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I paused mid-burger, making sure there was no mustard on my cheek. “What?”
He seemed to realize that he was staring then, because he shook his head like coming out of a dream. “You’re something else, Sparky.”
Placing the burger back on the plate, I smiled at him. “I’m one of a kind.”
“Thank the gods. I’m not sure the world would survive if there were two of you.” He laughed.
He couldn’t have known, but the words hit me like a punch in the solar plexus. All the air in my lungs escaped in a whoosh. I’d done it to myself with the one of a kind line, but for some reason I hadn’t thought anything he said would get to me.
Yet he’d accidentally found the perfect knife and stabbed me in the heart with it.
Cade must have seen a change in my expression because his smile vanished. “Sorry. I offended you.”
“No.” I gave my head a gentle shake.
“I did, you’re upset.”
I so didn’t want to get into this with him right now. It’s just when it came to Sunny, reminders were hard. There were days her absence felt like a death, like part of me was gone forever instead of living in Arizona.
Twenty years was a long time to live without half of yourself.
There were days I barely thought of her, and that made it harder when something would come out of the blue to remind me of her, and I’d feel hollowed out all over again.
I picked a slice of bacon out of my burger, then dropped it on the plate.
“Well, now I know something is wrong.” He touched my hand, and that only managed to make things worse, reminding me of everything going on between us and more stuff I could add to the list of things I shouldn’t be wasting my time thinking about.
“It’s not you, I promise.” Grabbing the tablet, I shut it off and jammed it in my bag. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Let’s get some sleep, okay?”
Cade opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but I shut him up with one stern glare. If he kept pushing this, there was a chance I’d start crying, and I did not want to cry twice in one night. Blame it on being run-down by all the magic use, but I was hanging by a thread.
Plus, I knew now that Cade had no finesse when it came to dealing with an emotional female.
We paid and walked back across the lot to the motel. He ducked inside to check the room, making sure no surprises had appeared while we were gone. Dropping my bag next to an Adirondack chair in front of our room, I plopped down into the low seat, kicking my legs out in front of me.
I had a gun in my bag, something I rarely had cause to use, but I w
as grateful to have it right now. As useless as it would be against an immortal, not everyone coming for us would be a god. And thinking about attackers was a great way to distract myself from thoughts of Sunny.
Cade reappeared in the doorway and glanced down at me.
“You sleeping out here?”
“Watching.”
A deep furrow formed between his brows. “Tallulah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“And I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to be in there with you at the moment.” I tilted my head up and gave him a meaningful nod.
He smirked. “I won’t try anything.”
I snorted. “I’m not worried about you.” The man clearly had no concept of how much sexual charisma was radiating off him at any given moment. I was not immune to it.
“Want me to join you out here?”
The offer was sweet, and under different circumstances I’d have said yes, but one of us needed to be well rested in the morning if we were going to make decent time. We had to get at least as far as Shreveport the next day. I was hoping between the two of us we’d be able to push the full twenty-hour drive, but that would only be possible if no one else tried to kill us between now and then.
Fat chance.
