I had a feeling I should ask him about what was ‘going bad’ that he was talking about.
“Iris,” I said softly, pulling on her hand to get her to step out from behind me. “Go inside for a bit.”
Iris, sensing something brewing, walked away without another word.
The trust that took made my heart constrict happily in my chest.
Only when she was inside, with the lights on, did I turn back to Teller.
He was watching the windows of the guesthouse with anger in his eyes.
“What is it?” I asked carefully.
“Bad shit happening at work,” he answered, his eyes going to the gate that he double-checked to make sure had latched. “Just… be best if she not stay here for a while.”
I tilted my head to look at him. “What kind of shit?”
“The kind of shit that follows me home,” he answered. “The kind of shit that has me bringing a gun to throw the trash out in my own backyard.”
With that, he departed, and I was left wondering if my contacts would be able to get me more information on what ‘shit’ followed him home. And whether or not I should be staying here.
One thing I knew for sure, Iris wouldn’t ever be staying here alone again.
I pulled out my phone and made a phone call. “Easton,” I said the moment he answered. “You still have any contacts with Gun Barrel Police Department?”
Gun Barrel PD was where Teller Kincaid was police chief.
If anyone could find me any information, it would be Easton, the ex-FBI agent gone rogue.
“Yes,” he answered. “Why?”
I explained the situation. “I just have a bad feeling.”
“If you have a bad feeling, then you need to get her out,” he said without hesitation.
“I will,” I hesitated. “But I’m going to have to have solid proof as to why she has to move in with me.”
“I’ll get it to you,” he answered. “It’ll take me two days or so, though. I’m out of town, remember?”
He wasn’t out of town. He was stalking someone.
Someone that he wanted me to not ask many questions about.
“Whatever,” I grumbled. “Just get it to me as soon as you can.”
I went back inside after hanging up, finding the front room empty.
When I followed the sound of hushed voices it was to see Iris sitting on her bed, talking to a black cat that sat on her nightstand staring at her.
“Cat got a name?” I wondered.
She snorted. “Cat. No, really it’s Polka, Polka Cat.”
God, I adored her.
“Very fitting,” I found myself saying. “You okay?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s the most normal encounter that Teller and I have had since I broke it off with him. Yes, I’m okay. More than okay.”
I studied her face, making sure that she was really okay, and then nodded once. “When you left, I had a talk with him.”
Her eyes widened comically.
“You did?” she asked.
I nodded. “I didn’t like the way that he was treating you. More so, I didn’t like that I didn’t like it. So I fixed it… but only for selfish purposes.”
She snorted. “There’s something wrong with him. He’s not the same man that I started dating last year.”
Not wanting to talk about, or even think about, her being with someone else, I started to look around her living space.
“This is nice,” I found myself saying. “I wouldn’t have expected such a nice place.”
She chose to let the topic drop, knowing when not to push, and looked around at her place as well.
“Teller fixed it up for his mother, who died shortly after he finished it. Everything is handicap friendly, and the shower is to die for,” she admitted, lifting a hand to point at the window behind me. “Would you mind grabbing those curtains?”
I turned to see which ones she was talking about, then walked toward the window.
When I got there, I glimpsed movement outside, and closed the curtains quicker than they were probably made to be closed.
Dude, the man still wanted her.
There was no doubt about that.
Even worse, he was willing to wait in the shadows and watch, torturing himself, rather than go inside.
Yeah, dude still wanted her indeed.
Feeling a little more mean than I probably should be, I cracked the curtains open again, just far enough that you could see inside, then grinned as I turned and said, “How much do you want to let your ex know that you’ve moved on?”
Iris tilted her head somewhat curiously. “What do you mean?”
Then she stripped her shirt off.
Before I could tell her what I wanted to do to let Teller know that she’d moved on, my attention was immediately diverted.
“I have a doctor that is a family friend in the hometown I grew up in,” she mused as she started to tie her hair back behind her head, her eyes dark and sultry, remaining solely fixed on me. “I’m going to go to his clinic, get tested, and then get on birth control.”