SWNOVELS Chance: Chapter 4
Chance satin his truck in the parking lot behind the Salty Dawg, waiting for Rory to walk out. He gripped the wheel in both hands, clenching and unclenching his fists on it.
She’d been threatened. Two men had driven onto her property, offered her money for the land, and made a mess of her driveway when she said no.
To be fair, she’d had a gun, but that was still no excuse.
Chance thought back to the moment when Emma had told everyone at the table what’d happened. It’d taken everything he had not to get up and go over to the bar and ask Rory what the fuck she was thinking. Not only had she confronted two men alone, she hadn’t even bothered to ask for help when they’d left her place in disarray.
He hadn’t gone to the bar because he’d known how that would go. Rory would light him up then and there in the middle of the Dawg with half of Sutton’s Creek as witnesses. The crowd would get a charge out of it, no doubt, but Chance didn’t want to give her any excuse not to listen to what he had to say.
She could yell at him when it was just the two of them. And when she finished yelling, he’d go right back to the topic until she fucking got it in her thick head that she wasn’t an Amazon warrior queen. He’d installed cameras for her, shown her how to use them, as well as a basic alarm system on the house. He’d have done more, but she’d insisted on paying for everything herself.
He’d thought to lowball her and install what he wanted anyway, but he’d had to get that idea right out of his head when she’d said she wanted an itemized bill that contained everything he installed, including serial numbers and warranty information, plus a to-the-minute accounting of any labor.
He hadn’t known how to fake that, especially since Rory had a business degree from the University of Alabama and knew her balance sheets backwards and forwards. If she got a suspect invoice, she’d know it.
He’d thought he could talk her into upgrading after she’d used the system for a week or two. He’d expected to be there with her, protecting her, so he hadn’t worried too much about it.
Then she told him to get lost.
Chance glanced around the parking lot. There weren’t too many cars left at almost eleven at night. The Dawg closed at ten on weeknights, one a.m. Friday and Saturday, and they were closed on Sunday. Since this was a Thursday, he expected her any minute now.
The glow of a cigarette caught his attention behind Colleen Wright’s store. A moment later she came toward his truck. He had the window down and an arm resting on the sill. It was May in Alabama, still comfortably cool in the evenings, but growing hotter every day.
“The spirits want you to know something,” Colleen said as she walked beneath the soft light of a streetlamp. Her crystal necklace caught the light, sparkling.
“Evening, Miz Wright. How you doing?”
Colleen flicked the cigarette to the ground and stepped on it. “Just peachy, dear. How about you?”
Chance shrugged. “Well enough.”
“Exactly.” She folded her arms over her chest, her caftan flowing around her in the evening breeze. “You need to watch that girl closely. She’s in bigger trouble than she realizes. If she isn’t careful, she’ll lose everything.”
Chance didn’t like the way the hairs on his neck prickled. He didn’t truly think Colleen knew anything supernatural, but it felt a little uncanny that she’d focused on Rory when she was his entire reason for being out here tonight.
Then again, Colleen could be taking a stab in the dark. He hadn’t said who he was waiting for.
“Which girl?” Chance ventured. For all she knew, he was meeting Amber or Nikki once they were done closing up for the night.
Colleen scoffed. “Child, please. Aurora, of course. She’s the one you can’t stop thinking about.”
A prickle of annoyance stabbed to life inside him as well as a healthy dose of surprise.
“What makes you think I can’t stop thinking about her? I spend a lot of time not thinking about her at all.”
Colleen had already pulled a fresh cigarette from somewhere and proceeded to light it. “I know things because the spirits tell me. They’ve told me you have a healthy obsession with Aurora Harper, and that you aren’t wrong to worry about her. That’s all I know, and why I walked over here.”
She took a drag of the cigarette. Chance shook his head, more to himself than to her.
“If they tell you anything specific, like why she needs watching or who the threat is coming from, I’d be much obliged, ma’am.”
“It doesn’t work that way, but you can be sure if I get a message like that, I’ll let you know about it.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. Now can you please tell me when you boys are going to help me record my alien sightings? I asked Blaze, but he keeps telling me he doesn’t have time. What about you? Can you be there in the morning at two a.m.? That’s when the aliens are most active. Reba will be there, too.”
Chance blinked. He vaguely recalled that Reba was Colleen’s friend from Huntsville. “Can’t Reba film the aliens?”
“No. She has to chant.”
Chance cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, I see. Don’t think I can make it this time, Miz Wright. Gotta be to work early, and I need my beauty sleep.”
She scoffed. “You’re already pretty enough, but I understand. Next time I’ll give you more notice.”
The last thing he needed was for her to think he was ever going to stand in a cotton field at two in the morning to record aliens. “I think you need a smart phone, ma’am. If you had one, you wouldn’t need us at all. The cameras on phones are pretty amazing these days. You could set it on a tripod and get everything yourself.”
