Surrender A Section 8 Novel - By Stephanie Tyler Page 0,17
about tomorrow, where she was going with her mask.
It was as if he knew her.
Set to the music, the question was mournful and hopeful, all at once. Maybe it was time for the mask to drop.
She closed her eyes and prayed he wouldn’t come in until the tears had stopped rolling down her cheeks.
Chapter Seven
Gunner decided he was starving and didn’t want takeout. They walked to the restaurant, which was just up the block. Avery adjusted the baseball cap she’d grabbed from her bag, noting that no one came near them as they walked together through the darkened streets, which were beginning to show signs of life, as though the music wafted along the sidewalk.
“Don’t worry—I’ll show you the floor when we get back,” he told her. “Wheels in your mind are working overtime. Relax. It’s after six. No more work tonight.”
As they settled into a table in the loud and crowded casual restaurant, a car backfired outside the open window behind them. She immediately froze, flashed back to killing the first man. She hadn’t hesitated to pull the trigger, because he’d killed her mother.
She’d done it face-to-face because she’d wanted him to know who was taking his life, wanted him to see the retribution in her eyes.
“If you’re scared of a car backfiring, you’ll never survive in this neighborhood,” Gunner said, but his tone was gentler than she’d expected.
“I’m still a little jumpy. I was hoping the land of good times would make it better.”
“It’s not that anymore. Not by a long shot.” Gunner’s face was grim. “It’s a goddamned shame too.”
“But you stayed.”
“I love her too much to desert her.”
“Too bad you can’t say the same about your wives,” their waitress interjected with a smirk and a snap of her hips.
“Billie Jean, don’t go telling all of my secrets.” Gunner’s drawl was lazy, easy, and if he was pissed about what she’d said, Avery would never know it.
She looked up at Billie Jean and wondered if she really was an ex-wife. She was pretty, with long dark hair and olive skin.
“Who’s this—another secret?” Billie Jean asked Gunner with a perfunctory nod in Avery’s direction.
“Can we just order please? The usual, times two?” Gunner gave a half grin and Billie Jean relented, wrote something on the small pad and walked away.
She came back less than three minutes later with beers and a plate of small red shellfish-looking things. Avery ignored the food in favor of the beer, since her adrenaline was still racing.
Dare trusted you to do this—don’t screw it up, she told herself.
Gunner drew everywhere. She wondered if he even noticed he did it. The black pen made soft scratch marks on the white paper placemats, the napkins. When she looked, she saw a sketch of her: the cap, the big eyes . . . but he ripped it off and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Don’t want to take chances with a wanted woman.”
“But you taking me here . . .”
“People will know you’re with me.”
“Like a bodyguard.”
“Something like that.”
She was too wound up for a place like this, with its cheer and friendliness. She didn’t want to celebrate—she wanted revenge on a man who’d ripped her family apart before it even had a chance. She was hot with it, though Dare hadn’t wanted it to consume her, was worried that she’d fall over the edge, never to come back.
“You’re haunted, chère.”
“Hunted,” she corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“Not in my book.”
She shifted topics. “How long have you known Dare?”
Gunner took a swig of beer from the bottle. “Long enough.”
“You tattooed him?”
“I don’t break my clients’ confidences,” he told her. “Have a mudbug.”
She wrinkled her nose, even as he showed her how to crack them and suck out the meat. But the taste—she had to admit it was worth it. All the food placed in front of them was amazing, and she ate heartily, forgetting, for that short time at least, why she was really in this city.
She noticed all the women looking at Gunner. Some of them glared at her, like she was stealing their good time away.
“Want to tell me why you’re in trouble?” he asked finally, after he’d devoured his own plate and helped her with hers.
“How do you know I’m in trouble?” She licked the salted brine off her pinky and took another long swig of beer. She was feeling more relaxed than she had in months.
“Everyone who comes to me is. And that’s a fact. Don’t make me pull it out of you. I’m sure