Just hearing their names made her skin crawl. She would have launched herself away from Denver, but apparently he’d been prepared for that because she didn’t manage to get a single inch of space between them.
Denver drew her against him. “I hope it’s true, that they’re not related to you. But could you tell me why they claimed to be, and why you freaked out over it?”
“I didn’t—”
“Total freakout, girl. Don’t deny it, okay?”
Hedging, she asked, “Why were you talking to them?”
“You first.”
If she weren’t so weak, she’d elbow him, hard, right in the middle. “They’re part of the foster family that took me in after my folks were killed.”
His stroking hands paused, but only for a moment, then they resumed. “Huh. I hadn’t figured on that. Actually, I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to wonder who had raised you.”
“It wasn’t them,” she assured him with more sarcastic bite than she intended. No, instead of becoming family support they’d been another hardship—the worst one that she’d had to endure. “I was already fourteen and I raised myself.”
“So...” Denver tipped her back to see her. “I take it you don’t like them?”
Dislike didn’t even come close to conveying how she felt about them. She loathed, despised, detested them.
And she feared them. Horribly.
Saying all that would leave her emotionally raw, so she settled on a less volatile truth. “I’ll be happy if I never see them again.”
“Tell me why.”
Cherry shook her head. Even sick, she refused to be a complete pushover. “It’s your turn. Why and when did you meet them?”
“They were hanging around the hotel we just left.”
Alarm squeezed her throat and she almost lost her breath again.
Standing, Denver stared down at her, visibly pondering her reaction. “Armie overheard them ask about you. When he questioned them, it didn’t go well. He tussled with them, and then he told me.”
Oh God. “They tussled?” Shock kept her voice a whisper of sound. They were looking for her. Had Armie inadvertently put himself on their radar? No, no, no.
Seeing the alarm she couldn’t hide, Denver crossed his arms. “Don’t worry about Armie. He’s fine.”
“But—”
“The next morning, I saw some disreputable-looking dudes watching me in the hotel, figured it was them and decided to ask a few questions.”
Good Lord, was he nuts? “Why in the world would you do that?”
Denver held up a hand. “You aren’t up for a long convo, honey, so forget it. The bare bones are that they claimed to be your brothers and wanted me to lead them to you. I already told you that I didn’t like the looks of them, but I also figured siblings would have your number, right? Unless you were avoiding them for a reason.” He shrugged. “So I said no.”
And yet he was here to tell her about it. There must be a reason they hadn’t attacked him.
She knew they still could.
“How did they know we were...friends?”
“I’m guessing Phelps. They were probably asking around until they found someone who knew you.”
Leese Phelps. She worried for him, but other, bigger worries took precedence.
“They’d already seen me in the hotel,” Denver said. “It didn’t take a genius to know you were there, too.”
She rubbed her temples, trying to wrap her mind around it.
“They left you a message on the hotel room phone. You must have slept through their call.”
Her head snapped up and she stared at him. “Do you know what they said?”
“That you needed to get in touch.” His eyes narrowed. “To be exact, the caller said you shouldn’t fuck around.”
Closing her arms around herself, Cherry resisted the urge to rock in restless anxiety. She didn’t want to be in touch. One demand always led to another and another until... “When?”
“By tonight.”
In other words: now.
Denver stood there looking at her, so she had to say something that didn’t give away every awful emotion she felt. She sat up a little straighter and looked him in the eyes. “I’ll take care of it.”
Maybe seeing too much despite her attempt at bravado, Denver shook his head. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
It’d be so easy to let him guide her—but he didn’t know them, didn’t understand the situation and what could happen if she ignored a summons now that they’d actually found her. She’d thought they’d given up on her, had prayed it was so. Instead, they’d tracked her down.