The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game 3)

It didn’t matter how good the tea tasted, what magic potion was in that jar, nothing was going remove the ache of this encounter except finding the evidence he needed to shut this place down and beginning the process of reuniting every soul inside Abundance who’d been sold down a river of lies, with the unvarnished, often ugly, but real, truth.

Chapter Fourteen

Rory’s challenge was finding a way to get upstairs to Orrin’s home, find that signal jammer and turn it off. She had plenty of time to contemplate how. A whole new week to stand in her corner of the kitchen, watching the shifts change and the meals come together and fidgeting foot to foot, craving the fleetest eye contact.

The fun of games night had dissolved into an agony of uncertainty. How to pull off the break-in? How to unpack her feelings about Zeke?

The former was part of her skill set. The latter was radioactive.

Every time she opened that box in her brain reserved for thoughts of him it bombarded her with gorgeous memories, lulling her body into a warm stupor. Fuzzy and cute ones of childhood involving blanket forts and squeezing into cupboards and under beds for hide and seek, playing dress-up and blowing out candles on homemade birthday cakes. Adolescent ones where they interspersed grudge matches and ignoring each other with adventures and experiments. He was the first boy to make her cry. Make her swear vengeance. The only boy to build her a tree house and teach her about football.

He was her first kiss, at fifteen, dry-lipped—him, and eyes screwed closed—her. Not because she’d wanted to kiss him but because he dared her to. You wanted to kiss him.

Over the years, he’d dared her to do increasingly outrageous things from shave off her hair to shoplifting. He’d taught her to drive before it was legal for either of them, she’d taught him to play guitar, blow smoke rings and palm cards.

There’d never been a second kiss. There was hair pulling and elbow jabbing and agreeing vehemently that their parents were the worst. She did his math homework. He did her Spanish. It was Zeke who put her back together after her first great heartbreak. It was Zeke who taught her self-defense moves and made sure she knew how to use them.

She picked his prom date. The next year, he picked her prom dress. That might’ve been a disaster except he went out with her pick, Sienna Diaz, all summer and had stayed in touch with her all these years since, and she still had the fairy-tale dress—her first fabulous halter.

He was the first boy to make her feel beautiful.

It was Zeke who stood aside, took second place, when she fell in love with Cal.

It didn’t change their friendship. There was still adventure-having and bruise-making pinches, random experiments and daredevil exploits.

There was still love.

And it wasn’t like it was a surprise to acknowledge that. The shock was knowing there was almost a second kiss under stars and showers of sugar crystals. And knowing how much she’d needed it this time, eyes wide open, body surging, lips wet from wanting.

She couldn’t close her eyes and not see that moment, her body held snug against Zeke’s, her feet almost off the ground, their faces close, their breathing stalled. His lips had parted and she’d wrapped her arms around his neck, her heart strumming madly in her chest.

But he’d backed off. Tripping on poker wins and sugar but not lost to where they were and everything they had to achieve here. She had to find a way not to be lost too. She had to find that signal jammer, and as an insurance against Zeke not making it to the drop site, get hold of a phone.

Her opportunity came with a crash.

A fumble-fingered food carrier, assigned to deliver Orrin’s evening meal, dropped a hot plate of schnitzel and cut his hand on the shards. No one stopped her from stepping forward, from handing him a towel and making up a second plate of food for the delivery basket.

“I’ll take this for you,” she said, and didn’t wait for permission. She was out the door carrying the meal, a thermos of coffee and a serving of lemon cake before anyone could stop her.

There was a key tied on a string attached to the handle of the basket. It opened a door revealing a set of stairs with another door at the top. Before she’d stomped to the top of the stairs, that door opened and there was Orrin.

She held up the basket. “I brought your dinner.”

He frowned. He wore blue jeans and a chambray shirt, not buttoned all the way up. “Where’s Brady?”

“Had a little accident. I volunteered.”

He beckoned her. “I see.”

She clomped up the remaining stairs. Orrin had a five o’clock shadow and was barefoot. And neither of those things looked bad on him. Why couldn’t he at least have ugly feet? “It’s chicken schnitzel and roast vegetables with gravy tonight. It smells great.” Level with him, she could see almost nothing of the room behind him: a bookcase, the night sky through a window.

He put his hand on the handle of the basket. “Thank you for helping out, Rosie.”

She didn’t let go. “You live here.”

He raised a brow. “This is indeed the doorway to my lair.”

She laughed. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”