His mouth opens to say something, probably to argue with me because he thinks he should, but I hold up a staying hand. I’ve reached my limit for the night. A woman can only stand being a pariah so much. I walk to the bar quickly, gritting my teeth as people literally back away from me like I’m contagious with the worst possible disease they can imagine, and lay a fifty-dollar bill on the wooden top.

“Sorry, Bubba,” I quietly apologize. Even the money doesn’t entice him to come closer as his butt tries to eat its way through the wall of liquor behind the bar to get further away from me.

With my head held high, I walk out of the beer barn. I force myself to wait for the door to close fully and then I run for my car, not the crashed county vehicle which is of course FUBAR for now. No, I’m driving my personal car, a safe sedan.

I’m pulling out of the grassy field and crossing through the pipe fencing, eyes on the dark fields around me so I don’t see Blake come out after me.

I also don’t hear him shout my name into the black of the night.

At least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Chapter 7

Blake

She said it was nice.

Nice?

Zoey thought it was nice that people ran for the door at the sight of her, got spooked enough to think she was threatening them just by breathing the same oxygen, and the bartender tried to run her off.

And she still over tipped him!

Okay, so maybe she played into that a little with the Madame Cleo voice and the jump-scare, but I don’t blame her. Nobody, not even a jury of her peers, could blame her for fighting fire with fire.

Hell, I only experienced one little moment of how they treat Zoey and it was all I could do to not stand up in the middle of that bar, tell them all how ridiculous they were being, and take every last one of them on mano y mano.

I mean, so what if she’s a coroner? She’s not the Grim Reaper.

I bit my tongue so hard it nearly split into two, acting like that was all perfectly normal. Acceptable even. I didn’t say a single word as I got up and walked out of that barn a few moments after Zoey, only giving Bubba my most disappointed scowl. I had to resist the urge to snatch that fifty off the bar on my way out the door. He sure as fuck didn’t deserve it.