“I know. But I had to pay my rent. What good would it do me to have electricity if I didn’t have a place to use it?”
There was clear frustration in her voice. I stopped outside the office door marked with the name of a local electricity company and listened to the argument. It wasn’t going in Amber direction.
“We’ll take the partial payment, but we’ll still have to have the rest by the end of the day or your power will be turned off first thing in the morning.”
“You don’t understand—”
“No, Ms. Zavalas, you don’t understand. This has been going on for six months. We’ve been more than generous, giving you extensions on you bills. That’s how it got to be this large. But we can’t let this go on indefinitely. You have to pay your bill.”
“What about my deposit? Isn’t that supposed to be used for outstanding balances?”
“It was. Six months ago.”
Amber moaned, stepping back from the counter a foot or so and grasping her belly. The woman behind the counter stood and watched her, but she didn’t offer any help or even ask if she was all right. Whatever it was passed, and Amber moved back up to the counter.
“What’s my balance after this?”
The woman looked at her computer for a long minute, then used a calculator to figure out the answer.
“Two hundred forty-one dollars and fifty-two cents.”
Amber nodded, her face falling with defeat.
“Thanks.”
I stepped back into the shadows as she stormed out of the office—as much storming as a woman that pregnant could do. Two hundred and forty bucks. I’d had dinners that cost more than that.
I watched her go, thinking about the twist of pain I’d seen on her face while she was in the office. I knew what Peter would do. I’d once been with him at a grocery store where we’d run in to pick up a cheese platter for one of the infinite number of garden parties our mother threw and the family in front of us was having trouble paying for their groceries. They were about to put back a gallon of milk when Peter stepped up and offered to not only pay what they were short, but to pay the entire bill for them. Peter was generous. He was kind. Those people—they were so embarrassed they couldn’t even look him in the eye when they thanked him. But Peter…it didn’t matter to him. He didn’t do it for the praise. He did it because it was the right thing to do.
What if this was Peter’s baby?
Fuck!
I ducked into the office and convinced the sour woman behind the counter to allow me to pay Amber’s bill. It was only two hundred dollars. In the long run, it meant absolutely nothing to me, but it would mean everything to her.
By the time I got back outside, Amber was gone. But it was a small town, and I found her not five minutes later parked outside the diner where she worked. She was sitting at the counter, sipping from a glass of iced water.
“Have you eaten today?” I asked, falling into a stool beside her.
“I don’t need your charity.”
“It’s not charity. I need to eat, and I don’t want to eat alone.”
She glanced at me, hunger clearly shining in her eyes.
“What’s good? The burgers?”
She shrugged. “Not bad. I’d try the patty melt.”
I wiggled my fingers at the girl working the counter. “Two patty melts.”
Amber adjusted her position on her stool, her fingers working the edge of a napkin until she had it shredded into tiny pieces. I watched her, a little fascinated by how small her fingers were. They were swollen, anyone could see that, but that didn’t take away from how delicate they were. Tiny hands.
“He came in here?”
She glanced at me. “A lot.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “The first few times, he sat alone in the back.” She gestured toward a booth at the back of the room. “He had papers and a laptop. I thought he was a college professor or something.”
“And later?”
“He came in once with a guy. This bald guy that I told your sister about. They talked for close to two hours, then the bald guy stormed out.”
“You never saw him again?”
“No. But your brother…he came in a couple of times a month for like three or four months.”
“And the two of you became friends?”
She was quiet for a minute, her fingers still working that napkin. She was chewing on her lip, biting it hard enough to make it turn a bright red. When she looked up again, there were tears in her eyes.
“He was nice. He treated me better than anyone in this town ever has.”
That I believed. Peter was that way. He’d never treated anyone with anything less than respect, not even the bullies in high school who made his life a living hell his junior year.
“Then why are you doing this? How could you repay his kindness this way?”
Anger sparked in her eyes. She pushed herself up, struggling out of her stool.
“I’m not doing anything,” she said breathlessly. “I just wanted to find him. I didn’t know…how was I supposed to know he’d died?”
“It was in all the papers. Surely you get newspapers out here.”
“Do I look like the kind of person who reads the paper?”
“Your customers clearly do,” I said, flicking my finger against an abandoned paper sitting on the counter between us. “You don’t live with your head in the sand.”
“I didn’t know.”
She moved around the end of the counter, helping herself to more water. She stood with her back to me, drinking her fill then pouring herself more. I wasn’t sure if she was really angry, or if she just wanted me to think she was. But when the food came a minute later, it was pretty clear that she was torn between her hunger and her desire to make me suffer.
“Come eat.” I waved to her. “Don’t let it go to waste because you don’t like what I have to say.”
“I know you think I’m a gold digger. But I’m not.”
“Eat.”
She watched me wearily for a second then made her way back to her stool. It took her a couple of tries to get onto it, but once she was, she wasted no time tucking into that patty melt. She had it half gone in the time it took me to take two bites. I found myself wondering when she’d last had a decent meal.
