But Drunk Dude’s jump is less than graceful, and his landing is even worse when he stumbles to get his feet back under himself. He doesn’t even get close to making it, his boots slickly fighting for purchase on the dirt floor. He runs in place at an awkward angle like the Roadrunner for a second and then sprawls out on the ground.

As soon as he’s down, he’s scrambling away from me on his hands and feet like a crab, pushing a chair out of the way. “Leave me alone, Morticia.”

One of his buddies grabs Drunk Dude under the arms to help him off the floor and drag him further from me like I’m some great threat, but never fear, he sure keeps mouthing incoherently.

“You came over here, interrupted my dinner, and acted like I’m a middle school cootie dare, but I’m the bad guy?” I ask, acid and venom dripping from every word, even though I know the answer already.

All conversation stops, and eyes land on me from all over the room. They’re watching me as though I’m going to shoot Force lightning from my fingertips on demand.

I sigh, still surprised somehow, even though I know better. I wipe my mouth with a paper towel and then wad it up to drop it to the tabletop. “Thank you, Mr. Hale. This was . . . nice,” I hedge. It was, right up until it all went to shit with fly cookies on top. “I’ll be sure to do the paperwork for you tonight. You should hear from the county clerk tomorrow.”

His mouth opens to say something, probably to argue with me because he thinks he should, but I hold up a staying hand. I’ve reached my limit for the night. A woman can only stand being a pariah so much. I walk to the bar quickly, gritting my teeth as people literally back away from me like I’m contagious with the worst possible disease they can imagine, and lay a fifty-dollar bill on the wooden top.

“Sorry, Bubba,” I quietly apologize. Even the money doesn’t entice him to come closer as his butt tries to eat its way through the wall of liquor behind the bar to get further away from me.

With my head held high, I walk out of the beer barn. I force myself to wait for the door to close fully and then I run for my car, not the crashed county vehicle which is of course FUBAR for now. No, I’m driving my personal car, a safe sedan.

I’m pulling out of the grassy field and crossing through the pipe fencing, eyes on the dark fields around me so I don’t see Blake come out after me.

I also don’t hear him shout my name into the black of the night.

At least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Chapter 7

Blake

She said it was nice.

Nice?

Zoey thought it was nice that people ran for the door at the sight of her, got spooked enough to think she was threatening them just by breathing the same oxygen, and the bartender tried to run her off.

And she still over tipped him!

Okay, so maybe she played into that a little with the Madame Cleo voice and the jump-scare, but I don’t blame her. Nobody, not even a jury of her peers, could blame her for fighting fire with fire.

Hell, I only experienced one little moment of how they treat Zoey and it was all I could do to not stand up in the middle of that bar, tell them all how ridiculous they were being, and take every last one of them on mano y mano.

I mean, so what if she’s a coroner? She’s not the Grim Reaper.

I bit my tongue so hard it nearly split into two, acting like that was all perfectly normal. Acceptable even. I didn’t say a single word as I got up and walked out of that barn a few moments after Zoey, only giving Bubba my most disappointed scowl. I had to resist the urge to snatch that fifty off the bar on my way out the door. He sure as fuck didn’t deserve it.

I didn’t need to hear their excuses and justifications when nothing could make up for that. And I didn’t need to get my ass kicked in a bar in the middle of nowhere because something tells me Zoey would blame herself for that too.

And now?

Absolute radio silence for three long days.

My phone hasn’t rung, my texts are barren, and though I received an email about the accident, it was from the county clerk, not Zoey. With the accident stuff handled and Zoey making no effort to contact me, that should be the end of it.

But I can’t get her out of my mind. The cute quirk of her lip, only on the left side, when she says something she thinks is a little bit weird and wrong, the way she blurted out trivia facts was sexy as fuck, and how even when she had a whole room full of people judging her, she stood her ground, back straight and head held high. I’m truly impressed by her mettle. And disappointed as hell that she hasn’t contacted me.

None of this, of course, is helping me right this moment as I run through the park.

“Go, go, go . . . sprint for the finish!” my best friend, Trey, instructs me. He’s yelling into the wind, which is the only reason I hear him because he’s leaving me in the dust.

Trey’s always been a better runner, but I reach deep, looking for a little more juice, a little more oomph. Normally, it works, but this time I’m tapped out, drier than the Sahara. In three strides, all I can see is his back, his legs working smoothly to add distance between us. He crosses our imaginary finish line of the tree at the corner and throws his arms high in victory.

“And the crowd goes wild! Trey, you slay! Trey, you slay!” he cheers for himself in rhymes and some Valley Girl accent he doesn’t usually possess. “Trey, will you be my bay-bay!”