for, I decided.
“Don’t you mean ex-husband?” Waylay piped up.
“Ex-fiancé,” Naomi corrected. “We’re no longer together. And we didn’t get married.”
“‘Cause she left him at the altar,” the girl added knowledgeably. “Yesterday.”
“Waylay, I told you that in confidence,” Naomi hissed. Her cheeks turned a bright shade of scarlet.
“You’re the one being interrogated for grand theft auto.”
“No one is being interrogated,” Nash insisted. “I’ll talk to the office in charge and clear up any misunderstanding.”
“Thank you,” Naomi said. Her eyes were filling with what looked suspiciously like tears.
Fuck.
“I don’t know about you all, but I could sure use a drink. Let’s head up to the big house and solve this over alcohol,” I suggested.
I didn’t imagine the flicker of relief that flashed over her pretty face.
I spent the short walk to Liza J’s wondering when the hell I’d turned into a sundress guy. The women I dated wore jeans and leather and rocker t-shirts. They didn’t have prep school vocabularies or dresses that floated around their ankles like some summer fantasy.
I liked my women the way I liked my relationships—fast, dirty, and casual.
Naomi Witt was none of those, and I needed to remember that.
“You’re seriously going to dinner like that?” Naomi asked me as Waylon wandered off the drive to lift his leg on a dogwood.
Behind us, Waylay peppered Nash with questions about crime in Knockemout.
“Liza J’s seen worse,” I said, biting into a cookie.
“Where did you get that cookie?” she demanded.