Run, Rose, Run(33)

Ruthanna scoffed. “I’ve been wearing heels since I was twelve years old. I don’t trip.” But she put the poker back where it belonged.

AnnieLee couldn’t help smiling at their fond bickering. “Thank you, Maya,” she said. “You know what else I could really use? Coffee. I hear you make it pretty strong.”

“So strong it’ll beat you in arm wrestling,” Maya said. “You sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

A moment later she returned with a steaming mug of ink-black coffee, which she set on a marble-topped end table. “How about some breakfast, too?”

AnnieLee’s stomach twisted at the mention of food. She was starving. She only hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much to chew. “That sounds great,” she said.

“Why don’t you sit, Maya?” Ruthanna said. “Help her with whatever the hell these things are.” She held up a box that said CRYOMAGIC INSTACOLD. “What happened to using a good old bag of frozen peas?”

Maya took the box as Ruthanna clicked into the kitchen on her five-inch heels. “Ruthanna likes to do everything the old-fashioned way, in case you hadn’t noticed,” she said. She broke open one of the cold packs, shook it, and then handed it to AnnieLee, who tucked it against her hip.

“Better already,” AnnieLee said, and she meant it. She swallowed four Advil, and then she reached out and took the coffee, cradling the hot mug between her palms.

She felt cared for—a feeling so unfamiliar that it brought the sting of tears to her eyes.

She’d barely begun to build up her life. What if it all came crashing down?





Chapter

31



I’ve got to be at work in an hour,” Ethan said as Ruthanna ushered him into the kitchen on an unseasonably muggy afternoon. “So please don’t tell me you called me here to get another possum out of the pool house.”

Ruthanna gave a delicate snort. “I have a job that’s better suited to your talents than possum wrangling,” she said. “As I recall, that poor creature was no more scared of you than you were of it.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“Then we will just have to agree to disagree,” Ruthanna said. “In any case, I think you won’t mind this assignment.” She gave him a sly look. “In fact, I think you might like it a lot. Now sit down and shut your trap.”

He did as he was told, of course. It still gave her a tiny thrill to order around someone twice her size.

“I want you to look after that dark-haired little firecracker you found,” she said.

Ethan reached into the fruit bowl for an orange. “What for?” he asked, tossing it up and catching it, again and again. “She’s got you looking after her.”

Ruthanna paused. She knew AnnieLee wouldn’t want her telling Ethan what had happened, but there was no way around it. “She got mugged the other night.”

Ethan dropped the orange, and it rolled under the table. “When? Where?”

Ruthanna told him all that she knew while Ethan listened with a dark expression on his face.

“I don’t want anything else bad happening to her,” Ruthanna finished. “And I know you don’t, either.” She nudged him with her elbow. “You’re the protective type, I can see it from a thousand miles away. You love taking off your jacket on a chilly night so you can give it to your girl.”

“I don’t have a girl,” Ethan said.

“Once upon a time you did.”

“You know how that ended, Ruthanna.”

She resisted the urge to put her hand over his. “And there’s been nobody since?” She found it hard to imagine he’d been alone so long. But then again, so had she. She wouldn’t have imagined that, either.

Ethan said, “Nobody.”

“You can’t stay solitary and wounded forever,” she said gently.

“Says who?”

Ruthanna opened a cabinet and pulled out two cut crystal glasses. “You know what? You’re about as ornery as AnnieLee Keyes is.”

“And as you are,” Ethan pointed out.

“Yes,” Ruthanna said, pouring them each a nice, smoky Scotch. “We’re a regular ol’ bunch of barnyard mules, I guess. Ice?”

“I have to go to work, remember?”

“It’ll make your job easier. You’ll feel ever so much more kindly toward those bridesmaids belting out ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun.’”

He caved, as she’d known he would. “Sure, ice.”

She looked pointedly at his biceps as she set the drink in front of him. “I bet you’ve got a mean right hook.”

“I could hold my own in a fight, supposing I got into one.” He gave the Scotch an appreciative sniff. “What makes you think AnnieLee needs protection? I mean, she had an unlucky walk home, but…”

“I don’t know,” Ruthanna said. “Maybe I’m crazy. I’m just not sure that mugging was random.”

“Well, you are crazy,” Ethan said. “But that might not have any bearing on the matter at hand.”

“Very funny, cowboy. I could be wrong, and I hope I am. But does it even matter? A girl doesn’t have to be in mortal danger to be worth protecting, does she?” She pulled out her phone and clicked on a video Maya had shown her. Someone had taken it during one of AnnieLee’s performances at the Cat’s Paw and posted it online. “Here,” she said, giving Ethan the phone.