I wasn’t going to feel sorry for her. But she was making it damn hard.
“You’ve worked here a while?”
She nodded. “Four years.”
“You ever try getting a job somewhere else?”
She picked a grilled onion off her sandwich and popped it into her mouth. “I moved to Austin briefly with a girlfriend, worked at a Denny’s there. But the tips sucked, and I made less money there than I could make here. So I came back.”
“You ever try another line of work?”
“Like what? Rocket scientist?” She laughed at her own joke. “I’m a high school dropout. There aren’t many jobs out there for girls like me.”
Her eyes darkened, and she picked at the crust of her sandwich before picking up a fry and popping it into her mouth.
“He was going to help me get my GED.”
“Peter?”
“He said he’d quiz me and help me learn the material.”
Again, textbook Peter. Didn’t mean anything.
“What was he like?” she asked suddenly. “When he was a kid and stuff.”
It was my turn to play with my sandwich, pretend that I was thinking my answer through. She caught me off guard with that question. I’d tried not to think about Peter that much these last seven months. It hurt too much. Peter and I weren’t as close as he was to Megan, but we were closer than most brothers were, I think. Even though he hadn’t chosen the military, he encouraged me to follow my dreams. Told me that I should do what would make me happy. I wasn’t sure the military would make me happy, but I knew the routine of college wouldn’t. I barely got through high school, what with all that reading and testing and the distractions of m
y friends, school just wasn’t my thing. Peter was the only one who understood that. Dad swore he wasn’t disappointed, but I could see it in his eyes. He’d wanted Peter and me to work at the company with him, to take it over when he was ready to retire. But I just couldn’t do it. The business world was more Peter’s thing.
And now Peter was gone.
“He was a good brother. Supportive. He was always there whenever Megan or I needed him.”
“He talked about you. Even showed me a picture once.”
“Yeah?”
“You were in uniform standing between your parents. You were smiling.”
“That was while I was on leave after basic training.” I leaned back in my stool and studied her face a second. “I can’t believe he still had that picture.”
“He was proud of you. He said that you were off saving the world while he was stuck in an office, crunching numbers. I think he felt a little inadequate compared to you.”
I shook my head. “Peter was always the better one. Better at everything. And kinder.”
“He was kind.”
“Too good to be true sometimes.”
“He was.”
She sounded like she knew him so well, like she had a right to know him. I didn’t like it.
I pushed my plate away and stood.
“Are you sticking around here for a while?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
I tossed a couple of twenty-dollar bills on the counter. “Don’t go anywhere else. I’ll be back.”
I needed space. I needed to think.
Peter was my brother. I thought I knew everything there was to know about his life. But listening to her talk about him, I suddenly felt like I knew nothing. Should I be questioning everything I knew? Should I wonder why Peter was coming out here, why he was talking to this stranger? What was I missing?
“There’s something more to this, Megan…”
“I know.”
“Why was Peter coming out here?”
I could hear the wheels spinning in Megan’s head, even over the miles between us. I leaned against my car, the phone pressed to the side of my head, and listened to her working something, worrying it over and over. She’d already been thinking about it, but she had yet to find an answer.
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I called Dad and asked him, but he has no idea either.”
“Did you tell him about—?”
“No, not yet. I wanted to wait until we could tell them together.”
I glanced back at the diner. Amber was still at the counter, eating the last of the sandwich I’d left behind. She was hunched over like an animal protecting its prey. What was it that Peter saw when he looked at her? She was beautiful. Her hair was like spun straw and her eyes this shade of green that seemed to see right through me. But there were thousands of beautiful women in Houston alone. What was it about this one girl that drew Peter to her?
What the hell was going on here?
Chapter 4
Amber
I could feel his eyes on me as I worked my shift at the diner. He stared at me as though I were some sort of enigma he was trying to solve. I wished he would just leave, just leave my baby and me alone. I wished I’d never gone to Houston. I’m not even sure why I did. That guy…he never approached me, never said anything to me. For all I know, it was a coincidence that he was outside my trailer that morning. Maybe he was looking for someone else.
But I knew deep in my gut that he was there watching me. And that scared me to death.
I had enough trouble without having some bald guy following me around, watching my every move.
“How’s it going, Amber?”
Tyler, a guy I went to school with once upon a time, smacked my ass as I walked past him, two plates of food heavy in my hands. I nearly fell, but managed to catch myself by smacking my hip painfully against the side of a stool.
I didn’t see Peter’s brother—Cole—come up until I heard his voice.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked Tyler in a low, deep tone. “You get off on hitting pregnant women?”
“Just gave her a tap, friend.”
“You nearly knocked her over.”
“Not my fault the girl has no balance.”
Tina, one of the other waitresses, shot me a warning glance. I quickly delivered the food I was carrying and backtracked to the counter.
