Tristan strutted through the café style doors with several boxes of beer. “You planning on answering that or just looking at it?”
“It’s too early for you to be a smart-ass.”
“Damn.” He glanced at the clock. “I guess you’re right. It’s not quite nine yet. According to you, snark and attitude are only welcome between ten and two.”
“I love that cocksure mannerism of yours first thing in the morning.”
The phone lit up again. Ansley grunted. “She won’t give up.”
Tristan tilted his head at her phone. “Who are you avoiding?”
“It’s Mom. She’s calling to pump for information.”
“About?” Tristan arched a brow.
The phone stopped ringing and Ansley propped the phone up on the napkin holder and stared at the facing, waiting for it to hum with an incoming call again. Sidetracked for a moment as she tried to keep the device from tilting over, she said, “Vicky promised Patience she would leave her alone until she figures out what she wants to do about her fella situation. Unfortunately, she can’t keep that promise. Patrick, Josh, and Aspen are throwing a fit because their daughter is no longer right under their noses.”
Tristan snickered. “I bet Vicky is paying for that one in ways you can only dream about.”
Ansley narrowed her gaze. “Hey now. Don’t start with me, Mr. Man. Besides, if you think I fantasize about dark dungeons and hard fucks, you’re only half-right.”
“I love it when you talk dirty first thing on Monday morning.” He moistened his lips. “What’d you say we throw a ‘closed until further notice’ sign on the front door and make out like teenagers?”
“Ooh, tell me more.”
“Call your mom back,” Tristan said, leaning over long enough to give her a peck on the lips. “See what’s up. Then, if you’re good, I’ll post that notice and drag you upstairs for a few hours.”
“Mmm…I like the sound of that.” Ansley’s phone buzzed again. She held it up and flashed the caller ID his way. “She’s a persistent little thing, huh?”
“Now I see where you get it.”
Ansley moistened her lips and stared at that large bulge between his legs. “My persistence doesn’t have anything to do with heredity.” She thought of their morning in bed and squeezed her legs together. “It has to do with inspiration. Around you, I’m always highly motivated.”
“Good to know,” he said, pointing at her cell. “Get that before she starts calling me.”
She rolled her eyes and hit the speaker option. “Good morning, Mother.”
“I?
?ve been trying to reach you. Where have you been? Are you all right?”
“Daddy Kane?” Alarmed to hear her father’s voice on her mom’s phone, Ansley swung her body upright. “Is everything all right? Why are you calling from Mom’s phone?”
“We’ve been over this. As long as I pay the phone bills around here, I can use any damn phone I choose and so happens, your mother’s cell was the first one I spotted this morning, but never mind that. I’m calling to let you know Peyton and I are needed in Tennessee. We’re leaving for Erwin right away.”
He made it sound like he was driving to the other side of the world. In fact, Erwin was located right over the mountain, about an hour’s drive from Fletcher, North Carolina.
“Something wrong?”
“You might say that. Your cousins have a problem they can’t handle on their own. Brianna’s in some kind of trouble.”
“Imagine that.” Ansley sipped her coffee. “What’d she do this time? Rob a bank, hit some old man over the head for his monthly prescription of pain pills, or—”
“Ansley, she’s been beaten.”
She gulped. “What do you mean, she’s been beaten? Was she in a relationship or was she a random victim in a break-in, was she mugged at a poker game, what?”
“We don’t know the details. From what we were told, she’s lucky to be alive, but we’ll know more when we get there.”