I swallowed the lump in my throat, but the rest of my body froze in place. My tongue swept out over my dry-as-dust lips before I spoke. “I can’t.”
Lincoln glanced up at the sign above the door and gave me a chin jerk before turning and walking away. My entire body relaxed, and I spun around to slide down the glass until my butt hit the floor.
“Whit, I gotta make a phone call. Can’t wait. Be back in ten. I’m locking you in,” Aunt Jackie yelled from the back before the door shut and the bolt slid.
Thank you, Jackie.
I dropped my head into my hands and thought about the mess I’d just avoided.
Lincoln. Riscoff.
What was I thinking?
Oh, that’s right. I wasn’t thinking with my brain. Nope, just my neglected girl parts that got way too caught up in the moment when a guy stood up for me in a bar. I raised my head and whacked it against the glass to stare at the ceiling.
Dammit. I’m going to have to rewash this spot.
I was debating with myself about finding the will to stand again when the jangle of keys interrupted my self-ridiculing thoughts about what happened last night.
My head swiveled toward the door. He was back. With keys.
You have got to be kidding me.Clearly, my favors with God had run out.
The door swung open and a gust of wind hit me at the same time I realized I had zero protection from Lincoln Riscoff. He was inside.
My mouth moved but no words came out.
“My family owns this building. Property manager lives above the store at the end of the block. I ran.”
My gaze locked on the hint of tanned throat and broad chest peeking out from his shirt collar, and my dumb ass couldn’t stop wondering why he wasn’t sweaty if he just ran. I was sweating like a pig and swearing like a trucker by the time I hit the main road this morning and flagged down Ginger Baskins on her way to church and told her my car broke down. Her side-eye was impressive and her disbelief apparent, but she gave me a ride home anyway—and told me I need Jesus.
I agree, Ginger. I agree.
Lincoln held out a hand to me. “We need to talk.”
I stared at his capable fingers and neatly clipped nails like I’d never seen a hand before in my life. Let alone never let that hand do things to me that no man had ever done before. Things I liked. Way too much.
It was also the hand of the enemy.
“You won’t even touch me now?”
I swallowed again and flicked my gaze up to his before looking back down at the floor I’d mopped an hour ago. “I’m dirty. You’re ...”
“A Riscoff. Which is why you ran this morning.” His deep voice carried just a hint of roughness, and all I could think of was the thing that voice had said to me last night.
Because I’m an idiot.
“I shouldn’t have left the bar with you.”
“But you did. And you didn’t have a single problem with it until you found out who I am. So, are you going to share with me what the hell made you run like you’d just discovered I had bodies hidden in the walls?”
My gaze darted up to his. “Do you?”
“What’s your name, Blue?”
That nickname. It slayed me. I wished he hadn’t said it, because now I wanted to tell him everything he wanted to know.
And ... maybe telling him was the quickest way to get him to leave me alone.