Wild Kisses (Wildwood 2)

She pressed her back to the wall and took a deep, steadying breath. She’d spent eight years in military life. She knew how to handle and shoot a variety of weapons—well. She knew self-defense—well.

She’d never panicked, virtually living alone for eight years, and she wouldn’t do it now.

Avery forced the panic to the background. She carried her bread to the counter and started pulling meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and more from the fridge. When she turned to put them on the butcher block, Trace’s truck flashed past the front door, dirt flying from beneath the tires.

Instead of the sight relieving her, Avery’s unease amped up. The idea of a confrontation between him and JT suddenly flooded her mind with every bad scenario.

She grabbed several water bottles from the fridge and rushed outside. She found Trace faced off with JT, hands on hips, shoulders back.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Trace demanded from JT in a voice Avery had never heard him use before. It was cold and harsh. Threatening. And it stopped Avery’s feet from moving forward. “I was very clear about the rules. You don’t push them out here like you did inside. That’s not the way this works. This is my turf. You follow my rules or you get off this job.”

JT held on to that affable disposition with a lazy shrug. “I don’t know what you mean. Jeez, why are you making a federal case out of this? A guy can’t come in early to show some initiative? I’m just trying to do a good job for you here.”

Trace took one giant step and grabbed JT by the shirtfront. The move was so fast, so menacing, Avery sucked a breath and held it. Her stomach went cold, and the hair on her arms prickled to attention.

“I know what you’re about,” Trace said, voice lowered but no less frightening. “So don’t try to sell me your shit. If you want this job, then you stay out of that café and away from Avery.”

Those damn seeds Austin had planted in Avery’s head tried to take root again. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears like a ticking time bomb, building urgency inside her like a pressure cooker. She didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know whether she should walk away and let them settle this however men settled things, or step in before a fight broke out. She thought she knew Trace, but she didn’t know this side of him, and she didn’t know what he’d do if she interfered.

“You’d better back the fuck off.” JT’s voice suddenly matched Trace’s, his facade gone. And when Avery refocused on the men’s faces, she saw a war was about to break out. “Because you don’t begin to know what I’m about. You might be the boss on this job, but that don’t mean you can—”

Avery started forward out of sheer fear. She shuffled her feet on the loose asphalt so they’d hear her coming. Trace released JT, but when Avery approached the look he turned on her was completely foreign. His features were dark and tight, his mouth thin and rigid. And that cold space in her belly deepened.

Unfortunately, that look wasn’t new to her. She’d seen it countless times on David’s face during their many arguments over the state of their marriage.

She offered the water to JT. “Here’s that water.” She turned to Trace. “Would you mind looking at the fridge? Things don’t seem to be as cold as they should.”

Before he could tell her no, she slipped her hand around his forearm and pulled him toward the café.

He walked fifty feet with her before he yanked from her grasp but kept pace beside her. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“Because confronting him like that probably isn’t the best idea.” All those that-only-happens-to-other-people crazy ideas filled her mind. “He could decide to take a crowbar to your head when you weren’t looking. Or push you off the roof. Hell, how do you know he doesn’t have a weapon? He’s an ex-con. No one knows what he might do.”

Trace’s feet ground to a stop. “I’m an ex-con.” In that instant, Avery realized how all the inferences she’d just made about JT also applied to Trace.

She shook her head. “That’s not—”

He put a hand out in a stop gesture, but he didn’t look mean and dangerous anymore. He just looked frustrated and, yeah, hurt.

Regret swamped her. “Trace—”

“You just deal with your work, okay? I’ll deal with mine.”

With that, he turned and walked back toward JT.

Avery felt like shit all day. Not only did her guilt and shame grow over the hours following the incident with JT, but Trace’s I’ve-had-it-with-you dismissal had cut Avery deep.

She sat on a stool at the café’s bar, scrolling through menu examples online, with residual hurt throbbing in her gut like a physical wound.

She’d finished all her daily baking, painted until her arms felt like they’d fall off, sorted through employment applications for waitstaff and kitchen staff, and was now trying to find a few menus she liked to run past Delaney for her opinion.

/> Trace hadn’t come in for lunch like he usually did. In fact, he hadn’t come in at all. He and JT stayed outside from 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., when Trace opened the door to poke his head in and tell her, “The rest of the shingles are in. I’m taking JT to Santa Rosa to pick them up instead of waiting for them to be delivered. We won’t be back for a few hours.”

He hadn’t waited for her response before closing the door and walking away.

Avery exhaled and dropped her chin in her hand. Disappointment tugged at her chest. They were either hot or cold now. All that fun, comfortable middle ground they’d shared before the sex had vanished. Now she felt like she’d lost a friend, a lover, and something more. Something indescribable and intangible. Something she hadn’t realized filled her heart until it was gone.

Avery chose three different menu finalists and e-mailed them to Delaney.