Bad Cruz(89)

And me…I knew I had been set up.

There were no peanuts in that sundae.

I’d made sure of that.

Coulter’d made sure of that.

Mrs. Holland found an EpiPen in her daughter’s tote.

“I got it! I got it! Thank God,” she cried out in relief, running toward her daughter, who was still slithering on the floor, trying to breathe.

She jabbed the syringe into Gabriella’s outer thigh, with an extra flourish of dramatic flare for a parent who was stabbing their child.

“There’s an ambulance on the way.” Jerry rounded the counter, running toward Mrs. Holland. He crouched down on the floor to be eye-level with her, almost knocking me down on his way. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am, Mrs. Holland. I’m beside myself. This has never happened to us before. A terrible human error. Terrible. We all know Gabriella is allergic to peanuts.”

“She did it on purpose!” Mrs. Holland ignored him, pointing in my direction. “She’d do anything to win Dr. Costello. She couldn’t handle the fact he took a liking to my precious Gabriella! I want her to pay! She tried to kill my daughter.”

That was the last thing she said before the ambulance pulled up at the curb in front of the diner.

And right behind it, the cops.





Despite my dubious reputation, I’d never been arrested before.

This was a first for me, and I sure hoped it would be a last, too. Unless, of course, Mrs. Holland and her daughter managed to put me in the can for attempted murder.

Which, I’d been told by Officer Corrigan (who’d interned under my dad when he was a sheriff) was highly unlikely, considering Coulter—who’d actually made the sundae—was crying rivers when he had spoken to the cops at the scene and swore that not only had he made sure that there were no peanuts in the sundae, but he happened to check out my rear as I sauntered to table three to give them the ice cream, so he’d witnessed with his own eyes there was no foul play after he’d made the sundae.

I did not tamper with the dessert.

Who knew squats could save lives?

If I was coming out of this thing in one piece, I was going to sign up at the local gym and work my butt off. All puns intended.

Currently, I was detained in a cell by myself. There were perks to living in a one-traffic-light town. One of them was an obscenely low crime rate. Officer Corrigan told me I was allowed one phone call, preferably to someone who’d bail me out.

“I happen to know your mom and pops.” He pulled his belt up over his spilling belly, caught in its attempted escape from his stretched blue uniform. I was standing behind the bars, gulping down each of his words. This was decidedly not the time to be spacey. “I can help you make the call if you’d like. Or maybe you wanna call your sister? I can arrange for that, too.”

The crazy thing was, I didn’t want to call Mom, Dad, or Trinity.

I wanted to call Cruz.

I didn’t trust any of my family members not to make me feel horrible. I also knew they would absolutely believe whatever Gabriella and her mother had fed them.

Anger washed over me when I thought about how I’d been set up, and how even though I was innocent, my family wouldn’t believe me.

What had I done to earn that treatment from them?

“No.” I curled my fingers over the cold metal bars, my eyes meeting Officer Corrigan’s. “I want to call Cruz Costello.”

“The doctor?” His eyes bulged.

No, the Renaissance painter.

“Yes.”

“Do you know his number?”

My cheeks heated. “I don’t remember it by heart. Could I have the Yellow Pages?”

“Sure, honey. Whatever you need.”

Thirty minutes later, I was calling Cruz. He answered on the first ring, which told me that he already knew what was happening. Actually, I was sure everybody on planet Earth was aware of my situation.

“Tennessee.”

“Hi,” I replied calmly, desperate not to be a wuss on top of being a pushover. “Sorry I’m calling. I know we haven’t spoken in three days—”

“Your bail was set for five-thousand dollars. Your dad pulled some strings, plus that’s your first offense, and frankly, everybody knows it’s bullshit.”

I heard him moving around. His car door slamming shut. He was already on his way here to bail me out. My heart surged with unexpected pleasure and warmth.

“Oh. Okay. So my dad knows.”

“He knows.”

“He’s not here.”

“He said you should sit there for the night and think about what you’ve done.” Cruz delivered the sentence wryly. There was a brief silence as I digested this.

“So not everyone knows I’m innocent.”

“Suppose not.”

“And you?” I asked finally.

“I know you didn’t do it,” he said simply.

Thank you.

I mouthed the words, but didn’t say them.

I couldn’t say them.

I still couldn’t show weakness to the man who was so outrageously out of my league, no matter how much I wanted to. I choked on them. Tried to get them out. Failed.

“Have you spoken to Bear?”

“Yes. He’s with his father,” Cruz answered shortly.