“Young man, I have a flip phone because it’s easy to make calls. I don’t have to hunt for an app or touch a screen. I have buttons and I can use those. Besides, if your average smart phone was good enough to capture the aliens, don’t you think someone would have done it by now? What I need is specialized equipment, and you boys have that out there at your range.”
Chance didn’t know what to say to that. “Yes, ma’am, guess you’re right. If it was that easy, somebody else would have captured it by now.”
Somebody else would also need to be as kooky as Colleen to believe aliens were frequenting the night sky over Alabama fields on a regular basis. So far, seemed like the only other true believer was Reba.
“Glad you see my point. I’ll let you know the next time we’re going out. Now you keep an eye on Rory and don’t let her do anything stupid.”
Chance wanted to ask if Colleen knew Rory at all with a comment like that. You didn’t let Rory do anything. She was strong-willed and fiercely independent. Best you could do was give her reasons why she shouldn’t do a thing. If the reasons were good enough, she’d listen. Maybe.
Colleen strolled into the darkness, the cherry red glow of her cigarette bobbing in the air as she walked. Cigarette smoke wafted to him on the breeze and he waved it away, frowning at a memory of his mother sitting at the kitchen table, lighting a cigarette when he’d never seen her smoke before. She’d been shaking that day as she’d pulled the cylinder from the crisp pack of menthols and lit it up like she’d been smoking every day of her life.
He didn’t remember a lot about that day, because he’d been thirteen and more concerned with going to the community pool with his friends, but he knew that it wasn’t even twenty-four hours later that his life had changed forever.
The back door of the Dawg opened and Amber came out. Chance drew his arm into the truck so she wouldn’t see him sitting there. She stopped and pulled something from her purse. A vape pen. He could see it when she tapped her phone and the screen lit her face.
Nikki came out next and Amber walked with her toward a beat-up old Chevy S-10. They got inside and Chance exhaled. Amber had found a ride home after all. Actually, she’d probably never needed one. She’d just been trying to get in his pants.
He sighed. If he hadn’t met Rory, hadn’t been aware of her from the first moment he’d lain eyes on her in the Dawg back in January, he’d have probably been a willing participant in Amber’s scheme.
Fucking Rory. How was it out of all the pretty women he’d met since moving to Alabama, she was the one he couldn’t quite get out of his head?
Nikki and Amber drove away with the windows down, singing Mötley Crüe as they drove past his truck.
When the door opened again about fifteen minutes later, Rory walked out. He wanted to get out of the truck and storm over to her, ask her what the hell she was doing walking into a dark parking lot alone, but Amber had done the same thing and he’d barely blinked.
Sutton’s Creek was small and welcoming, but that didn’t mean bad things couldn’t happen. Fucking Kyle Hollis, aka Simon Marsh, had walked into her living room and attacked her before she’d understood what was happening. She almost hadn’t survived.
Rory walked over to her truck, a 1970 Ford F-250 that’d belonged to her grandpa. The damn thing didn’t have modern safety features like airbags or disc brakes, but Rory flew down the back roads like it did. Chance knew because he’d ridden with her once. The windows had been down, her hair whipping in the breeze, and she’d laughed like it was the best thing ever.
Hell, he’d laughed too. At the time, maybe it had been the best thing ever. The day’d been sunny, the temps were warming, he’d been deep inside her only an hour before, and life was fucking great.
Chance thought about following Rory home and confronting her there, but he didn’t want to scare her by turning into the driveway behind her. If it was daylight, she’d know the truck was his. If he called to tell her he was following, she’d argue with him on the phone, then speed up her driveway and go inside to lock the doors before he could step a foot onto her porch.
Or, hell, maybe she’d threaten him with Liza Jane.
He pushed his door open and stepped out. “Rory,” he called.
She turned in his direction. Then she straightened her shoulders as if preparing for battle. “What do you want, Chance?”
He strolled toward her, hands in pockets. Feigning a coolness he didn’t feel.
“To talk to you.”
She tossed her head, blond hair shimmering in the streetlight. “About what? And why didn’t you come up to the bar if you wanted to talk?”
He went up to her and stopped a couple feet away. He was close enough to smell that damned vanilla and peach shampoo she used. Made his balls tighten with memories.
“Didn’t seem like the time. Emma told us about the construction company.”
Rory made a noise. “Big mouth bestie.” She cocked a hip and put a hand on it. “Look, it’s fine. A man came out to the house and wanted to buy it. I said no. He and his driver left in a hurry and kicked up some rocks. I’ll have to pick them out of the flowerbeds and rake the grooves back into place, but that’s really the end of it.”
“So you were just gonna threaten two strangers with a shotgun and clean up the mess they left and not tell anyone about it?”
She popped her arms over her chest and glared. “I told Emma Grace, didn’t I? And I told my brother because the land is his too.”
“Oh yeah? What did Theo say?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but Theo doesn’t want to sell either.”
“Uh-huh. That’s it?”
