“Shh!” Haley hissed, glancing toward the booth. She could barely see the back of Leland’s head over the high back of the bench, his blue baseball cap. There was no way to tell if he’d heard, but maybe she’d gotten lucky and he hadn’t. “Just let me pay and leave in peace, for heaven’s sake.”
“If that’s what you want.” Sally took the cash, counted it, and glanced up at Haley. “You need your change?”
“No, of course not.” She tucked her wallet back in her jeans pocket and picked up her box. “Although I should keep the tip as compensation for all the trouble you’re causing, flirting with the deputy.”
Sally snorted. “Please. He’s too young for me.”
“Plus, you’re married,” Haley noted wryly.
Sally waved her off. “Emmett wouldn’t care. He knows I know what side my bread’s buttered on. But, girl, your toast is dry as a bone.” At Haley’s sharp look, Sally held up her hands, the ancient register dinging as she pushed the drawer shut with her hip. “I’m just sayin’, is all.”
“Have a nice day, Sally,” Haley said pointedly, loudly, and then turned toward Leland. “Have a good one, Deputy.”
Leland lifted his hand in a wave, throwing her a nod over his shoulder, and she felt twenty pairs of eyes on her as she waved back and headed for the doors, her cheeks warm and a tingle in her stomach that she couldn’t entirely blame on her breakfast being interrupted.
The Styrofoam box squeaked loudly as she set it on the passenger’s seat of her Range Rover, and her thoughts shifted to the boy at the clinic and the bite on his shoulder, the clatter she’d heard on the phone, and the restrained urgency in Karen’s voice.
The chance that someonehadn’tillegally turned a human into a werewolf on her preserve was shrinking so rapidly it wasn’t even much of a question anymore. But who the heck would have done such a thing?
She thought—hoped—that none of her pack would, but if it wasn’t one of hers, that meant that there were trespassers in her territory, and that came with its own set of questions. But making sure Diego was all right was her first priority, and the Range Rover kicked up gravel as she gunned it out of the parking lot.
* * *