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“Damn. They’re strict nowadays.” He stood and then extended a hand and hauled her up as well. “I guess we’ll play poker instead. Hang on, I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared down the hall. She folded joy’s blanket then tossed it, plus the shopping bags, into the guestroom. Then she tidied the sofa cushions. Finally, she walked Joy over to one of the front windows and looked at the glowing porch light of the house across the street. “Okay, baby, listen up. Two pair beats one pair. Three of a kind beats two pair. A straight beats three of a kind, and then…shoot, I can’t remember if a full house beats a straight or if a flush beats a straight and a full house beats a flush.”
“Flush beats a straight. Full house beats a flush.”
She turned and watched Hunter walk back into the room. How the man filled out a simple pair of jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt did unspeakable things to her insides.
He stopped several steps short of her and looked around. “Did you…clean up in here?”
“I put a few things away.”
“Don’t trouble yourself. This is a house, not a showroom.” He extended an arm for the baby. “Trade you.”
She tucked Joy into the cradle of his arm and took the bundle he held in his other hand. The bundle separated into a large, dark blue bath towel, a matching hand towel, and a washcloth.
“These might come in handy.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Jeez, someone had given the man guest towels, and he was busting them out for her.
“You’re welcome. Yell if you need anything.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.” She grabbed the bag of “necessities” and started toward the hall, but the compulsion to give him something more gracious than the reluctant thanks she’d offered earlier brought her to a halt. She looked over her shoulder at him, framed by the window, holding the baby against his shoulder. “We…” No, not we. Don’t water it down. “I mean I…” Better. “I’m glad we’re here.”
“I’m glad you’re here, too.”
Chapter Seven
Hunter walked around the impound lot, cradling an increasingly cranky Joy against his shoulder and patting her back while Madison exchanged paperwork with a stone-faced dude behind bulletproof glass. Hunter wasn’t close enough to overhear the conversation, but he saw the guy present her with a sheet of paper and use the end of a pen to point to something at the bottom. Madison covered her mouth with her hand and turned as white as the invoice. She leaned in and started talking fast. The man behind the glass crossed his arms over his barrel of a chest and shook his head.
Joy whined, hiccupped, and then spit up all over the side of his neck. Awesome. He switched her to the other arm and used the baby blanket he’d tossed over his shoulder to wipe up the mess. The baby quieted now that she’d popped the cork on the pressure in her stomach. He looked back at Madison in time to see her peel bills off a thin stack and give them to the man behind the glass. He handed her a set of keys and a receipt.
She took both and then walked toward him on unsteady legs. On the drive over, he’d tried to warn her about tow fees, daily storage costs, and processing fees, but obviously his warning had fallen on deaf ears.
“Everything okay?” Clearly no, but he didn’t think leading off with, “How completely fucked are you?” would do anything to level her out.
“I…um”—she scrubbed a hand over her forehead—“I got my keys.”
“Good job. I think this pretty girl is about to conk out. Let’s caravan back to my place, and put her down for an hour or so.” And then have the come-to-Jesus chat he’d put off yesterday.
“All right.” She looked around slowly, but behind her shell-shocked expression he could practically see her mind whirling, and he had to assume the answer to his unasked question was Fucking fucked.
He reached out and took her hand, gave those ice-cold fingers a squeeze. “See you at home.”
She tailed him back to the house and parked the battered maroon Outback at the curb. He met them at the front walkway. Her face no longer looked pale. Red eyes and tear-stained cheeks added color. She cuddled the snoozing baby and shook her head when he held out his hands in a silent offer to take her, so he took the diaper bag from her shoulder and ushered her toward the front door. Instinct told him to start simple. Ask a question she could answer—something that would slowly but surely lead the conversation around to the difficult questions.
“What part of ’Bama are you from?”
“Sorry, what?”
He opened the door for them and repeated his question.
“A little place called Shallow Pond, in the northern part of the state.”
“Nice place to grow up?” He led her into the living room, set the diaper bag next to her purse on the end table, and watched as Madison slipped Joy into the baby bed parked on the coffee table. Then she sagged down onto the sofa as if the weight of the world rested on her narrow shoulders.
“Small. Quiet. Kind of lonely after high school because most of my friends went away to college or joined the Army. The rest moved to bigger places with better jobs.”
He sat down beside her. “You stuck around?”
