Chapter 22

One second, it had been a peaceful Friday afternoon at the café, and the next, Dallas’s latest display of recklessness had sucked the peacefulness and relaxation right out of the air. I sat there, blinking hard and gaping as his car landed right next to the arcade window.

My heart hammered in my chest, my mind reeling over how stupid that had been. I’d barely had time to process it, but Landon was already on his feet, marching across the road with deliberate purpose.

To say he looked tense was an understatement. His muscles bulged and his jaw was hard as stone. He didn’t look back at me, but I hurried after him anyway, knowing Verna wouldn’t think we’d abandoned her without paying for our order.

Cursing Dallas under my breath, I raced up to Landon, gently touching his arm to get his attention. He started, then spun his head to look at me. As soon as he realized who had touched him, the edge in his eyes disappeared.

“Dallas is a handful when he’s like this,” I warned him softly. “It’s best to just leave it alone.”

“No,” he said succinctly.

At that moment, Dallas spilled out of the car, swearing like a sailor as he looked down at his suit. A bright red stain covered him from neck to waistband, like some drink had sloshed all over him when his car had jumped the curb.

“It’s fucking ruined,” he complained loudly, yanking his sunglasses off his eyes and glaring at the suit like he could beat it into submission somehow. “That’s gonna stain. Fucking food coloring in the fucking?—”

Landon stormed right up to him, getting hold of the front of said ruined suit and slamming him against the side of the Ferrari. I stopped in my tracks, not wanting to get any closer if this was about to turn into a brawl.

All around me, other people had stopped too, staring unashamedly at the scene unfolding in front of their very eyes. The truth was that most of the locals were sick of Dallas’s bull shit. On so many occasions, almost all of us had tried to beg, plead, or reason with him to no avail.

It certainly hadn’t helped us that he knew we wouldn’t do anything to him. The donations he made to the fire and police departments ensured that he had them in his pocket and that meant they’d sooner act against the people than the habitual instigator.

Landon didn’t know any of this and he’d stormed away before I’d been able to finish my warning, but as I looked at him, I realized he probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. He gripped Dallas’s shirt hard, the muscles in his arm rippling as he held the man against his fancy sports car.

Although he wasn’t looking at me, I could practically see the fireballs spitting from his eyes as he glowered at Dallas and I could definitely still see the tension radiating from him. “What the hell are you doing? There are kids in that arcade and all it would have taken was for you to find the brake a second later and this could’ve been a very fucking tragic day in June Lake.”

Dallas tried to shake him off, peeling his fingers away from his shirt, but Landon held fast, clearly furious and looking for some sort of an apology. I knew he wasn’t going to get one, but again, Landon didn’t know, and again, I didn’t know if it would’ve made any difference if he had.

As soon as Dallas realized he wasn’t going to get away, he sneered at Landon, all bravado and machismo. “That’s just how I drive. I knew what I was doing. I was never going to lose control. Now get your hands off me, asshole.”

Landon held him for another long moment before his tongue swept across his lips and he dropped Dallas’s shirt. He released him and stepped back, but I could feel the rage pouring off him. Somehow, I sensed that this wasn’t over just yet, even if he had let go of the man’s shirt.

Just then, Colten and Brody came out of the arcade and Landon bit his tongue as he turned to face the boys. Brody spotted the Ferrari, his eyes turning into orbs as he admired it. Dallas, forever searching for a loophole or some way to escape accountability, seemed eager to take the heat off himself.

“You can sit in it if you’d like,” he said with that smug drawl in his voice that I hated more than paying taxes. “Heck, you can even touch the steering wheel.”

The kid went around to get in the driver’s door, looking like he was about to start drooling. Colten followed, but Landon intervened, grabbing Colten’s hand and holding him back. “We weren’t done yet, Styles. Someone could’ve been seriously injured with what you just did. You need to be more careful.”

“Or what?” Dallas laughed, clearly not taking any of it seriously. “Ease up, my man. Nothing happened. You’re just making yourself look like a fool.”

He glanced at the crowd that had gathered like he expected a round of applause or perhaps even laughter, but no one was at all amused by what we’d just witnessed. Blowing out a heavy breath, he played it off as if it had been nothing at all.

“Just walk away, Lando. You’re a visitor here. A tourist. No one hired you to be the town’s safety officer for the summer.” Again, he looked around as if he was trying to garner support, but most people simply shook their heads or turned and walked away.

That was the thing about Dallas. He thought he was all that and he’d been getting away with his unlawful and obnoxious behavior all his life, but he wasn’t menacing or anything like that. None of us were scared of him. It was more like we knew there was nothing we could do to get rid of him.

Well, that and the fact that anyone who tried to make some kind of move against him would find themselves behind bars while he would, as always, face zero consequences for whatever the problem had been. It was lose-lose for everyone who lived here, and as a result, we’d collectively given up.

Landon hadn’t. “Or you’ll have to answer to me. You just recklessly endangered children in the presence of at least a dozen people. That’s not the kind of thing judges or juries take kindly to, but especially not when there are so many witnesses.”

Dallas scoffed. “Oh, you want to charge me? Why don’t you go ahead and try?”

Landon kept his head held high, his gaze laser-focused on the other man’s. “Your day will come. It always does.”

“You’ll be gone by the end of August.” Dallas scoffed. “Stay out of things that don’t concern you.”

“Stay away from my son and the places he visits with his friends,” Landon retorted, giving Dallas one last warning look.

Brody glanced at me, his gaze flicking to the Ferrari and back again, but I shook my head at him and waved him over. He sighed heavily but didn’t argue, probably because he knew his mother would agree with me.

All of the kids had been warned to watch out for Dallas Styles, but even more so when he was in his car. He never obeyed any traffic rules and he didn’t seem to understand that a car didn’t have to travel at full speed at all times.

As I slung my arm around Brody’s shoulders, I flashed him an apologetic look. “Sorry, bud, but I can’t let you get into that car.”

He sighed again, nodding even as he cast another wistful glance at the flashy vehicle. “I know, but it would’ve been fun. It’s the nicest car in town.”

“If by nicest, you mean the most dangerous, then sure.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Landon leading Colten back to the cafe as well and I paused for a beat, waiting for them to catch up.

As he took the boys to choose some ice cream inside the cafe, I sat back down at our table and stared at his back through the window, his muscles all bunched up and tense. From our first encounters, I’d known that he had something of a temper, but now I was wondering if I should be as interested in the man as I was.

In my admittedly limited experience, men who were so quick to anger and who didn’t hesitate to put their hands on others weren’t the most stable. As sweet, kind, and caring as he could be, he definitely had a short fuse, and while I understood why he’d gotten so worked up about what Dallas had done, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps I needed to take a step back.

At the very least, I had to observe carefully how he recovered from this and whether he let it go, or whether he spent the rest of the day obsessing about it. We still had quite a few hours left before I had to take Brody home and I wasn’t about to cut the boys’ time hanging out together short because of this, which gave me some time to make some decisions about the rest of the summer.

I would keep cleaning Styles Manor. I’d try to help Colten as far as I could with making friends and having a good time in June Lake, but I didn’t have to keep spending time with Landon. Not unless he somehow managed to convince me that he had a handle on his temper.

If he could calm down, then fine. I understood completely that he’d had a fright. My own heart had nearly stopped and I hadn’t even had a kid of my own in that arcade. So sure. I got it.

But if he was about to go after Dallas again, or if he made me feel in any way uncomfortable, then that was it. I was out.

No matter how hot he was or how incredibly natural it felt to be around him.