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She didn’t turn around, didn’t look up at me to try and plead her case one final time. If this was a game, giving up wouldn’t get her anything, would it?
“Do you need my help?”
She did look up then and what I saw was fatigue. And fear. Her gaze slammed right into m
e, blank and bright green even from fifty feet away. “Nah, I’ll figure something out.”
“Where are you staying?”
Her smile was sad, wistful even. “Wherever I stop next.”
She hopped in the Blazer, started the ignition, and pulled away. Exiting my life just as quickly as she’d entered it.
Except this time, she was carrying my kid.
Probably.
Maybe.
Shit. I had to go after her.
***
I’d caught up to her at a burger joint and convinced her to come back to my place and we were finishing up a meal I’d thrown together. “The car,” I asked, “is it stolen?”
She screwed up her face in a show of indignation. “No, it’s not stolen. I’m not a car thief. But I took the long way here, stopping to trade my car in for something a little bigger and a lot less conspicuous.” She was right, the red Mini Cooper she had on the night we met was an eyecatcher, but the redhead inside? Impossible to ignore.
“What are you running from exactly?” She’d said an ex had sent his men after her. Henchmen, she said, which meant he was more than a low-level gangster.
“I already told you. Goons who want to drag me back to a life I already left behind.” The way she sighed and her shoulders slumped reminded me of my own demeanor when I left Texas for the last time. She scraped every last bit of sauce and cheese from the lasagna on her plate, and then rinsed it in the sink, readying herself to say something. “I appreciate the dinner, Dallas, I do. But you don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you care. I dropped all this in your lap unexpectedly and you’ve handled it like a champ, but you don’t owe me anything. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you did.”
Goddammit, this girl was determined to make me get in touch with my sensitive side. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to, Rocky.” Including her.
“Right,” she said and pushed my hand away as I slid a plate of chocolate cake in front of her. “Stop trying to feed me if you want me to believe you’re as tough as you appear.” But she sliced her fork through a corner, bit it and moaned low and deep.
“And don’t try to distract me with that sex moan. Just tell me what I want to know.”
“My what?” She choked as she swallowed another bite.
“That sex moan. Believe me, I remember.” Her cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink, especially considering all the dirty shit we’d done together that night.
Rocky rolled her eyes and pushed the plate away. “Okay, the short version is that my dad is—or maybe was—a bank robber. We learned one day a long time ago that I had a knack for planning heists, which meant I had no choice but to do them with him.”
I poured her a glass of milk to go with the chocolate cake and let her roll out the story.
“At first it was fun, you know, drawing up plans and spending time with my dad. But then it became a job and two months before I turned seventeen, I left Florida behind. Hopped on a bus, stopping here and there to wait tables and gather more cash for wherever I landed. When I got to California, it was my first taste of freedom.” She inhaled deeply. “It was so intoxicating, all the sunshine, which I was used to, but the freedom. It was great!”
She smiled and for a moment she looked like the sexy redhead I’d met on the beach, looking hotter than anyone should in plain black slacks and a fitted white shirt.
“I know a little something about that,” I said. “After the military I went back to Texas and my family and their oppressive fucking expectations. When I made my escape, it was to here. There was no ocean but that smell and that feeling of freedom. Yeah I know exactly what you mean.” It was like being released from prison or gaining eyesight for the first time.
But I was interrupting her. I apologized and told her to tell me the rest.
“So I was waiting tables and selling my crafts on the beach when I first met Genesis. He was good looking and he had that charm that really young seventeen-year-old girls find appealing, and I was a really young seventeen year old.” She rolled her eyes with that self-deprecating smile that brought back memories of our night together.
