Her whole body had relaxed. Normally that would be a good sign, but he’d listened to everything Lila had told him. He needed to make sure this was normal weariness. “You feeling okay?”
“Just tired. Didn’t sleep much this week. So it sucks that you have to watch over me. I can take a nap, right?”
“I can let you sleep for a while as long as you’re not nauseous or dizzy.” He had a list of what to look for. He wasn’t going to get much sleep between checking on Roxie and making sure Daisy didn’t wreck her apartment.
“I like your truck,” she said on a yawn she covered with her hand. “It’s soothing. Reminds me of being a kid. When we would go see my uncle, we would drive out in Granddad’s truck and I would sleep on the way. I could feel the road and he would drive and I would know I was safe.”
It had been so long since she’d really talked to him. He didn’t want it to end. “Sounds like you’re close to your granddad.”
The sun was coming up, and the light hit her face. Instead of moving away from it, she turned her cheeks up as though soaking in the warmth. “Was. He died when I was twenty. I was in the Army. I still miss him. You were close to your dad?”
His heart clenched the way it did every time he thought about his dad. “Very. I miss him, too. I only got ten years with him, but they were great years.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry about your granddad.”
She was quiet, and after a moment he realized she’d fallen asleep.
He got the feeling Roxie didn’t fall asleep so easily. She was a careful woman. Even though she wasn’t ready to admit it, she trusted him on some level. Or she was dying. It was one of the two. “Rox?”
“I’m fine,” she murmured. “Just tired. No nausea. Like I said, I haven’t slept much lately. I never do this time of year.”
“What about this time of year makes you not sleep?”
“It’s almost my birthday. I hate my birthday.”
That was something he definitely didn’t know about her. He had no idea when her birthday was. Birthdays were a big thing around town, but he couldn’t remember hearing anything about Roxie celebrating. That meant Armie—who would know—was respecting her choices. “What happened?”
She shifted so she could look at him. “That’s not the usual response. Most people think I hate my birthday because I’m grumpy or I’m being overly dramatic about getting older.”
“You don’t mind getting older. You’re not vain. If you hate something, it’s for a reason, and it wouldn’t be a trivial one. It’s not that you ate bad cake once or a boyfriend broke up with you on that day.”
She was quiet for a moment. “My partner got killed. It wasn’t on my actual birthday, but we’d just had a party. Nothing big. Just cake and ice cream. His wife sent them up with him. Then we got a call and an hour later he was dead. So I don’t like this week much. Bad stuff happens this week, as we learned from the snake.”
“Ah, but you could have been wearing different shoes,” he pointed out. “And you got to save this little thing. That’s a positive.”
Daisy bounced up and down like she knew they were talking about her.
Roxie reached out and gave the dog a pet. “She’s sweet. I’m just going to close my eyes until we get to my place. Okay?”
Lila had told him it was okay for her to sleep a bit. He was tired, too, but he could set an alarm and wake up in a few hours to make sure Roxie was all right. “Okay.”
He drove toward her place and couldn’t help but think the night had changed something between them.chapter threeRoxie stirred and glanced at the clock. Two. And it was light enough in her bedroom that she knew it was day. The barking outside reminded her that it wasn’t her usual day.
She felt way better having gotten some sleep, and would feel even better after a shower.
Her cell buzzed. Someone had plugged it in and set it on the nightstand.
Someone? Zep had done it. Zep had driven her home, made sure she could walk up the stairs, and put her in bed with only a few snarky innuendos. Of course, if he hadn’t made them, she would have been worried.
She yawned and looked down at her phone. Her mom had called three times. Probably something about her birthday. Her mother insisted that her birthday wasn’t merely hers. It also belonged to her family, and that was why she should get over the whole “my best friend in the world died” and celebrate. But then her mother wasn’t one to dwell on anything dark. Life was too short, her mother would say.