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“Are you trying to take advantage of me?”
“I know, it sounds bad,” I admitted. “It’s our only option at this point.”
“Well, I don’t have to sleep,” he said. “I’ll make use of the bathing facilities and read while you sleep.”
“Oh, sure, that won’t make me uncomfortable at all.”
“I would feel better if you weren’t left unattended, anyway,” he admitted as he carefully lifted the silver case from the backseat. “Who knows what sort of trouble you would drum up out of boredom?”
“You’re still not going to tell me what’s in that case, are you?”
He frowned, an expression of honest regret, and said, “I would, but I can’t. I promised Ophelia I would keep it confidential. And because this trip is an effort to repay her for forgiving a small … indiscretion I committed years ago, I can’t afford to fail her.”
“Fine, but if I find out you’re hauling Marcellus Wallace’s soul around in that thing, I’m going to be pissed,” I griped as we carried our overnight bags into the room.
He didn’t laugh at my Pulp Fiction reference. But he was kind enough to ignore the graffiti on the walls and the questionable carpet stains. The room was truly depressing, with faded greenish carpet, water-stained wallpaper, and a bedspread the color of medical waste.
“Surely this isn’t the best room they had to offer,” he said.
I snorted, waving my arm at the splendor before us. “Oh, no, this is the honeymoon suite.”
Overhead, we heard the din of male voices, talking over one another, laughing in that way only the truly inebriated can master. It sounded as if there were twenty of them, shoved into the room above ours.
“This is not going to be a restful evening, is it?”
I shook my head. “No.”
While Collin was in the shower, I made a call to Iris. She did not have any suggestions for how to address our car’s recent “blossoming,” but her teenage sister, Gigi, found a lot of humor in the situation.
“Have you thought about spray-painting a bikini top over them?” Gigi asked.
“You are so not helping,” I grumbled. “Stupid speakerphone.”
“Gigi, stop teasing her,” Iris chided, yawning. “Miranda, honey, don’t do anything to it. I know it’s probably embarrassing to drive around with them, but trying paint remover or adding another layer of paint will just make the situation worse. And don’t try to duct-tape cardboard over it. The tape residue will just cause more problems. When you get back to town, we’ll take care of it. Until then, just stick to the back roads … and avoid church buses … and school buses basically, all forms of mass transit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t beat yourself up over it,” she told me. “I parked my van outside Jane’s bookshop a while ago, and someone painted ‘VAMPIRE BITCH’ across the hood.”
“Well, that’s hurtful and inaccurate.”
She hummed in agreement. “I had to leave it that way for a week until I could get it fixed. I got some really funny looks at Walmart. Just be more careful about where you park from now on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And stop calling me ma’am.”
I laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“So how are things going with the mysterious Mr. Sutherland?”
This was the question I was dreading. I ended up forcing the words out in a rush. “Fine. It was a little rough at the start, but I think we’ve come to an understanding.”
“Has he lightened up at all on the contract rider and all of those rules?” she asked. “I’m sorry to have put that on you, but he wouldn’t sign without it, and Ophelia was insistent that she didn’t trust anyone but Beeline to transport him.”
“No, he definitely likes his own way. But he’s stopped being downright hostile. And at least he’s not asking me to separate his M&M’s by color.”
She groaned. “Your next assignment will be driving fluffy kittens to an amusement park, I promise.”
