“Who are you texting?” she asks.
I stop and look at her. She’s blushing, and she starts to stutter. “I mean, are you texting Hollywood?”
For just a second, I had wondered if she was jealous. But that’s crazy. We literally just met. “I’m texting my buddy to try and find out information on Blake’s twin. Tell me all you know about him.”
“Watson is his last name. He didn’t tell me his name, but his brothers were Dean and Blake. They were in the penitentiary in Texas.... and well, they had a friend named Richard that used to work with Hollywood.” She shrugs. “But that’s all I know.”
I give her a smile. “That’s enough.”
I send the text and then pull out of the parking lot and head back toward my house in Whiskey Run.
“We’ve got about a forty-five-minute drive. If you want to sleep you can,” I tell her.
“I’m not tired,” she answers too quickly.
Once I pull onto the highway, she asks, “Where’d you get that mark on your face? Was it your girlfriend?”
“No, I don’t have a girlfriend, and if I did she wouldn’t be half cat lady,” I tell her. I start to explain that I got myself in sort of a rough spot the night before, which is sort of the truth, but when I look over to see if she’s buying my half-truth I find that her eyes are drooping and she’s very close to falling asleep.
She looks even more fragile now, and I find that I’m furious all over again at the idea that anyone would scare her like the asshole following her is.
Your ass is mine, bastard.
Knox
She sleeps the whole way to my house. When we pull off the highway, she starts to moan in her sleep, and the next thing I know, she’s wrapped one hand around my forearm, and her head is resting on my shoulder. I don’t breathe. I don’t make a sound or move at all for at least ten seconds. She settles back into her sleep but seems to grip on to me even tighter.
I do my best to avoid bumps in the road and even take the long way around to avoid the gravel back road. When I finally pull into my driveway, me unarming the alarm at the gate startles her awake.
She raises her head, but she doesn’t let go of my arm. I don’t move; all I can do is stare at her. There’s a connection between us. I can feel it all the way to my bones, and I know she feels it too. She’s so close, all I have to do is dip my head and I can taste her lips. The urge to do that is strong. “You okay?” I ask her softly.
She nods and lets go of my arm before retreating back to her side of the truck with an apology. I don’t have the time to examine the feeling of loss I have when she’s no longer plastered to my side.
I don’t trust my voice, so I don’t say anything. My body has reacted to having her pressed against me, and I take a few deep breaths before I pull into the opening garage doors. When the door closes behind us, I turn off the engine and climb out of the truck. I go to help her, but she’s already out and meets me in the front.
“Come on, I’ll take you for a tour.” I grab the tote bag from her hand, and surprisingly, she gives it to me.
I take her through the ranch-style house with the open floor plan, pointing out the living room, bedrooms, bathrooms. I take into account that we just met, and she may be freaking out at this point when she’s realizing that she’s going to be staying here with me... alone. “This will be where you sleep. My room is on the other side of the house.”
She sets her purse down, and I put the tote bag I carried in for her next to it. “C’mon, I’ll show you the rest.”
She follows behind me, and she’s quiet as we walk through the rooms. I try to look at it through fresh eyes, trying to see what she sees, but the way she doesn’t say anything, I can see there’s something on her mind. I point out all the security features, programming her own codes into the system so I know she’ll remember them.
“I won’t be here long enough for that.”
“Karina, I’d like you to stay until we know you’re safe.”
She looks like she may argue. She opens her mouth but then closes it again with a faint nod.
I put my hands in the front pockets of my jeans. “That’s about it,” I tell her as we’re standing back in the kitchen.
She nods with her hand to her head. “Can I step outside for a minute?”