He stops long enough to look at me strangely, like he’s waiting for my reaction.
“She’s seen going into your room, with a keycard, twice in the past few days.”
What the actual fuck?
How would a woman have a key to my room?
“How the hell did she get a key to my room?” I bellow.
“Well, my first instinct was you’d given it to her,” he replies, and my anger rises.
“I didn’t give anyone a key to my room.”
Isaac nods, and when I look at Layne, her attention is focused on Isaac.
“Continue please,” I bite out.
“The video shows she’s only in the room for a short time and leaves quickly. One of the times, the man is standing outside the room waiting for her.”
Layne gasps, before turning to me. “The night we had dinner here. There was a bunch of long blonde hair in your bathroom sink. I chalked it up to housekeeping.”
“She has blonde hair,” Isaac replies.
“Wait. The other night, I was doing push-ups and found a black bra half under my bed. I assumed it was from a past guest and housekeeping missed it so I threw it out,” I blurt out. “But why would she come in here and leave shit like that?”
“We have no idea. We’re still working on identifying these two people. One of the front desk people said the woman looks familiar and they think she is a guest here, but they couldn’t place her.” Isaac turns his attention to Layne. “Ms. Scott, we’d like for you to come down and view the video to see if you can identify the man as the same one that came to your room.”
She heads for the door.
“I’m coming too,” I grunt. When we step out into the hallway, I put my hand on the small of Layne’s back, instantly causing her to stiffen. When she looks back at me, I give her a small smile to reassure her, which causes her to relax into my hand.
We have things to talk about, obviously, but she’s not going to push me away. We’ll figure this out.
Isaac brings us to a room marked “Security” on the first floor. Once we’re seated, he turns his computer monitor toward us with a freeze frame of the side of a man’s face, and I instantly recognize him. I’d seen him in the elevator at least twice since I arrived last week.
“I’ve seen this guy in the hotel a couple times,” I tell Isaac. “He’s never said a word to me or even looked at me that I can remember.”
“That’s him.” I swing my attention to Layne, whose eyes are locked on the screen.
Isaac forwards the video and stops it when he gets to a fairly good picture of the woman.
“Sarina,” I bark, at the same time Layne growls out “Worthington.”
Layne’s eyes swing to mine, narrowing slightly. “How the hell do you know her?”
And we’re back to the accusation in her eyes.
“She’s my stalker next-door neighbor.”
“Sarina Worthington lives next door to you?” Layne asks, a perplexed look on her face.
“Yeah, she moved in last year and has basically been stalking me ever since. How do you know her?”
“She is Garrett’s partner’s ex-wife, and the bane of my existence.”
“Small world,” Isaac utters. “Well, now that I have a name for her, I can find her.” He types something into the computer before speaking again.
“Seems Mrs. Worthington checked in on Tuesday morning and is scheduled to check out this morning. Note says she had a gentleman visitor, no name listed.”
“Let’s go chat with her before she has a chance to check out,” I demand, jumping up and trying to look at the computer screen to see what her room number is.
“Sorry, Mr. Nash, but I’ll have to go myself. I can’t let you two involve yourself in the investigation. I will let you know what I find out though.”
“What are we going to do if she’s already left?” Layne utters.
“Well, Mr. Nash can choose to file a police report for her going into his room without permission, but unless she stole something, it’ll be hard to get the charges to stick. Him, on the other hand, if we find out who he is, we can file a report for him trying to force himself into your room after you told him to leave.”
“She’s stalking me. That’s a charge,” I snap.
“Stalking is hard to prove, although if this has been an ongoing problem with her, you should probably file the police report if for no other reason than to keep a history of the things she’s doing.”
“Please go see if she’s still here, Isaac. I need this to be over,” Layne pleads. Isaac nods and shows us to the door.
“I will keep you posted if I speak to her.”
I give Isaac my cell phone number with strict instructions to contact me the moment he has any further information, which he agrees to.
Layne stands, and I lace my fingers through hers as we exit the office. I can tell by her posture she’s unsure of how to handle all of this information.
“Please don’t ever keep something this important from me again, Layne. I know you said you didn’t want to distract me, and I understand why you’d feel that way, but this is huge. That man could’ve hurt you, or Gracie.”
She continues to the elevators in silence.
She’s quiet as we ride the elevator to our floor, but she doesn’t try to remove her hand from mine.
Once in her room, she excuses herself to the bathroom, and I take a seat on the couch, waiting for her to return.
After more than ten minutes, I make my way to the bathroom and knock gently.
“Layne,” I plead. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be out in a second,” she replies quietly, a catch in her voice.
Making my way back into the living room, the main door opens and in prances a very happy Gracie, followed by an equally happy Mandy and Conor.
“Look who I found,” Mandy clucks.
“Hey, man,” Conor comes over to me, concern on his face. “I’ve been texting you all morning and haven’t gotten any responses. How’s the shoulder?”
“I’m okay. Sore as H-E-double hockey sticks, but I’ll live,” I reply.
