Page 52 of Angels & Whiskey

She snickered then took a few seconds before she answered, “Yeah.”

I pondered what to say next. I wanted to lean over and take her lips again—taste her, but I needed to do the friend thing like I’d convinced myself to do earlier. “This may be good. I don’t know how Nevada law works, but maybe you can get more money out of him if you can prove he’s cheating?”

“You mean when I divorce him?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged.

“I can’t just divorce him. He’ll never let that happen.”

“He can’t force you to stay married to him.”

“No, but he could kill me,” she sighed.

“Why do you keep saying that? Are you scared he will? Who the hell is your husband?”

“I’m not scared right now. I’m just nervous. I have a feeling his business isn’t legal and he does harm to people. I’ve heard him on the phone several times. He has a guy named Remo who he sends after people. He tells me it’s to scare them and collect money they owe, but something just doesn’t sit right with me.”

“And you still married the guy?”

“See, that’s the thing. I knew none of that before we got married. He was the sweetest man I’d ever met—”

“Before me.” I smiled.

She finally laughed. “Yes, before you. Anyway, after we got married, he slowly changed and then bam. He turned into the devil and made my life hell.”

“So why didn’t you leave him a long time ago?”

“He convinced me to quit my job, and he did something with my old car—sold it maybe … drove it off a cliff, I don’t know. But he bought me a nicer one and I’m pretty sure he put a tracker on it. He controls all of our money, and I’m given an allowance for coffee each day—”

“Okay, angel, I get it.”

“Why do you call me that?”

“Call you what?”

“Angel.”

I took a deep breath, remembering why I’d thought of her that way, then smiled. “The day Paul and I officially met you, I’d walked into Starbucks and I saw you sitting by the window with the sun behind you. It was as if you had an aura around you and it made you look like an angel.”

She smiled, turning her head away from me. I could still see part of her cheek that was flush with embarrassment. I should be the one embarrassed, not her.

“I won’t call you that if you don’t like it.”

“No!” she shrieked. “I love it.”

I smiled again. “Good. Now, let me tell you what Paul and I have come up with for a plan.”

I told her about the plan Jackson and I had talked about over coffee at the house. She shook her head the entire time, telling me no, but I pressed on insisting that she listen to me.

“It’s not going to work. He’ll drag me out of Brandi’s house.”

“Fine. Then you can stay with me and Paul. We have an extra room.” I shrugged.

“I can’t stay with you two!” she protested.

“Because we’re strangers?”

She huffed. “Yeah. Exactly.”