How About No (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 3)

She sighed. “At least it’s not me driving.”

I snorted. “When did you ever drive anywhere when I was in the car with you?”

She shrugged. “It’s not like that anymore. I have to drive everywhere. I hate driving.”

I barely refrained from saying, “Whose fault is that?”

Instead, I went with, “Well, I may have a bum leg that could give out on me in a couple of weeks, but for now it presses the gas pedal just fine.”

She didn’t say anything to that at first, only looked down at my affected leg.

“I can’t feel my hand,” she admitted. “At least, I can’t most of the time. They said it was normal. Apparently, nerves were severed there, and it’s possible I’ll never fully regain complete control of it again.”

The thought of Landry being hurt at all felt like a sucker punch straight to the sternum. It’d been a few weeks since it’d happened, and I still woke up in a sweat about it at night.

It’d happened because of what I’d been investigating. Jesus Christ, but had she not been there because of me, she would’ve been just fine right now instead of telling me in a shattered voice that her hand was numb.

“My doctors are worried about a bone infection,” I admitted, unsure what to say to make this all better. “I’ve been on over four antibiotics now. If the one I’m on now doesn’t kick my white blood cell count down, they’re going to readmit me and drip some more IV antibiotics. Stronger ones that’ll hopefully kick the infection’s ass. Though, I hope the one I’m on now will do that.”

“What if it doesn’t?” she asked worriedly.

I swallowed hard, not ready to admit it even to myself what would happen.

But, like always, I didn’t lie to Landry. I also didn’t scale the truth to save her feelings.

“They might have to amputate my leg.”

We were silent a while after that, digesting the impact of the words that had just come out of my mouth.

I’d just merged onto the highway when I looked over to find her tapping her fingers on her knees.

I barely smothered a grin.

Landry didn’t like merging onto the highway. Never had, and I doubted ever would. When she drove, she avoided the highway altogether. It was only with me that she felt safe enough to go on it at all.

And, to prick her temper and get her mind off of what we were doing, I teased her.

Just like I always did.

“You missed a spot shaving,” I pointed to her leg, right at the side of her knee.

She lifted said leg and said, “Where?”

I pointed it out again, this time touching her, and she groaned. “Holy shit. That’s long!”

I rolled my eyes.

It wasn’t that long, but it was a spot that she always missed for some reason. And since her leg hair was blonde, it was easy to miss.

As long as you weren’t so in tune to a pair of legs like I was. Infatuation didn’t even begin to cover it.

God, I missed everything about Landry.

Her sweet legs, and her long hair. Waking up to find her curled around me, stealing every single cover there was to have. Her taking such long showers that I was forced to take five-minute ones or risk having to take the remainder of it with cold water.

Hell, I even missed the bad.

The crying during at random times. The agonizing way she’d tear herself down. The way sometimes she’d go into one of these moods and not come out of it for a couple of days.

I now understood some of that to be the depression that Kourt had explained to me. It all made sense.

I wished I could go back in time.

I wished that I could make things right.

I wished that I hadn’t tried to make her feel bad for not doing what I thought was the right thing when it came to donating to her sister.

Had I known then what I knew now, I wouldn’t have said a word.

If I’d only left it alone…

“What are you doing?” I asked in confusion.

She pulled out a mini bottle of lotion, and then a small pink razor.

“I’m going to take care of this little patch,” she murmured like I was dumb. “That okay?”

And before she’d even heard my reply, she applied the lotion and started to shave. In the front seat of my truck.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked, eyeing the lotion and hair.

She pursed her lip and then eyed the window. “You fling that out of my window and it’s going to go all down the side. I just had the truck washed.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll just put it in the bag in my purse,” she murmured, doing just that.

Moments later, she sat back, and I had to smell the scent of her peaches and cream lotion for the next few miles and did so without saying a word.