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Roxy had her seat reclined a good forty-five degrees when he returned to the car. Her eyelids drooped, and she absently stroked the dog’s outsize ears. The animal snored softly.
“So much for a watchdog.”
Two sets of eyes blinked open and focused on him. The canine pair looked wary, reminding him of how a certain rain-soaked hitchhiker had regarded him the first time she’d found herself in his cruiser. This time, however, Roxy’s tired eyes lit with relief as she watched him put her guitar in the backseat. The purse he handed her went to the floor by her feet with barely a glance. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He got behind the wheel. “How’s the head?”
“Oh, you know. Still attached.”
Neither the pithy reply nor the way she kicked her lips up at one corner concealed the pain in her voice. He reached out and carefully swept an errant curl behind her ear. “Let’s try to keep it that way, okay?”
She turned her gaze to the front window. “That’s always been a goal of mine.”
“Good.” He started the engine and put the cruiser in reverse. “We have a shared goal.” After completing a three-point turn, he steered the car onto the all but empty road. “We’ll be home soon. In furtherance of our shared goal, once we’re there, let’s set you up on the sofa with an ice pack and a double dose of Tylenol. Then I’ll walk the dog and get him squared away for the night. And then, Roxy, if you have the energy, I want to go
over what happened—”
“I really appreciate this, West.” Twin pools of bottomless turquoise lured him like a desert oasis. “I know you’ve worked a long day. You’re fresh off a round trip to Richmond, and dealing with me and all the fallout of my choices tonight isn’t how you expected to spend your evening.”
He wouldn’t have it any other way. Well, no, he’d trade a vital organ to have her uninjured, and he did have serious concerns about several of her choices tonight, but when it came right down to it, he wanted to be the person she relied on when things went to shit, not just the geographically convenient guy she spent time with when she craved an orgasm or three. “I expected to spend my evening with you. Fallout happens.”
“To me,” she said.
“To everyone. You took care of me the night of Junior’s wedding.” He turned onto Main Street and slowed as he approached their place. “That was some pretty fucked-up fallout you dealt with.”
The dogwoods came into view, but she gave all her attention to him. “That’s normal. Getting drunk once in a blue moon on account of your friends is normal. I’m not normal, West. I probably never will be. I’m the kind of girl who lets her driver’s license expire because she doesn’t have a permanent address. I’m an ex-junkie and a struggling musician. At best. At worst I’m a…a…” She trailed off as he pulled to the curb, and he had a sinking feeling he’d just missed an opportunity. He should have circled the block and let her keep talking.
“You’re what, Roxy?” He unlatched his seat belt so he could turn and give her his full attention.
“I, uh, I act first and worry about the consequences later. I’m not an easy person to”—she moved her hand in a palm-up gesture from her heart to the world beyond the windshield—“care for. I know it.”
She had that last part so wrong it might have been funny, if it didn’t leave a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in his chest. She was easy to care for. Too easy. He already cared more than either of them had bargained for—certainly more than she wanted—but right now it felt critically important to tell her. “Roxy—”
A knock on the passenger window had Roxy, him, and the dog whirling toward the source of the sound. Cooper crouched there, smiling the goofy smile habitually on his face in Roxy’s presence. He clutched a dog collar and leash in one hand. “Supplies,” he said through the glass.
And with that, the moment shattered into a flurry of noise and activity as he and Cooper hauled dog food, bowls, treats, flea shampoo, and a dog bed inside, accompanied by a steady soundtrack of explanations from Cooper for the hand-me-downs from Moose, the firehouse Dalmatian, and expressions of undying gratitude from Roxy. The canine recipient of the generosity added plenty of less-than-appreciative ruckus.
It took ten minutes to get Roxy stretched out on the living room sofa with Tylenol, pillows, and a freezer bag full of ice, get Cooper out the door, and get the stupid dog on the stupid leash. It required another ten minutes and an unsustainable number of dog treats to bribe the skittish animal through a walk around the block. No amount of dog treats would bribe it into the tin tub he’d placed at the foot of the porch steps and filled with the hose. West ended up stripping his shirt off and muscling the pathetic creature through a thorough scrubbing with the flea shampoo. His freshly bathed houseguest defected to the bowl of dog food already set out on the kitchen floor as soon as he was dry enough to come into the house. West dragged his tired, wet-dog-stinking self into the shower for his own thorough scrubbing and spent those minutes working on what to tell Roxy when he finally made it back to resume their conversation.
He hadn’t fully worked it out when he walked into the living room. A news team talked at low volume from the TV screen across the room. He leaned over the back of the sofa, carefully lifted the ice bag from Roxy’s forehead, and discovered her sleeping like the proverbial log. Turning the TV off didn’t rouse her. She barely stirred when he picked her up and carried her to his bedroom. Her breathing resumed the slow, steady pace of the deeply relaxed as he slipped her out of her clothes and under the covers. When he joined her there and eased her banged-up head onto his shoulder, only the faintest of sighs from her suggested she found the position as comfortable as he’d hoped.
He reached over and turned the nightstand light low. Then, to the shadow-lined room, he said, “You’re not a difficult person to care for, Roxy. Lots of people here would back me up on that. Addy cares—and yeah, she’s a serial care-er, but she doesn’t give out jobs and rooms to every lost soul who lands in town. Dobie and Kenny care. Just do me a favor and don’t take any headache remedies they might offer you. Ellie cares. Cooper cares.”
Her exhales continued to flutter over his chest. She was somewhere in dreamland, probably performing for a packed stadium full of fans who loved her. That was her dream, right? And with dreams that big and the talent to make them come true, would Bluelick ever be enough, no matter how deeply anyone here cared?
A valid question, but one he decided didn’t matter much tonight, in his bedroom, with her safely beside him, sleeping off the effects of her hazardous evening.
“I care,” he said, and the words came out low, almost hoarse, like the sound of a rusty hinge opening after decades without use. “I care a lot. I—uh-uh, no,” he said to the dog, who padded into the room. “N. O. Don’t even think about it.” Despite the direct order, it put his front paws on the bed, brought its ugly mug topside, and stared up at him with big, pleading eyes.
“The answer is no. No fucking way. Don’t waste that sad puppy look on me. Your bed is in the hall. You are not sleeping in mine.”
Chapter Nineteen
God, the Caravan needed a carwash. She snuggled her cheek into her nice, clean travel blanket and promised herself that as soon as they made it to Sacramento, she was going to let her mom know Linen Fresh Febreze didn’t cover the scent of musty seat covers and—she twitched her nose as a warm waft of something that stank like day-old Taco Bell hit her directly in the face. Gross. With a low groan, she rolled away and blinked her eyes open to complain to…
Light eddied in through her lashes and washed away the vestiges of her dream, leaving only memories of last night’s drama. She turned toward West and found herself eye to eye with the smushed-up face of a panting black dog.
“Oh. Hey, boy,” she whispered. “Did West let you up here? I bet he did. He doesn’t want people to know it, but underneath that tough-guy exterior, he’s just a big marshmallow, isn’t he?”
