LITMIR.BIZ

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you forgotten who you’re talking to here? We’ve been best friends since first grade. There’s no way someone like you is capable of letting something like this go.”

      Lauren opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again when Kimberly added, “Besides, I’m dying to know. Do you want me to call down there for you?”

      “No, I’ll do it,” she said, giving in to the inevitable. Kimberly was right. No way was she going to be able to ignore this. Especially because she had no guarantee that Harley wouldn’t be back on her doorstep tomorrow morning.

      “So, why were you and Harley getting together, anyway?” Kimberly asked. “Does he know about Audra?”

      “Yeah. I’m not sure how he heard, but he knows.”

      “Does he want a relationship with Brandon?”

      “I think so. He wants to see him, at any rate.”

      “What are you going to do?”

      “Keep Brandon as far away as possible. I may need you to take him for a few days. Can you do that?”

      “Sure. Anything. You know he likes it here.”

      Lauren bit her bottom lip and ran her hand over the smooth finish of the steering wheel, hating the thought of disrupting her nephew’s life. But she had to do something until her parents returned, until she at least heard from them, right? What if Harley got out of jail and kidnapped Brandon? They might never be able to find him again.

      That possibility terrified Lauren, and she massaged her temples in worry. “He loves your dog,” she said, hoping to bolster her confidence that she was doing the right thing.

      “My dog? What am I, chopped liver?” Kimberly demanded.

      Lauren laughed for the first time since she’d seen Harley coming toward the restaurant on that damned motorcycle. “No, of course not. I was just thinking aloud, about all the benefits of having him stay with you.”

      “He’ll be fine, Lauren. You know I’ll take good care of him.”

      “I know.”

      “Where are you now?”

      Lauren twisted in her seat to glance up at the Tokyo House sign that lit the entire front of the building. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and she loved the food at this place, but dinner was the last thing on her mind. “Downtown.”

      “When are you bringing Brandon over?”

      “I don’t know. It depends on how long Harley’s in jail, if he’s even going to jail. The fact that they cuffed him makes me think he might be there for a few days, but maybe they just took him in for questioning or something.”

      “Chief Wilson will be able to tell you.”

      “Right.”

      “And don’t worry. You can bring Brandon over no matter how late it is. My parents won’t mind.”

      “Thanks a lot.”

      “You bet. Lauren?”

      “Yeah?”

      “How does he look? Harley, I mean.”

      Lauren sighed and stared through the window at the spot where the police had hauled him away. “Better than ever,” she admitted.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE PAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS hadn’t been easy. Harley had been booked and jailed for the heinous crime of having an old, unpaid speeding ticket. He’d spent most of Saturday night in a concrete holding cell behind a very thick door, waiting for a judge to set his bail, which ended up at a thousand dollars because he was a resident of another state and considered a flight risk. Then Tank had picked him up and he’d spent much of the day trying to get his bike out of impound, which had involved more effort than he ever would have imagined and cost him another two hundred dollars.

      On top of everything else, his court date wasn’t for two weeks. Either he had to stay in town and wait for it, but that probably wouldn’t work because he didn’t dare leave his business in the hands of his manager for so long. Or he had to come back here, which would be expensive and time-consuming.

      “That’s not a good face,” Tank said, eyeing him above a hamburger the size of a football. He’d taken Lucy home an hour earlier so it was just the two of them.

      Harley glowered at him from the couch. Tank had offered him dinner, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to eat. He was tired and miserable, and still angry about the way his weekend had turned out. Most maddening of all was the fact that the speeding ticket that started the whole thing was over ten years old. Had Officer Denny not been so zealous, had he not called in for a more extensive search than the computer initially offered, the ticket probably wouldn’t have shown up, not after so many years. Harley couldn’t even remember getting pulled over at the end of his senior year. But back then he’d had bigger concerns. His mother had just kicked him out of the house because her new boyfriend didn’t like him. Audra had just told him about the baby. And Mr. Worthington was pressuring him to take two thousand dollars and leave town. Though he was too proud to keep it, he’d finally accepted the money and given it to his mother for the food and clothes she’d grudgingly provided over the years. Then he’d split without a clue as to where he was going or how he’d survive.

      Who would’ve worried about paying for a speeding ticket in the middle of all that?

      “You gonna be okay?” Tank asked.

      Harley shrugged. “I’ll live.”

      “It’s over now. Forget it.”

      If Lauren hadn’t been standing outside the restaurant when he’d been arrested, Harley thought he could forget it, or at least put the incident in some perspective. But every time he closed his eyes he saw the look of affirmation on her face when that greenhorn Denny cuffed him, and it made him long to hit something. He’d only been in town for the weekend, but already he was short on patience and long on grievances. One of them was Lauren’s superior attitude. He didn’t want his son raised by a woman who considered a broken nail a major catastrophe. He wanted Brandon to be part of the real world, to deal with real people and grow up to be a real man, not some petted, spoiled boy living in luxury without knowing a hard day’s work. Lauren had asked what Harley could give him. Well, he sure as hell knew enough about the real world to give him that.

      “Who’re you calling?” Tank asked, watching Harley punch the numbers on his cell phone with more force than necessary.

      “Lauren Worthington.”

      “Right now? Do you think that’s a good idea? I mean, last night didn’t go so well. Maybe you should give her a day or two to—”

      “To what?” Harley demanded. “Forget about it?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe. You said she saw the whole thing, and she comes from a pretty protected world. It probably freaked her out.”

      “So what? There are worse crimes than an unpaid speeding ticket. One of them is never getting to see your son. Besides, you’re talking about a girl who was first in her class. She’s not going to forget about anything.”

      “Maybe you will,” Tank said around a mouthful of burger.

      Harley’s stomach growled, making him regret skipping dinner, but he didn’t want to waste any time eating. He wanted to finally settle the score where Brandon was concerned—if Lauren would only answer her phone. “She’s just like her folks,” he said between rings. “Her mind’s made up about me and nothing I do is going to change it. If anything, last night only confirmed what she wanted to believe in the first place.”

      “Lauren’s a nice girl,” Tank said, defending her.

      Harley lifted a hand to indicate he needed a moment of silence. Lauren’s voice mail had finally picked up. He hesitated,

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