Rowdy (Marked Men #5)(39)

When I worked at the new shop for my shift on Wednesday it was a little awkward. Mostly because I wanted to bend her over the front desk and plow into her over and over again. She kept things professional but far more pleasant than they had been when we worked together up to this point. She asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with her, and while my idea of lunch would’ve been a quickie in the backseat of my SUV, I agreed to go with her anyway, and having burgers and fries turned out to be almost as enjoyable as the quickie would’ve been. I really did like hanging out with her. I always had.

The rest of the week was busy. I had a full schedule plus Rule and Nash had finally gotten me a set of sketches to work with for the apparel and I had handed them off to Salem to get to work. That meant any night I thought about calling her up she was working late and I didn’t want to pull her away from her project. It was a weird thing to be running around after a girl. I was used to them coming to me, and when one didn’t have the time I usually just found another one that did. I couldn’t do that with her. No one would be a substitute for all her bronze beauty and endless-night eyes. I wasn’t going to sell myself short on getting what I really wanted even if it meant my pants got a little too tight every time I looked at her.

I was back at the new shop on Friday and I would have been lying if I didn’t admit I was more than looking forward to spending a day ogling Salem’s backside while working. I had every intention of asking her if she wanted to do something with me when we got off of work as well. Of course by “do something,” I meant go to bed and not leave until the next morning but I would let her fill in the blanks.

I was on the corner at a stoplight, getting ready to cross the street to the shop in LoDo, when the classy blonde that had bailed on getting a tattoo a few weeks ago was suddenly hovering at my elbow. I nodded at her and gave her a friendly grin. She looked like she cost a million bucks and could give Shaw a run for her money in terms of having the bluest blood.

I figured I would say hello since she looked like she was trying to figure out something to say to me in order to break the awkward silence hovering between the two of us.

“Hello again.”

She blinked at me and I saw her gulp like she was extremely nervous. She looked like she was afraid I was going to mug her or something.

It happened. I wasn’t exactly petite and I did have a giant tattoo on the side of my neck and a couple scattered across my knuckles, so I knew that I could come across as intimidating. Especially to a single woman alone on the street with me. However, I had a weird feeling she was standing on this corner specifically for me.

“Hello.” Her voice actually had a quiver in it and her blue eyes were darting around as she looked everywhere but directly at me. She was really attractive in a high-class way and she looked familiar beyond the fact I remembered her from the shop. She shifted on shoes that looked like they probably cost more than I made in a month and fiddled with an earring that was undoubtedly a real diamond.

“Are these your stomping grounds or are you working your nerve back up to get some ink?” I was always fairly slick around a pretty lady and I wanted to set her at ease.

“I work around the corner. I’m a lawyer. I practice family law.”

She looked like a lawyer. “That sounds boring.” The idea of being trapped in an office or in court all day sounded like my own personal vision of hell.

She laughed a little and stopped fidgeting with her earring. “I do a lot of work with kids and children’s rights, so it’s okay. I’m Sayer by the way.”

She stuck out her hand and I shook it to be polite. She even had a highbrow name. “Rowdy.”

Something crossed her gaze and she gave me a smile that was shaded with a sadness that I didn’t understand. She was kind of an odd bird.

“That’s unusual.”

I shrugged. “I grew up in Texas. Everyone gets a nickname.”

She made another strange face and sort of sounded like she was choking. She lifted her hand to her throat and I thought for a second her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away.

I frowned at her and asked her if she was okay. She nodded at me and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I just . . .” She shook her head a little and clutched the strap of her purse. “Have you ever thought you knew someone—like knew everything about them—and then—poof—it turns out they were a total stranger all along?”

I had no idea why she was asking me that, or who she was, or what she was all about, but I felt kind of bad for her because she seemed a little lost and that was something I could entirely relate to. Not everyone got a pristine backstory.

“More than once.”

I had thought Poppy was the one and I had been wrong about her and who I thought she was. I had needed Salem, relied on her to be my calm in the storm, but she had left me adrift in the treacherous ocean of uncertainty, and now I didn’t know what to do with her and the way I wanted to cling to her in a dangerous way all over again. She wasn’t who I had thought she was either—then or now. Probably the most important person I had thought I knew inside and out was myself. It wasn’t until Poppy broke my heart, left me empty, that I had to really look at myself and figure out who I was going to be without her and without the love I had nurtured for years and years. It took striking out on my own, giving myself over to art and a new life in a new place, for me to figure out who Rowdy really was.