Because he’d learned to have a lot of respect for Theo Harper after the way he’d tried to protect his sister from Hollis. The man wasn’t a warrior but he’d taken a lot of abuse trying to save her. Even when he’d gotten out of the hospital, he’d been protective of her. Theo had looked Chance in the eye and promised an ass whooping to beat all ass whoopings if he hurt Rory in any way. Not that Theo was any match for him, but hadn’t stopped the man from threatening anyway.
“He might have suggested that Liza Jane was a bit too strong of a statement.” Rory sniffed in disdain. “I don’t agree, however.”
“Jesus, Rory. You could have gotten hurt, you know.”
“How? It’s my land and I was defending it. They were trespassing.”
“You could have called your friends. You could have called me.”
“That’s sweet of you, Chancey Pants, but a girl’s got to know how to take care of herself these days. Kyle Hollis taught me that. I’d rather go in with both barrels loaded and ready than get caught unaware ever again.”
Chance raked a hand through his hair and swore. “You need to expand the alarm system. Add higher resolution cameras, a bigger hard drive to record activity. I can do that for you.”
“I’d love to but I don’t exactly have the budget for that right now. Maybe later.”
“Rory, for fuck’s sake. I’ll get the equipment at cost. Labor is free. Pay me back when you have the money. This is what I do.”
She took a step toward him, her eyes glittering in the light. Or flashing, perhaps. “Installing alarms is what you do? I thought you shot guns and taught others how to shoot them. Oh, and self-defense. You do that too, plus you put on tactical gear and rescue people from bad guys. Now you’re an alarm company as well?”
Chance gritted his teeth. “I’m a security specialist. I protect people and I show them how to protect themselves. This is not news to you. As far as rescuing people, you already know how we found you and why we were there. If we hadn’t tracked you and Emma, you’d both be dead. So I’m really fucking glad we knew how to do that, okay?”
He was breathing a little harder than the situation warranted, but fucking hell she annoyed the crap out of him sometimes.
“I’m glad too,” she said, her voice smaller than before. “And I’m sorry for fighting with you, but I’ve been on my own for so many years that I know I have to rely on myself. Theo would drop everything for me, but I don’t want him to. I want him to have a life of his own. Which means I have to do it myself, okay?”
“All I’m talking about is expanding your system, Rory. I’ll keep it reasonable. I’ll give you all the costs upfront. Except labor. Non-negotiable. And I want you to call me if those assholes return. I know you’re a badass who can protect your own house, but it’s literally my job. Let me be your back up the next time.”
He thought she was about to refuse, but she huffed. “Okay, fine. I’ll call you if it happens again. Which I don’t expect it will. I was clear with Ronnie Davis that I’m not selling. He’ll probably try again by upping his offer, but he’ll call or drop by the Dawg. He knows he can’t intimidate me at home anymore.”
Chance thought she was probably wrong about that. Maybe Davis wasn’t the type, but there were others and they were sure to come calling as property in and around Sutton’s Creek became more desirable.
Still, he wasn’t starting that argument with her. Let her believe what she wanted so long as she called him when she needed to.
“I’ll follow you home,” he said.
“What? No, you don’t need to do that. I’m fine.”
Yet her voice shook the tiniest bit. He wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t been paying attention. Or if they’d been talking at the bar while she’d been working. He wouldn’t have heard it with all the noise.
“I know you are. But humor me. Let me make sure you get inside the house safely. I’ll check out the grooves in the driveway, see how bad it is. And I’ll figure out where to put a couple more cameras while I’m there.”
“It’s the Harper Farm, Chance. Not Fort Knox. I got the alert when they turned into the driveway. That’s why I was ready for them.” She dragged her phone from her back pocket and swiped. “You can look at the feed now if it makes you feel better. Nobody’s been there. I don’t have alerts set when I’m at work because I’d get one every time a deer walked across the driveway, but I check them out—”
“What is it?” he asked, everything in him going still when she didn’t finish the sentence.
“There was a car an hour ago. It went to the house.”
“Let me see.”
She handed him the phone and he replayed the video. A dark sedan crept up her driveway toward the house. He couldn’t read the license plate. Yet another reason for better cameras. He opened the feed for the camera he’d put on the porch. The car halted and a person got out. Looked like a man, tall and lean. He was dressed in black and he had a black mask over his face.
A balaclava.
Chance barely suppressed the growl crawling up his throat. The man went to the left, beneath the trees, and disappeared. Chance fast forwarded through the feed until the man was back, getting into the car again. He backed up and turned, then crept down the driveway again.
Rage, cold and dark, roared to life inside Chance. No way in hell was he letting Rory go home alone tonight.
“I’m following you home, Rory. You aren’t stepping foot out of your truck until I’ve checked everything.”
“Okay,” she said, her arms wrapped around her middle. He hated that she was scared, but he was glad she wasn’t arguing.
He figured that was about to change with what he said next, but he was saying it anyway. And then he was fucking doing it whether she liked it or not.
“Once I’ve made sure it’s safe, we’re going inside. And I’m staying the night.”