How About No
Page 30

She pinched my ass as we walked out of the front door but stopped to talk to the lady manning the counter. She was new, and I’d never met her before.
“We’ll be back, Tammy.”
We were halfway through lunch when I got my first hit on the name that Landry had given me.
Unfortunately, since my phone was still charging in Landry’s office, I didn’t realize that I had something until I was already halfway home because a second call came through.
What I learned from that phone call had been very, very disturbing.
Chapter 14
Why are iPhone chargers not called ‘Apple Juice?’
-Landry’s secret thoughts
Landry
I glared at the man who was currently sitting his ass in my car as I was on the verge of leaving for work.
“Wade, get out!” I growled in frustration.
“I’m going with you,” he replied stubbornly. “There’s no argument here. I still own half the daycare, so there’s no reason in hell that I can’t be there with you. And I get bored. Seriously, please take pity on me.”
Then he rolled his lip over and gave me those sad, pouty-faced eyes, and I melted.
“Fine,” I growled. “But you have to do the same thing there that you would have to do at home. No walking around. No heavy lifting. No nothing. You sit in the chair and be good.”
Wade rolled his eyes but nonetheless agreed with a sigh.
“You promise?” I pushed.
He held up three fingers and said, “Scout’s Honor.”
We were halfway to the daycare—at five-thirty-five in the morning to allow me to open by six—when I took a detour for a bag of donut holes.
“You want something?” I asked, getting out of the car before he could say a word.
He opened the door and got out, too, and I frowned.
“Wade, what the hell is going on?” I asked. “I’ve done this a million times before. I don’t need you to—”
He cut me off with a kiss.
“Wade,” I said when he finally pulled back. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”
He looked down into my eyes and sighed. “Get your donuts, baby. Make sure you get me a kolache with sausage.”
He watched me walk away, and honestly, I was surprised he’d even done that.
I hadn’t been able to walk through the house without him following me over the last twelve hours.
Yesterday, before he’d left, he’d been acting normal. When he came back half an hour later with Capo in his cage and sat in his truck in the parking lot for the next three hours, I realized that something was wrong.
I didn’t realize how wrong until he followed me to his home that I supposed I could call my own home now. Then he followed me through the house and had acted so freakin’ weird that I’d almost snapped.
Luckily, we’d gone to bed early, and I let it go thinking he was just having an off day.
It wasn’t until I was inside the donut shop and waiting for the kolache to heat up that I realized the reason he hadn’t come into the donut store. There was no way that anybody would be hiding in here. It was all one big open room. You could see the donuts being made, fried and glazed. There were three employees total standing in various spots around the large room.
It was lit up like the Fourth of July, and the large plate glass windows made light spill out into the parking lot.
There wasn’t a single freakin’ thing that he couldn’t see.
Sighing, I smiled at Jamal who gave me my donuts. “Have a good day, Landry. I packed an extra sausage kolache in there for the ex. I’m glad to see him with you again.”
I blushed. “Thank you, Jamal. Have a wonderful day, too.”
When we were back out in the car and I was pulling out of the parking lot, I turned my head slightly and regarded Wade.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I ordered again.
Wade remained silent for a little too long, and I turned my head facing forward.
“You’re a mule-headed, stubborn ass who drives me insane,” I growled. “I swear to God, this is one thing that I don’t miss from us being married—your need to protect me from something while not sharing whatever that something was with me. Do you remember what happened when you tried to do that last time?”
My husband started to chuckle. That chuckle quickly died off his face when we arrived at the daycare and saw how dark it was outside.
“What’s up with the lighting?” he asked, sounding suspicious.
“The last storm we had fried ‘em,” I explained. “I keep meaning to get them replaced, but since the sun’s like ten minutes away, and we don’t open for another twenty, it hasn’t bothered me enough to make me actually remember to make the call.”
“I don’t like you opening this place up in the dark,” he growled.
I rolled my eyes heavenward, praying for patience.
“Wade, seriously. I swear to God,” I growled. “Tell me what’s going on!”
He grunted and got out of the truck, rounding the hood to come to my side and help me out.
I rolled my eyes and took his hand.
“I’m going to have to leave around mid-morning to run to the house and let Capo out before my therapy appointment,” he said as he walked us to the door. Once there, he unlocked it with keys from his own pocket and easily input the alarm code before flicking on the lights. From that point he left me where I stood to go check out the various rooms, clearing them of anything bad.
It wasn’t until he came back and gave me a funny look that I frowned.
“What?”
“The lights are out in the back play area, too?”
I nodded. “They are. The electrician said it was most likely that they were all on the same breaker. He offered to fix it…for a lot of money. I wasn’t going to use ten grand to replace lights when I don’t actually have that much readily available.”
He narrowed his eyes. “He gave you a price of ten grand?”
I nodded. “He did.”
He growled. “Who did you use?”
After telling him, I went about getting the rooms ready for the day and then made my way to the front largest room where all the early arrivals would hang out until the teachers started to arrive at eight.
For the first two hours of the day, they were all mine, and that was why I started to stuff my face full of my donuts so I didn’t have to share.
All the while Wade watched me.
“If you’re going to stare at me like I’m in danger, you need to tell me why,” I pushed. “Because all it’s really doing is pissing me off.”
His lips twitched. “I know how to smooth down your hackles, darlin’.”
I rolled my eyes.
He did, but that wasn’t the point now, was it?
“I’ll tell you…after I have more information.” He paused. “After the incident happened last year…was anything said?”
The ‘incident’ he was referring to was nearly a tragedy.
The definition of a tragedy is an event that has caused great suffering.
And that was the perfect word to describe that hellish day last year.
It’d been the one and only time since we’d divorced that I’d wished that I could have slept in Wade’s arms.
That morning, I’d come to work as per my usual. One of my first babies that arrived—or should have arrived—didn’t show. Her sister did, though. At the same time, I’d had a new mother who was dropping off her three-year-old triplets that were starting that day, so I hadn’t thought to question why the sister had arrived, but the baby sister hadn’t. Automatically assuming that she was sick, I’d gone about my business until about two o’clock when the dad came to pick the babies up.
Except, there was only one baby to pick up.
The other, I’d explained to him, had never been brought in.
After having a pretty good freak-out on me, so much so that I’d been forced to call the cops—which was when Wade showed up on the scene—it was discovered that the mother didn’t bring the baby after viewing the tapes from the state-of-the-art camera system that Wade had recommended I get.