Aaron skirted around them, moving to Jason and starting to reach for Rick. “Look, man, thanks for your help, but he’s my friend. Why don’t you let me—”
“We’ve got this,” Gemma snarled, taking a firmer grip on her brother. “Thanks.”
Aaron jolted back as if she’d slapped him, but Gemma was beyond caring. If she had her way, she’d never see him again, so it hardly mattered.
Almost a year. A year back in Memphis and she’d manage to avoid running into him. She could make that happen again. It wasn’t like they ran in the same circles.
“Who’s that?” mumbled Rick.
“No one important,” she said softly. “C’mon. Just keep moving with us here.”
Aaron fell back and let them pass. After the noisy, stuffy heat of the roadhouse, the cool air of the parking lot was a balm to Gemma’s aching head.
“Rick, where did you park?”
He struggled to lift his head, squinting at the rows of vehicles. “Somewhere.”
“What’s he drive?” asked Jason.
“Black F150. Supercab.”
That didn’t narrow the field much. They both scanned the lot.
“That it? Back left corner. Two tone with the tan on the bottom?”
Gemma followed Jason’s gaze. “Yeah. Come on, big brother. Let’s get you home.”
They skirted around the truck with steamed up windows, where the couple she’d seen on her arrival had disappeared. The light out here was lousy, not extending far beyond the pools cast by the floodlights mounted on the corner of the building. With a litany of silent prayers for her ankles and shoes, they made it to Rick’s truck.
“I’ve got him,” said Jason. “You get the door open.”
Relinquishing Rick, Gemma unlocked the truck, pulled open the passenger side door. The seat was covered with files, his briefcase, and the other detritus he hadn’t gotten around to stowing from the work days earlier in the week. Gemma shoved the lot of it into a banker’s box in the
floorboard and shifted the box into the backseat.
“There. Okay, Rick. In you go.”
“He’s out now.”
Great. Gemma held in a string of curses. How the hell was she going to get him in the house? Maybe she’d just bring a blanket out to him and let him sleep it off in the truck.
She crawled into the backseat herself and pulled as Jason pushed. Between the two of them, they managed to get Rick and all his appendages into the truck and buckled in.
“Finally.” Gemma took the hand Jason offered and climbed out of the narrow backseat. She turned to shut the suicide door. “Thanks for your help.”
When she turned back around, Jason was inches away, mouth curved into a smile that raised the hair on Gemma’s arms. “My pleasure,” he said, planting his arms on either side of her to cage her against the truck. Alarms began to blare in her head as the first wash of fear had her heart beginning to pound.
“Um, look, Jason, I—”
“Just thought you might want to show your appreciation. I had a few ideas.”
Obviously, she thought. Screw the shoes. The stiletto heels were practically weaponized. If one broke when she brought it down on his instep, so be it. But even as Gemma lifted her foot, Jason pulled back.
No, he was being pulled back.
Aaron spun Jason neatly away and placed himself in front of her as a shield. And damn it if that didn’t just get her heart racing for a whole other reason.
“I expect you do have a few ideas,” he said. “Let me go ahead and advise you that they’re bad ones. A gentleman doesn’t expect payment for helping a lady out. So why don’t you go on back to Red’s and find somebody more receptive to your advances.”