Page 20 of Here & There

“Oh, no, that’s fine. I?—”

“It’s nonnegotiable, Miss Jones.”

I bite my lip, acting like I’m considering only because I get the feeling he won’t take no for an answer. Finally, I nod. “Okay, but only out of the increase in profits.”

He grunts, which I take for an “okay.”

When we reach the door, Mac goes to turn the deadbolt, but I freeze, putting my hand on his arm one more time. “Mac?” I say softly so we can’t be heard on the other side of the door.

He meets my eyes.

I hesitate. “Thank you. And…call me Shelby, okay?”

“Shelby?”

“It’s my middle name. I don’t want to respond to Bryony—not the way my parents have always said it. I love the name Shelby.” I tried to use it as a kid. Mom refused even to say it.

“Shelby,” I say. “That’s the new me.”

He looks at me for so long, those eyes fixed on me in the shadowy dimness of the bar, that I wonder if he’s changed his mind about everything. I wouldn’t blame him.

Finally he nods. “Shelby,” he says in a low voice, almost a whisper, and I swear sparks fly across my skin. It’s like he touched me with that voice.

Then he opens the door.

Chapter 5

Mac

“Bryony,” Shelby’s mom says, throwing her arms around Shelby. She’s pretty, with a silver chin-length bob and a perfectly tailored pink dress suit. Those are the parts I was expecting. The look on her face when she pulls back isn’t. It’s like she just found a young child who’d gone missing.

Fred frowns at me, obviously thinking the same thing. “We all right, miss?” she asks Shelby, propping her hands on her ample hips. She looks at me like she’ll be happy to be rid of these two.

“Yes,” Shelby’s father says with a little wave at our chief of police. He’s tall, slim, and silver haired like his wife, with piercing blue eyes and the kind of expression that makes it clear he’s used to being listened to.

His dismissive attitude raises my hackles. Nobody disrespects Fred. She may look more like a grade-school teacher with her silver-streaked black braids and glasses perched at the end of her nose, but she’s tough as shit. And she’s our chief.

“Maybe let your daughter speak for herself,” I growl.

His daughter, for her part, looks completely bewildered at her mom’s attention. But she backs away from her mom and says, “How did you…”

“The staff said you ran off. You left your purse; your shoes were on the dock. They tried to call you?—”

Shelby sucks in a breath, patting herself, then seeming to remember she’s not in her own clothes anymore. She groans. “Shit, my phone was in my pocket.”

“When they couldn’t reach you, they called Richard and?—”

“Where’s Richard?” Shelby asks.

The boyfriend.

“He had to go,” Shelby’s mom says.

Shelby looks stunned, but she recovers quickly, pressing her shoulders back and her chin up. “I see.”

I hate the guy already for existing. Why, I couldn’t tell you. But him not being here when his girlfriend clearly needs him most? Fucking asshole.

“We’ve got it from here, officer,” Shelby’s dad says.

---