And he’s gone, heading for the exit with long strides.
Penelope
My car has a flat.
“Damn you,” I mutter up at the gods who’ve seen fit to not only punish me with a shift where my dad came in, but now have left me stuck in a parking lot with a busted streetlight. Plus, Sugar’s is already locked down and dark, the manager long gone.
I’m screwed.
I sigh and lean against the car, pulling out my phone and staring at it. Possibilities fly at me. Charisma mentioned how tired she was…and she did take care of Vampire Bill tonight. There’s always my dad. I mean, that’s what a normal father-daughter relationship would be like, right? I consider Connor, but I just turned him down for dinner. There’s Ryker, but…
No. I can do this. I pop the trunk and lug out the small spare.
“You all right?” comes a slow drawl from behind me.
My heart drops at the voice. I mutter a curse as I flip around and squint into the darkness. Using my phone, I turn on the flashlight mode and shine it into the person’s face. “Who’s there?”
It’s a man. He puts a hand up to shield himself from the brightness, squinting at the glare. “Whoa there. No need to put a spotlight on me. It’s Archer.”
“Oh, hey.” I lower the light, keeping it on his chest, not quite at ease with him. My heart is still pounding as I run my eyes over him, taking in the vivid tattoos up his arms, most of them skulls and roses intertwined.
Doesn’t make him a bad person, I remind myself. I adore tattoos but have never had the balls to get one.
“You’ve got a flat. You need some help?”
“Uh, no. I’ve got it. Thank you.” I’m tense as I survey the parking lot, wondering where his car is. My eyes lands on a lone Range Rover, parked several spots away. I nod my head at it, playing it cool when inside I’m shaking. “That yours?”
He nods and sticks his hands in his pockets as he comes closer. “C’est tout, that’s it. Parked it and went to a bar with friends after Sugar’s.”
His accent is thicker tonight, and I know why when the scent of whiskey wafts from him to me.
My danger radar climbs to high alert.
I take a step backward, and he holds his hands up in a placating manner, probably reading my face. “Cher, now, now, I’m just a good ol’ boy. Don’t fret.”
Fear trickles through me, and I suck in air, feeling lightheaded. I don’t like being alone with a drunk guy in a dark parking lot.
He sends me an oily grin and takes a step closer.
I hold my hands up, my voice high and thin. “Don’t come any closer, please.”
He gives me a haughty glare. “You think I’m going to eat you up like a cocodril?”
I lick my lips. He means crocodile or alligator—I think.
The imagery in my head encourages the hair on my arms to rise. I’m picturing him knocking me over the head, stuffing me in the back of his vehicle, taking me out to the swamp, and murdering me. I still have my phone in my hand, and I clench it tight, cursing myself for not calling someone right away. My hand that isn’t holding the phone shifts my keys and pushes them between my fingers in case I have to use them as a weapon. I lick my lips. “I already called someone.”
“You did?” He takes another step closer.
“Ryker’s coming to help me.” I don’t know why I say his name, but the change in Archer’s face is instantaneous.
His expression hardens. “I thought you was with Connor.”
“I can call who I want,” I snap.
He takes another step until we’re close enough that I can count the eyelashes around his eyes. His breath is sharp and pungent as he peers down at me. “You’re a pretty thing. I like how you talk back,” he says, his gaze on my mouth.
Terror jumps inside me, adrenaline fueling me as I shove at his chest. He stumbles back but hardly loses his balance. “I said stay back.”
He looks pissed at first but then switches gears and laughs. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he glances down the empty street. “You sure you called him? If you was mine, I’d be here by now.”
Look him straight in the eye. I nod. “He’s probably worried right now that I haven’t called him back because he told me to call him once I checked my trunk for a spare, and I already did that.” I hold up my phone and wave it at him to show him I have it out and could have called him. “He worries about me and we’re friends—good friends.”
Archer’s lips curl up, a smile without teeth, yet I feel the sharpness of it. His head lowers, his eyes at half-mast. “Ah, he’s not your friend and you shouldn’t trust him. You know why?”
