Seventeen
I flipped my keys back and forth around my finger as I paced outside the front of the Rusty Spoon. As usual, Jessica was late. Fucking hell.
My gut churned. Again, she hadn’t given me anything to go on. In fact, she’d deliberately left the entire meeting vague. I’d been so pissed off that she had intruded on what had been a perfect morning, I’d made her meet me at the diner. In hindsight, that probably wasn’t my finest moment.
Especially since Macy was right across the damn street and I hadn’t told her about seeing Jessica.
Hell, I should have told Macy right when I got the call. Instead, I’d run into the other room. Hiding it like some dirty secret.
And it wasn’t. I didn’t care about Jessica in the least, but I cared that she’d try to take Dani from me. That was the only thing I could focus on right now. I’d do whatever it took to change her mind about adjusting custody.
She’d left us high and dry for weeks after her little bombshell.
And now she thought she could snap her fingers and make me come to heel? Yeah, that wasn’t happening. My keys snapped together louder as I kicked a leaf out of my path.
Finally, a black Escalade pulled up. At least it wasn’t a freaking limo this time.
I shoved my hands into my Carhartt jacket p
ockets as she waited for the driver to walk around the SUV to open the door. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be her lackey again. Once upon a time, I’d done everything I could to please that woman.
Now all I could think about was what was the quickest and least traumatic way to get her out of my life again. I hated thinking that way about my child’s mother, but every time she came back into Dani’s life, things went very sideways.
Dani loved her mother—of course she did, and she should. However, Jessica looked at motherhood more like a weekend at a spa with a little girl to play dress up with. She didn’t do discipline. It was far easier for her to shower Dani with gifts than to find a way to be a true mother.
I wasn’t even sure Jessica knew what reality was any longer. She certainly didn’t fit the part of the up and coming actress I’d met all those years ago. That Jessica had been more down to Earth. More accessible and less plastic.
My eyebrows rose as she stepped onto the sidewalk with a little sneer at the gazebo swathed in orange and purple lights for Halloween. She handed the driver her bag then swiped her…was that a cape?
Jesus.
She swung some extra long part of it over her shoulder and it draped over her lush body as if she’d just stepped off the runway. Add in the slouchy hat that seemed improbably placed on her head and the yard of blond hair, and I didn’t recognize any part of this woman.
She took her bag back and flitted her fingers at the driver. The guy nodded at her and returned to the driver’s side, got in, then pulled away from the curb.
Well, shit. That didn’t bode well for a quick conversation.
I sighed and opened the door to the diner. “Nice of you to make it.”
“Don’t give me that snide tone, John.” She swept by me on a cloud of expensive perfume.
I sighed and followed her inside. She paused in the vestibule for a moment before stalking down between the row of tables to a booth in the back.
“Hey, Gideon.” Gina Ramos came through the swinging doors. “I didn’t know you were coming in today. Thought you only came in when we had the roast beef special.”
“Macy keeps me fed with trying out her new menu items for The Haunt’s opening.”
“I’m so excited to go this weekend. I was thrilled to get an invitation to the friends and family opening.”
“So, you’re going to be there?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” She flipped her raven dark curls over her shoulder. “I’m trying to figure out a way to get Jared to take me. He seems to think things are going to get out of hand.”
“Sheriff Brooks likes to pretend Macy’s horror restaurant is going to change the town into some crazy stop for freaks.”
Gina laughed. “Jared said the same thing when Tish came to town too. Talk about worst case scenario thinking. Sometimes he acts more like he’s fifty-five than thirty-five.”
“Why the town council loves him.”