Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 158191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 791(@200wpm)___ 633(@250wpm)___ 527(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 158191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 791(@200wpm)___ 633(@250wpm)___ 527(@300wpm)
Absinthe spotted first Josefa’s car and then Scarlet’s drive past. Lana slid in and they were trailing after the women, allowing several cars to get in between. Josefa’s car had distinctive yellow rings on her taillights. That made it easier to spot several car lengths behind. There was nothing distinctive about Scarlet’s car. She disappeared into the lights of the others on the road. Still, Lana kept her in sight, just in case she turned off somewhere else.
After a few miles, it was very clear they were heading to Scarlet’s home. Absinthe didn’t want to take a chance that she would spot the Porsche following them. “We’d better break off and find somewhere to settle down above them to watch the house. Do you want to go on home? I can handle it from here.”
Lana frowned and tapped her fingers on her thigh for a moment. “Absinthe. She’s doing exactly what she said she was doing. Why is it you’re still watching her?”
He pulled the car to the side of the road, made a U-turn and parked and cut the lights. “I’ve got that feeling I get when something’s not right, Lana. Instead of getting better, it’s gotten worse. Something’s going on with Scarlet, and I need to know what that is.”
“Another man?”
Absinthe frowned. He wanted to say no. He didn’t think Scarlet wanted anything to do with another man. She was genuinely interested in him. He could tell easily when a woman was attracted, and she was. More, she was honest about it when quite a few women wouldn’t be. She wasn’t coy, she was very up-front, although reluctant. Still, he had a feeling a man was tangled up in there somewhere, he just didn’t know how.
“Absinthe?”
“I don’t know. I’m feeling my way with her. Whatever this is, she wanted to go with me tonight. She really couldn’t. She wants to see me tomorrow and intends to. She said she was seeing an old friend and that friend was leaving the country. It was both the truth and a lie. I could hear both. She said there wasn’t another man, but I felt another man and it wasn’t a good feeling.”
“An ex? A stalker?” Lana guessed.
“She’s watchful. At the library, she’s always careful in front of windows and she definitely looks before she goes out the door, and yet tonight she deliberately put herself in front of the window. So what the hell does that mean?”
“Maybe she’s tired of running and is calling him out?”
Absinthe turned the car back toward Scarlet’s rental property. He’d discovered a little knoll up above it where he could park and they could watch the house. As always, Lana was prepared for spending the night in comfort. She had a ground blanket and night goggles.
“Don’t worry, I brought food, just in case you think you’re going starve come three in the morning.”
“I better not have to be here that long,” he objected. “I’m picking her up at eleven. I’ve texted Alena and asked for another picnic basket. I’ll have to get back there and return before eleven.”
“That’s silly,” Lana said, lying on her belly, fitting the goggles to her eyes. “Just get a room to sleep in tonight, have one of the boys bring you the food and pick your girl up in the morning. I worry about all of you without Alena and me to think for you when it comes to women. I’ve got eyes on the two of them, Josefa and Scarlet. They’re talking in her living room. She doesn’t have much furniture in there.”
“Great.” He rolled over and stared up at the stars. “I’m probably out of my mind because I’ve never had to deal with emotions like this before.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Lana said.
The sadness in her voice caught at his heart. Sometimes the sorrow in Lana was so overwhelming he couldn’t breathe. He kept his gaze fixed on the constellation right above his head and forced the air to move in and out of his lungs, thinking about Scarlet and that long fall of glossy red hair. It was the only way to keep from letting the demons consume him.
“Yeah, babe, it does,” he answered, striving to keep his voice light.
An hour later, the door opened and the two women opened the trunk of Josefa’s car, stuck a few items in it and then talked for a few more minutes, hugged and then Josefa drove off. Scarlet stood there a moment, hands on hips, watching her go, waved again and then turned back and shut the door. She turned off the light in the living room and turned on the light in what must have been her bedroom, and then the bathroom light went on. The bathroom windows began to steam up as she presumably ran a bath.
“There you have it, Absinthe, exactly what your girl told she was doing tonight,” Lana said. “Let’s go get you a room at a hotel.”