“Why?” I don’t like the know-it-all sneer on his face, and my hands tighten.
He thinks about his answer and points a finger at me, waving it all over the place. “See, cher, I’m itching to tell you, but if I do, it won’t be fair.”
My nerves are stretched too thin to piece together his drunken words. He walks forward and puts heavily muscled forearms on either side of my car, caging me in.
Shit. My hand clutches my keys. Just stab him in the eyeball. Do it.
But my arms feel like lead. I’m too scared to move.
His words are slurred. “You don’t need him. I’ll show you a real man.”
A loud voice from behind him startles us both. “Dude! Archer? What’s going on?”
Sweet baby Jesus. I’m saved. Relief washes over me and I crane my neck to see who it is.
Archer pushes off from my car and whips around.
Blaze is in his truck, idling by the road. He pulls to the side, turns the ignition off, and gets out then run-walks over to us. I recall tutoring him last year and how after each of our sessions in the library, he’d insist on walking me to my car.
“You okay?” Blaze asks me as I lean against my car, palms flat on the cool metal. My legs are noodles.
“I am now.” I put my hand to my chest. “Just need my heart to slow down.”
“Was he bothering you?” Blaze sends a narrowed, angry glance over at Archer, who’s taken a few steps away from me.
“He’s drunk,” I tell him. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along.”
“I didn’t do nothing but ask her if she wanted some help,” Archer calls out belligerently.
Blaze looks back at me, grimacing. “Did he touch you?”
“She shoved me,” Archer shouts, but we both ignore him.
I shake my head. “He was leaning over me…” I shake my head. “He said stuff about Ryker I didn’t get.”
Blaze lets out a string of curse words and sends a menacing look at Archer. “You’re an asshole, Archer. Why did you scare her?”
His jaw juts out. “I was just kidding.”
Blaze’s gaze comes back to me. “Do you want me to call the cops?”
I consider it, but in reality nothing happened. Yes, he showed up in the dark and said some odd things and came close to assaulting me…but he never technically laid a hand on me. My jaw clenches. Plus, he’s a football player. I knew exactly what would happen if I called the cops. Nothing. He’s too important of a player. Magnolia lives and breathes Waylon football.
“I didn’t do anything!” Archer says.
“Just get him out of here,” I say.
Archer kicks at a pebble on the concrete as he makes his way to his Range Rover. “Everyone believes the worst about me. Bunch of assholes.” He pushes his hand out at us, as if he’s done with us. “Fuck y’all.”
He gets in his car, cranks it up, and peels out of the parking lot. As soon as he’s gone, I let out a sigh of relief.
I send up a prayer that he doesn’t hurt himself or anyone else.
“I told him I called Ryker, but I didn’t,” I tell Blaze as we watch Archer’s taillights disappear.
“He would have helped you.” He rubs his brow, looking at me contemplatively as if he’s not sure what to say. He frowns, seeming to be mulling something over.
“What?”
Blaze looks at me. “I don’t think we should tell Ryker about Archer being here. It will only make things worse with them.”
I frown. “There’s tension between them?”
“They have a history.” He looks as if he might say more—as if he knows something I don’t—but then he settles for walking over to my tire and studying it. His gaze is rueful when our eyes meet. “I guess you need some help with this?”
Penelope
The Duke of Waylon enters my dressing room at the church, and I flip around to face him.
My eyes take in the thickness of his thighs in his beige breeches, the white linen shirt that’s wet from the storm that rages outside. He stands with his feet apart. “You’re not marrying him.”
“Go to hell,” I say.
He pops off his shirt with a swift movement and I gasp. He’s built like a Greek god, rippling with power, an alpha male to the core. Droplets of water run in small rivulets across his muscles, tracing over his pecs and soft curls, dancing across his abdomen then disappearing inside his tight pants.
He cocks an eyebrow. “You’re looking at me like you want me, Lady Penelope.”
“The sentiment seems to be returned, my lord.” I flick my eyes to the bulging tent in his crotch.