“Well, then, I guess that’s it.” Jacob slid the cash from the table and wove the folded paper through his fingers, flipping it twice. He didn’t need or want her money, just the woman who’d had the patience to pass time with a mouthy teenager.
Lifting her hand, he pressed the cash into her palm. “Don’t worry about the room. You earned it today. I don’t think the IRS will come after me for one day’s work-for-a-room trade off.”
Her hand felt good in his, small and soft. Her pulse fluttered against him like a bird, her bones easily as fragile. He couldn’t make himself let go.
With a twitch, she tried to pull away, then grew still, too still. Tight lines around her mouth eased. Her brown eyes shifted, melting into a warm shade of chocolate.
She swayed, ever so slightly, toward him.
Still he cradled her hand in his, his forearms so close to her br**sts he could feel the heat of her. He could also smell the lingering scent of hotel cleaning supplies, but it mingled with something essentially Dee. Something unique, intoxicating, more unique than any of those high-priced perfumes he’d seen marketers hocking on television.
Of its own volition, his head dipped. His chin brushed just beside her temple. He filled his lungs and senses with another lingering breath of her hair, of her. Dee. “Just tell me your name. I can help you through whatever’s going on. Running never solved anything.”
Hypocrite. He forced himself not to flinch. He hadn’t been around for his sister.
Dee’s hand fisted in his. Easing back a step, she placed the money on the table by the salt and pepper shakers before turning on her heels.
Regret and frustration jockeyed for dominance in his testosterone-fogged brain. Why was his gut twisting into knots over this woman he’d only just met?
Pausing, she spun back and carefully peeled off three more dollars. She slapped them on the table. “Here. This should be enough to cover my call on your cell phone to the Tacoma Police Department.”
Dee cleared the doorway before he could close his mouth.
The Tacoma PD? Why would someone running from the law call the cops? She wouldn’t.
She also wouldn’t lie about calling the cops to get his sympathy. A fabrication like that could be too easily traced.
Could she have been telling the truth after all?
Damn.
He sprinted after her, right back into the storm.
Chapter 5
“I told William we shouldn’t travel in this storm.” An older woman gripped the tour bus driver’s hand as she disembarked.
Dee held the lodge door open as the driver braced the frail woman with a hand to her back. Idling in the parking lot, the silver bus chugged exhaust into the night. Snowflakes danced in the headlight beams.
After Jacob’s damning disbelief, she’d dashed from his apartment straight into a rolling tide of guests swelling through the door in search of a warm room. She’d absorbed the sight of that tour bus like a piece of salvation rumbling a diesel tune in the parking lot.>Of course he wasn’t asking her out. She’d taken a long look at herself, and she didn’t find the final product all that impressive. She seemed more like a regular robin with plenty of beige and brown, splashed with that garish red dress across her middle.
Dee gripped the can to quell her shaking. “Sure. I should meet everyone and dispel rumors. I wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation.”
“I’m not worried about that.” He rubbed a thumb along his forehead, then turned back to the counter. “First, we have to take care of food now. Is there anything you can’t eat? Any allergies I should know of?”
She thought of the EpiPen she kept close. This seemed like the perfect opening. “I don’t know.”
Jacob glanced over his shoulder. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know if I’m allergic to anything.”
“Okay.” His brows met for a moment before he shrugged. “Then it’s leftover stew. Any problems with that?”
“I don’t know.”
He pivoted on one heel to face her, a tic starting in the corner of one eye. “Don’t feel obligated to stay for dinner if you’re too hung over from your night out.”
This wasn’t going well at all. “That’s not what I meant.”