“You know I can spell, right?” Gracie sasses, eye roll to go with it, making us all laugh.
When Layne comes back into the room, her eyes are a tad red. I hold my arm out to my side so she knows I want her to come to me, which she does, tucking herself into my side.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should’ve.” Her eyes glisten with unshed tears, and I press my lips to her forehead.
“No more of that,” I tell her quietly. “We’ll figure this all out and then go home.”
Home.
I still need to explain to her how the job at the local high school came about. I had planned to tell her last night because I knew it would come out in the article this morning.
“Let’s go to Central Park and find something to do. We need to get out of here and have some fun before we go home. If the airport ever opens, that is.” Leave it to Conor to pull us out of our funk.
“That’s a great idea,” Mandy exclaims. “I’ve been cooped up in here or at the baseball stadium the whole time we’ve been here. Let’s go!”
Gracie started bouncing around the minute the word park left Conor’s lips.
Everyone but Layne and I scatter, getting things together to head to the park.
“Can we talk about the job later, when I get Gracie to bed?” she asks me as we make our way toward the door.
“I’ll explain everything later,” I tell her.
FOR THE NEXT six hours, our party of five roams the grounds of the park. We see the zoo, the Balto statue, and the carousel. I’ve never spent a long period of time with a child Gracie’s age, but I can say now, I understand why parents are so tired all the time. She’s so inquisitive and energetic, and although I loved every minute of reliving my childhood with her in that park, I’m exhausted and my shoulder is on fire.
I received a text from Isaac about an hour ago saying to call him
when I had a chance. I couldn’t break up the fun everyone was having, so I texted him back and told him I’d call him when we got back to the hotel.
Gracie is asleep within minutes of Stanley picking us up. Her head is resting on my good shoulder, and Layne’s hand is on my thigh on the other side. When I look her way, she’s trying to keep her eyes open but failing miserably. Eventually, she scoots away from me and lays her head down in my lap, asleep within minutes.
Conor clears his throat behind me and leans over so he can whisper in my ear.
“Looks like these two might have tamed Slam, huh?”
And all I can do is smile, because they sure as hell have tamed me.
I ASK CONOR TO order pizza from the same place I’d ordered from for dinner the other night and retreat back to my room to call Isaac.
“Security.”
“Hey, Isaac. It’s Bryant Nash,” I reply. “What have you got?”
“Well, Ms. Worthington is quite the little chatterbox,” he replies. “She admitted to everything. Apparently, the mystery man, who happens to be her brother, and she had this elaborate scheme. She followed you here to watch you play in the World Series and to hopefully get you into her bed. Her brother, who works at the stadium, got her tickets to the games. But then she saw you and Layne having dinner the first night she was here and went to her brother for help, again. She asked him to get his girlfriend, the housekeeper, to tell him what Layne’s room number was so he could scare her. Neither of them expected Layne to break his hand in the process.” He stops long enough to snicker a little before continuing. “When the scare didn’t work, she figured she could break you guys up by making it seem like you were cheating on Layne. Hence, the hair and bra left in your room and then the strategically timed visit to your room to make Layne think she was leaving your room.”
That psychotic bitch. She is going to pay for this.
“Isaac, did you record this conversation with her?”
“I sure did. Protocol.”
“I’m going to need a copy of that please.”
“Yes, sir. Also, please let Layne know Sarina’s brother, Jason, was arrested and the district attorney’s office has been notified for filing of formal charges.”
“Thank you so much for all your help, Isaac.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad it had a good outcome,” he gushes. “Please take my suggestion and file a report on what she did, maybe include a copy of the recording for the cops as well. I have a feeling you’re going to need a paper trail of this woman’s level of crazy.”
“Duly noted.”
When I walk back into Layne’s room, the girls are all stretched out on the couch and Conor is lying on the floor at Mandy’s feet. I have a feeling whatever is going on between those two will either be perfect or a hurricane.
I sit down on the arm of the couch beside Layne, and her hand reaches up for mine. When I look down at her, I cut my eyes toward my room.
I stand and she follows.
Shutting the door behind us, I pull her to me with my good arm and kiss her gently on the lips.
“I spoke to Isaac.” Her eyes widen and she takes a step back from me, grabbing my hand and leading me to the couch.
“Tell me.”
And I do. I explain it all to her. Everything from the fact that Sarina has been a nonstop pain in my ass since she moved in next door to me, to her throwing herself at Conor the night we saw her at dinner.
At the end of my story, she shakes her head and chuckles.
“I mean, I knew she was a little crazy. I apparently had no concept of the level of crazy though.”
“Total nutjob.”
She scoots over and then straddles my lap so she’s looking into my eyes.
“I really didn’t want to believe what I was seeing when it looked like she was leaving your room. All kinds of theories ran through my head, and honestly, I almost packed Gracie up and left. But something in my heart told me there had to be another explanation,” she explains.
