No Perfect Hero(57)

Eddy? Oh, for fuck’s sake.

I'm not sure what's worse – the phone call from a frightened little girl where I built up all these abduction scenarios in my head, which always ended with me breaking a dozen laws to get back here in record time to save Hay.

Or the fact that she’s just having breakfast with her shit-heel of an ex.

Even as my fear eases, it raises my anger.

What the hell?

She’d made it clear she was done with him. Didn’t want to see him again, and I’m already damn skeptical of anyone who’d abuse his position to stalk a woman after she’d justifiably dumped him for cheating.

I shouldn’t stick my nose in. It’s not my damned business.

But when Tara looks up at me with a plaintive pout, begging, “You’ll make him go away, won’t you?”

She doesn’t have to ask twice.

I’m about to step in a minefield and get my leg blown off for it, but goddamn, I’m going to go check up on Hay.

“Sure, munchkin,” I say. “Go put some proper clothes on, and I’ll take you for breakfast, and we’ll check and make sure that stupid buttface Eddy isn’t upsetting your aunt.”

She’s dressed in a jiffy and bundled into my truck. I’m quiet, arguing with myself mentally that I don’t have the right to be possessive. Too bad.

And good thing Tara talks enough for both of us.

She tells me how Eddy came cruising up this morning and kept banging on the door until Hay opened it. She says he talked. A lot. Too damn much.

Haley couldn’t even say anything until she finally said she’d listen to him, but not here.

So she told Tara to lock the door and not open up for anyone but Wilma, but Tara hadn’t liked being alone. She just wanted the gross man to go away, and I was the best person to call for that.

“Who gave you my number?” I ask her.

I don’t even remember giving it to Haley.

Tara beams.

“Grandma Wilma,” she answers. “She stopped by to check on me. Said you’d wanna know about this Eddy stuff.”

Of course.

Of frigging course Grandma’s meddling, playing matchmaker, pushing all my Neanderthal mating buttons in the worst way.

Fuck.

Mission accomplished. I've got a manic urge to throw Hay over my shoulder and drag her back to my cave, after I bust in Eddy Fuckface's nose.

Like I need Grandma of all people encouraging me.

I shouldn’t be thinking these things in the first place. But we're past thinking and I've got to act.





*



Haley’s Mustang is in the diner's parking lot.

As we pull up, I can see her through the window, seated across from a man. The little idiot has ordered, poking at a plate of hearty diner food in front of him.

Haley hasn’t got anything except a coffee. She’s curled in tight on herself, closed and tucked in, as if she can hold herself in this defensive ball that won’t let anything vulnerable out. Not where he can reach it.

Who could blame her? He looks like a smarmy-ass salesman, all superficial charm. Not all my instant dislike is because of how he treated Haley. There’s just something too slick about him, from his swept-back sandy-brown hair to smiles that don’t quite reach his beady eyes, even as he offers her one so ingratiating, so fake, I want to punch his teeth out.

Down, boy, I snarl to myself.

Thankfully, the conversation doesn’t look like it’s going well. He’s talking a lot, probably too much, while her mouth is pinched shut. She shakes her head again and again.

I've seen enough.

As Tara and I step inside, I catch her low, urgent words, cutting Eddy off.

“No,” she says firmly. “No, Eddy. You messed us up and you have to live with that now. I don’t.”

“But baby—” oh, hell, do I want to slap that baby right out of his damned mouth, “—everyone fucks up. Everybody has a lapse in judgment. Cold feet happen, and I just...I just needed to work it out of my system. I went a little crazy. I’m over it now, and I miss you. Miss you so damn much.”

Haley’s lips tremble, her eyes shining so bright it’s like she could call down lightning with her drilling stare. “What you’re saying under all that is, you were so scared to be with me that you tripped and your dick landed in my best friend.”

“What? No, I...I just want you home. C'mon, babe. We had a good thing. Let me bring you back, away from this bumpkin town where half the people look like they can't tie their own shoelaces.”

I'm not sure who wrinkles up faster at his shitty dig at the town – me or Hay.

“See, the thing is, I don’t think it was cold feet,” Hay interjects. She hasn’t even noticed us, locked on her target, eviscerating him one word at a time. “I don’t even think it was me. It’s you, Eddy. This is who you really are, and I can’t believe I wasted years and money and effort and love on you.”

“Haley...”

“No.” Her voice is thick, her eyes glimmering wet. “You need to leave now. Don’t ever contact me again. I’m changing banks. And if I see you anywhere near me, no matter where I go, I’m calling the cops.”

Her voice breaks on the last word, and that’s when Tara pulls away from me and launches herself across the diner, tunneling into the booth seat with Haley and gluing to her side in a tight hug.