with her, that he’d drive her into town. Because he wanted to. Contemplating how big of an idiot that would make him, he deliberately went to the back of the garage for a case of oil.
So she had to walk. Big deal. It was only a few miles, the sun was shining and it was still cool enough for a brisk, morning trek to be refreshing instead of sweat inducing. And she had a cell phone. She could always call one of her sisters or a friend to pick her up.
From the moment he’d realized who she was, he’d wanted to get rid of her. And now he had his wish so there was no reason to waste time wondering if he should’ve handled the situation, handled her, differently.
She was out of his hair, out of his personal business, at least until Friday. He’d just be grateful for small favors.
CHAPTER THREE
FIVE MINUTES LATER, Nora shifted her weight from her left foot to her right as she waited on the sidewalk in front of Pizza Junction. She’d grabbed her briefcase and laptop from the backseat of her car before stomping off Griffin’s property.
She couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d looked at her. As if she was an annoying mosquito barely worth the time and effort it would take to swat her away.
What an ass. Her lips tightened. A rude, blatantly antagonistic ass.
Maybe her sisters, her father and pretty much the entire town were right about him. He really was trouble. The kind she’d do best to avoid.
A familiar red Jeep pulled up and stopped in front of her. She opened the passenger side door and climbed in.
“Hey,” she said to her cousin Anthony. “Thanks for getting me.”
“No problem,” Anthony said with a smile that had his dimple winking. “Being without a car sucks.”
“True.” Especially when it was due to your own stubbornness and stupidity. She set her briefcase and laptop case on the floor, then rolled her window down a few inches. Spotting something sparkly in the cup holder, she picked it up. “I always imagined you as more of a dragonfly guy,” she said, holding up the butterfly barrette.
He glanced at it. “Funny.”
She patted his leg. “Don’t be embarrassed. Holding on to a keepsake from your girlfriend is sweet. As long as it’s not underwear. That’s just weird. And pervy.”
“It’s not a keepsake,” he said, his expression hard, his hands strangling the steering wheel.
She blinked at the vehemence in his tone. And then it hit her. Which girlfriend the barrette must’ve belonged to. Jessica.
Damn that girl.
Nora curled her fingers around the barrette, the edge biting into her palm. “Want me to see she gets it back?” she asked quietly.
He lifted a shoulder as his phone buzzed, which she took as an affirmation. He checked his text. “Hold on a sec,” he told her then responded to the message, his fingers flying over the keys.
He kept his head down, the sun turning his curly hair gold. He was handsome and charming, smart and funny and used to having the world by the tail. He was also honest to a fault and young enough to believe everyone else was, too. Until a slip of a girl lied to him.
Anthony, twenty-one and about to start his senior year at Boston University, had gone out with Chief Taylor’s niece Jessica a few times. Until he’d found out that the girl who’d claimed to be a student at Northeastern University was really only a high school junior. He’d been humiliated and furious at being tricked.
But Nora wasn’t sure what upset him most: that Jess had lied to him…
Or that he’d had to let her go.
Now Jessica—who’d moved to Mystic Point when her uncle been granted custody of her—would undoubtedly be around the Sullivans more thanks to Layne and Ross hooking up. They were in for some awkward family holiday celebrations this year.
Nora had warned Layne that her involvement with her boss would cause problems. People really should listen to her more.
“Sorry about that,” Anthony said, tossing his phone back into the console then pulling out onto the road. “What’s wrong with the Lexus?”
“I had a small fender bender,” she said, deciding not to tell him about Layne and Ross. Let Layne break the news to him herself. “I’m going to have to have a headlight—” or two “—replaced.”
Not quite a lie, just not the whole truth. And really, whoever said omission was the same as lying never went to law school.
The next time you feel the need to pound on your car you might want to think about slashing a tire instead. It would’ve been easier and you would’ve saved yourself a lot of grief and about a thousand bucks.
Yes, Griffin had made a valid point. One that had run through her head about a dozen or so times since she’d walked out of his parking lot. She’d been a bit…rash with the headlight-smashing episode.
But really, it had made a much bigger impact than if she’d let the air out of a tire.
“You want to hear something weird?” Anthony asked, sliding her a look, one hand on the steering wheel, the other tapping along to the classic rock song playing softly through the speakers.
She flipped the visor down and checked her hair. Smoothing back a loose strand, she turned this way and that, before snapping the visor shut, satisfied her unleashing hell on her car hadn’t done any serious damage. “Weird like it being eleven after the hour every time you check the microwave clock? Or alien gives birth to Elvis’s love child weird?”
Pulling to a stop at a red light, he faced her, his blue eyes serious and she was reminded that though she’d tried to deny it for years, he wasn’t a kid anymore.
“Weird like guess what I saw in the parking lot of Eddie’s Service station when we passed it? Your car,” he continued before she could answer. “Why would you have Griffin York, of all people, work on your car?”
She shrugged, but the movement came across as irritated instead of casual. “Why shouldn’t I take my car to his garage? From all accounts, he’s a good mechanic.”
Anthony stared at her as if she’d just admitted the story about Elvis’s alien baby was true and she was the mother.
The light changed and he pulled ahead. “What’s going on, Nora?”
“I told you, I had a bit of car trouble.” She snapped her lips together realizing she’d sounded defensive even to her own ears. “Look,” she said, using her mellowest tone, “this isn’t a big deal. And, really, it shouldn’t matter where I take my car to get fixed.”
“It shouldn’t,” he agreed, “but it does. Especially when you’re doing business with the son of the man suspected of Aunt Val’s murder.”
“Dale York is suspected, yes. But it’s not fair to hold Griffin accountable for his father’s sins. They’re not the same person, no matter that they share DNA. You, of all people,” she said gently, “should understand that sons aren’t clones of their fathers.”
He flushed. “This is different than him following his father’s career path.” Like Anthony had done with his own father. But he’d confided to Nora he wasn’t sure he wanted to go into law. “It’s not just who his father is, though that’s part of it,” Anthony admitted as he pulled into the private parking lot of Sullivan, Saunders and Mazza, the law firm where they both worked—she as an associate lawyer, he as an intern. “Griffin is not exactly a model citizen.”
“Speculation,” she said breezily, unbuckling her seat belt and reaching down for her things. “Rumors based on who his father is.”
“More like based on who he is and how he acts.” Anthony reached into the back for his laptop. “I heard he