“I’m glad you didn’t run,” I tell her, reaching up and pressing my lips to hers. Her hands find my hair and pull back on my head a tad, deepening the kiss before pulling back and pressing her forehead to mine.
“Me too,” she whispers.
She looks me in the eyes before speaking again. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“We’re going to figure out how to make this work, baby. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
She kisses me again, and if I was physically able to, I’d throw her over my shoulder and take her to my bed. But between the shoulder and Gracie being in the other room, this isn’t the time.
“Before we get carried away, why don’t you tell me about your coaching job?” she chuckles, grinding herself down on my lap one last time before climbing off, a smirk on her face.
This woman is going to be the death of me.
Layne
A WEEK AGO, when we returned from New York, Garrett was so excited to see Gracie, he asked if he could keep her for the rest of the week and weekend. How could I say no to that? He’d let me whisk her off to New York for the World Series without hesitation and endured the snow storm of the century here that caused us to come home several days late. The only good thing about the storm was that Gracie’s school was closed most of the week, so she didn’t actually miss much, and the Smoke brought home the World Series championship.
Plus, I needed to put in a ton of time at the bar. Candi did a great job while I was gone, but I needed to catch up on ordering and paperwork. I’ve put in fourteen-hour days the past few days, and it’s looking like tonight will be no different. I could really use a good solid eight hours of sleep.
I’m scrubbing down a high-top table when I hear the side entrance door open and shut. When I turn to find Bryant walking my way, my stomach flutters. I hope that feeling never goes away. I’m sort of becoming addicted to it.
He chats with my customers as he makes his way toward me, and I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s so gorgeous.
When he stops directly in front of me and smirks, I know what’s coming. Wrapping his arm around my waist, he pulls me to him, leaning down enough to press his lips to mine.
There are only a few customers left this evening, and all of them start snickering at the PDA happening.
I pinch his side, which only causes him to smile against my lips.
“What are you doing here, mister?” I ask him, pulling away from his lips and smacking his hard abs with the back of my hand.
“Can’t I come see my beautiful girlfriend? It’s been like a week since I’ve seen you.”
“You saw me two days ago. Stop being dramatic.”
“Felt like a week,” he grumbles.
“How’d your doctor’s appointment go?” I ask him, knowing he hates talking about his injury. I noticed as soon as he walked in that the sling is gone.
“He said I need to be easy with it, but I don’t need to wear the sling unless it starts bothering me again,” he mutters.
I’ve been chomping at the bit for him to get that sling off.
“That’s great news, babe,” I reply.
As I head back to the main bar, I notice as Bryant stops following me and is again talking to one of my customers. I watch as the man sets his half-full beer down, shakes Bryant’s hand, waves my way and walks out.
I watch in amusement as Bryant makes the rounds to each person, chatting with them, slipping them cash as he shakes their hand and then they walk out. One by one.
When the bar is empty, I’m finishing up wiping down the bar top as he saunters over to me, a smirk on his face.
“Looks like you’re pretty dead in here, baby. Why don’t you close early?”
“Me being dead in here doesn’t have anything to do with you bribing my customers to leave, does it?” I ask, trying to keep my face serious.
He presses his hand to his chest, feigning hurt. “Why, Layne Scott, are you suggesting I paid off your customers to leave s
o I could have you all to myself?”
My smile cracks. “Yes, Mr. Nash, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
He makes his way around the bar, heading straight for me. Backing me up until I can’t move anymore, he doesn’t stop his descent on me until he has his hands on my hips, pressing me against the cooler doors.
“Are you almost done? Because I think we need to get out of here as soon as possible,” he questions, sliding his hands up my sides.
“Everything else can wait,” I basically pant. “Let’s go.”
He laces his fingers through mine and pulls me toward the door. We lock everything up and head to the parking lot. He doesn’t let go of my hand as we bypass my car and head straight for his.
“Is Gracie still at Garrett’s?” he asks without breaking stride.
“Yes,” I croak.
When we get to his car, he opens the passenger door for me but stops me from getting in.
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
I only nod, because my stomach is lodged in my throat.
He lifts an eyebrow and smirks. Bastard knows how much he affects me.
He places a quick kiss to my lips before ushering me into his car.
Half an hour later, we pull in front of his townhouse, and my eyes roam the area. It’s a cute brick building with a small white porch with pillars holding up a second-story balcony, which I assume is off the master bedroom. Nothing like what I imagined. I take note of the For Sale sign in front of the townhouse next door. Apparently Sarina figured it was time to move on to her next victim.
Opening the car door for me, he takes my hand and leads me in.
The living room and kitchen are one big area, separated by a huge island, a bar on one side of it. The furniture is masculine. Brown leather couches match the rustic look of the exposed beams in the ceiling. A large fireplace covers one wall, a hearth made of stone from floor to ceiling.
The kitchen is rustic, with an iron pot rack hanging over the island and more exposed wood through. It fits him.
“Bryant, your home is beautiful,” I tell him honestly.
Slam: A Colorado Smoke Novel Page 24
