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“Ms. Blake,” Officer Lambert said. “Perhaps you can answer a few questions for us?”
Donni tore herself from the terrible thoughts in her head, feeling like she was trying to claw her way out of a riptide. “Where’s my car?” she asked pathetically.
“It’s being looked at by forensics. You’ll get it back soon.” Officer Corcoran’s voice was short, like she was wasting her time. Or thought she was a suspect.
Was she a suspect? But there were witnesses.
Like there had been witnesses before?
Donni felt the edges of her vision turn gray.
“Can I bring her to the station tomorrow? She’s clearly had enough and you’ve got another witness—” He jerked his head at Neil, who was smoking nervously as he was interrogated by a different set of cops. “Or is she under arrest? Do I need to call a lawyer?”
The officers looked a little abashed at that, stung by the ring of white male authority. That made Donni angry again—at them, at Rafe, at the whole fucking situation. But it was like her body could no longer process all of that anger anymore, so it just absorbed it all like poison and made her feel worse. “I want to go home,” she said, in a very small voice.
Rafe pulled her to her feet and her heels wobbled dangerously. He put his hand out again to steady her, but this time his grip tightened when she tried to take her arm back, settling low on her waist. Did it look like a stepson comforting his stepmother? She wondered. Or did it look like what it actually was: a man trying to corral his iterant lover?
I wonder what the hawk-eyed Officier Corcoran thinks of that, Donni thought, though she repressed the urge to look. “Can I go?” she repeated. “Please?”
She didn’t need to fake the desperation in her voice.
“Make sure you come by the station tomorrow,” said Officer Lambert, which she took to mean a yes. Corcoran threw him a vaguely incredulous look.
She thinks I’m going to run, Donni thought, and a nervous giggle escaped her.
“I parked this way.” Rafe still hadn’t released her. “In the overflow parking.”
She studied his face, wanting a read on him. The only way a man could be colder is if he were submerged in ice. He’d been like that as a kid, too. Stoic. With his father’s constant berating and his mother’s tantrums, it was a wonder he was capable of expressing any normal emotions at all.
“Rafe,” she said. “Do you ever reallyfeelanything?”
“I was worried about you,” he said. “Running off alone. Just to prove a point.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then I don’t know what you’re asking.” His eyes flicked to her. “Christ, you’re pale,” he muttered. “Did you eat anything? It looked like you’d thrown up nothing but bile.”
Humiliation rose through her in a devastating wave. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child. You might be a man now, but you’re not my fucking father.”
They were at the Mercedes but at her words, he stopped short, bringing her to such an abrupt halt that she crashed into his chest. He put his hands on her shoulders, gently holding her at length, but the strength in his grip was nearly paralytic.
“Tell me what I should be,” he said, with stark intensity. “And I’ll be that.”
Her body went as straight as a post. “I think you should be in Oregon.”
Rafe chuckled quietly as he shrugged out of his flannel and handed it to her. She stared at the black-and-white-checked fabric before snatching it with a scoff.
“Seriously. Don’t you have anything better to do than follow me around?”
“Like what?”
“Like your job.”
“I’m working on my next book right now,” he said. “And that affords me some flexibility, which is especially useful considering that you keep jerking me around. What about you?”
“I have a job,” she hissed.
“No. I mean, why did you choose Christophe over me?”