“The girl’s pregnant. I suggest you leave her alone.”
“And I suggest you mind your own damn business!”
“She is my business.”
“What? Are you the father?”
I managed to step between them just as Cole looked like he was going to go ballistic. I lay my hands on his chest, trying to ignore the fact that he was incredibly fit under that snug, black t-shirt, as I pushed him back against the stool that’d saved me from falling flat on my face.
“That’s enough,” I said, trying to keep my voice low so that Art, my boss, didn’t hear what was happening.
“Who is this guy, Amber?”
I twisted, pushing Tyler back into his stool. “Nobody. Just…let it go, okay?”
“He needs to apologize,” Cole announced.
“No…”
I shook my head, but I knew this thing was out of control already because Art was coming out of his office, his beady eyes stuck on me. This wasn’t good.
“I need to apologize? For what? For slapping Amber on the ass? She don’t mind, do you, sweetheart?”
Tyler grabbed my ass again, squeezing it hard, right under Cole’s nose. I reacted—knowing that I shouldn’t—turning slightly and slamming my knee into Tyler’s crotch. It couldn’t have been that bad since my belly got in the way and I wasn’t able to give as much force as I wanted, but it got the job done. Tyler fell to the floor, grabbing his crotch and moaning.
“You’re fired!”
“Art…” I turned and could see by the look on his face that he wasn’t in the mood to negotiate, but I had to try. “He grabbed me first. What was I supposed to do?”
“This is the third time you’ve done this! The second to Tyler. I can’t have this sort of thing going on in my diner, Amber. I told you that the last time.”
“So I’m supposed to allow him to grab me wherever he wants?”
“You’re a waitress, Amber. Not the fucking Queen of England. It comes with the job.”
I just stared at him, lost for what to say. I couldn’t lose my job. Not now. But this…I walked around the counter and grabbed my bag.
“I could sue you for this, Art. And all these people”—I gestured round the room—“are my witnesses. He grabbed me first. Twice. He fucking deserved what he got.”
I stormed out of the building, as best as I could, and wrenched open the door to my car. Tina ran up behind me and pressed some crumpled bills into my hand.
“Your tips for tonight.”
I kissed her cheek. “Thanks.”
“You’ll be okay. You’ll find something else.”
We both knew there was nothing else in this town, but I nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
I half fell, half wedged myself into the car and turned the key. Of course the starter chose that moment to die completely. Just a grinding sound filled the car. This car wasn’t going anywhere tonight.
And that was the last straw.
I slammed my hands against the steering wheel over and over again, a scream slipping from my lips before tears just flowed like an open faucet. What was I going to do? This baby was due in three weeks and I didn’t have a job, my electricity was about to be turned off, my cell phone was already off, my water would be turned off next week. I had no groceries, no gas money, and no way of getting this damn car fixed! I had nothing.
If not for the baby…
“Let me drive you home.”
I’d almost forgotten about Cole. He knelt beside my open car door and looked up at me.
I shook my head. “I don’t need you.”
“You need some
one. Your starter’s gone. This car isn’t moving unless you have the money to call a tow truck.”
I groaned. I couldn’t even do that. And if I left the car here for longer than a day or two, Art would have it towed. Then I’d have that mess to deal with.
Could things get any worse?
The pain in my back suddenly tightened. It’d been doing that for two days now, and it was beginning to drive me crazy. Like the constant pain wasn’t enough, it had to get worse on regular intervals. I wanted this baby out. I wanted my body back. But then I remembered I didn’t have a crib, I didn’t have but two little cute outfits to dress the baby in, and I only had a single pack of diapers. How was I going to take care of a baby with that?
I scrubbed at my cheeks with the back of my hand. No matter how hopeless it all seemed, I wasn’t going to give Cole Bradford the satisfaction of watching me fall apart.
“I’ll get a ride from someone.”
“And then what? Are you going to fix the starter yourself?”
“If I had the money for the part.” I saw surprise burst into his eyes. “I know how to work on a car. Do you?”
He made a waving gesture with his hand. “Let me drive you home. I’m going there anyway.”
“How long are you going to watch me?”
“Until we identify that stalker of yours. That is, of course, if he ever shows himself.”
“Maybe you scared him off.”
“Maybe.”
He stood up and held out his hand to me. I reluctantly took it, aware that he was right about what he’d said. There was no point bothering someone else for a ride when he was going that way anyway. And I could really use a nice, long, hot bath while I still had water.
His car was…I’d never sat in a car like this one before. The seats were leather and smelled like leather. Everything was bright and shiny, and there were more electric gadgets than I was pretty sure were required to operate a car. It was fascinating. I wanted to run my hands over everything then pinch myself to be sure I wasn’t having some sort of fantastic dream.
But I kept my hands to myself. The baby was wiggling deep in my belly, rubbing against my bladder like he wanted to play basketball with it or something. But then his foot pushed out against my upper belly, just above my belly button.
COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) Page 3
