No Gentle Giant (A Small Town Romance)

I’m out of the Jeep in a second, jolting toward him, gripping his arms hard.

“Eli? What happened? Are you hurt? Where’s Haley?”

Warren and Haley Ford, Charming Inn’s owners, kindly agreed to watch him while I was away.

He shakes his head fiercely, staring up at me with his eyes wide and too bright, but it’s a few seconds before he speaks. “I—I’m fine, Dad, I was just—they let me come back here for a pop. I was going to run to Ms. Wilma’s house to get help and—”

“Help? What happened?” I realize my urgency is probably scaring the ever-living crap out of him when he already looks rattled.

Deep breath. If I can’t calm my own tits, then I can’t comfort my son.

“Okay,” I say, putting on my Dad Voice, making myself speak more slowly now that I know he’s not hurt. “Talk to me. Why did you need help?”

Eli follows my cue, gulping in deep breaths before his jaw firms.

“There was a guy at the cabin,” he says. “I was out walking, taking some photos in the woods after I grabbed that pop, and when I came back...this guy was digging around with the firewood. I got some pictures, though, but when he saw me with the camera he took off.” He bites his lip. “He had a big truck. It was really loud, Dad. It kept making this popping noise like the muffler was going bad or something.”

Fuck.

The wood pile.

The gold.

Were we followed after all?

I’m stuck wondering what Felicity’s tangled up with, so I’m not expecting it when Eli drags his digital camera out—he’s always too nervous about banging it up when he’s hiking—and starts flicking through the screen.

“See? That’s him,” he says shyly.

A familiar face pops up on his screen and my teeth pinch together.

Gavin goddamned Coakley.

I haven’t seen him since the mining days in Alaska. Figured he’d be pissed enough at me to stay there, too. Not so furious he’d follow me all the way here.

And apparently start spying on me—the only logical conclusion if he knew where to start digging for that tarp full of gold.

Sonofa.

I keep my inner swearing to myself in front of Eli while he watches me worriedly. “Do you know that guy, Dad?”

“Might,” I clip. I don’t want to get him too worried, so I ruffle his hair and force a smile. “Hey. Can you head on up to the big house and ask Haley and Warren and Ms. Wilma if they mind you eating dinner there tonight? I bet you can sneak Mozart a few scraps.”

All it takes is one mention of that cat and he lights up like nothing ever happened.

“Yeah!”

He’s practically skipping. I stand guard and watch as he dashes toward the big plantation-style house at the heart of the Charming Inn. He’s moving so fast, his shirt flies behind him.

I don’t rest easy till I see the back door open, Ms. Wilma greeting him warmly and ushering him inside.

For a second, she pauses, glancing in my direction.

It’s hard to tell if she’s looking directly at me at this distance with her old eyes, but it feels significant.

Or maybe that’s just the weight of this new discovery pressing down on me.

Once she goes back inside, I haul ass around the side of the cabin and drag away the top layer of logs. They’re hastily stacked, thrown back on.

Not the careful arrangement I made to ensure the entire blue tarp was invisible on first, second, or even third glance. The fold-over sack I left looks open, the top flap flipped up.

Fuck.

No jumping to conclusions, though.

I push wood away from the whole mess.

Count it all, glancing over my shoulder at every hint of headlights passing by on the highway.

And come up two short.

Mother. Fucker.

Gavin stole them.

It’s not the two bars I’m worried about, even if losing them to a thieving rat does make me blinding pissed.

If he does something reckless, if word about the gold gets out—I have a sneaking suspicion it could get Felicity into a whole world of trouble.

Poor Fliss. Guess she’s not the only one whose past is catching up with her and chewing through the wiring of her life.

I need to figure out where Gavin’s gone.

It’s my turn to catch up to him.

He doesn’t just owe me two bars of gold anymore.

He owes me some big fat chewy answers, and I want them now.

I’m still racking my brain for how I’ll find Gavin when that truck of his does the work for me.

I thought about asking around the diner, maybe the gas station, and see if anyone meeting his description stopped in to top up his belly or his tank.

Now, I don’t have to.

Before I even round the corner to the town’s only gas station, I hear that piece of shit.

The distinct gunfire-like bang and pop of a truck backfiring. The same kind of junkers he survived on back in Alaska—and it looks like some things never change.