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Quinn took her hand again, though he didn’t try to suck one of her fingers into his mouth, so Lori relaxed.
“You said you’re on call tonight. What does that mean?”
“The tow truck. I’ll take any emergency calls until 6:00 a.m.”
He frowned. “So someone calls in the middle of the night and, what? You just drive out into the dark to help?”
“Yes. Oftentimes I give them a ‘tow,’ hence the name of the aforementioned truck.”
Deep lines of trouble appeared between his brows. “Does someone come with you?”
She tried not to roll her eyes, she really did. “No, Quinn. No one comes with me. I go out and tow the car. Sometimes I charge a battery or help someone out of a ditch.”
The waiter returned and set down a series of small plates, but Quinn never once broke contact with her eyes. His frown had turned into a glare.
“Lori, that’s ridiculous,” he said. “You could get hurt. A woman out there alone in the dead of night? What if the guy is drunk? What if he’s violent?”
Of course there had been men who’d stepped over the line. Men who’d theorized that a woman on the side of the road at 3:00 a.m. was probably open to all kinds of invitations. She couldn’t deny it, which made her mad.
“It’s part of my job,” she snapped.
“You’re, like, five feet tall.”
“I am five-two! And don’t be an ass!”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s my job, Quinn. I’ve been doing it for ten years now, and you weren’t the least bit worried about it for the past decade, so don’t be an ass and act concerned now.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I had no idea you’d been out risking your hide in the middle of the night. You could be raped or killed out there, damn it.”
“Well, so could my other drivers.”
His cheeks turned red and he clenched his jaw tight. “That is the…most…unbelievably stu—”
“Stop,” Lori realized he was still holding her hand—squeezing it now—and pulled free.
“Lori—”
“No. You don’t have the right to lecture me about my life.”
When Quinn sat back, eyes blazing frustration, Lori was struck with a sharp pang of distress at the distance. They were only going to see each other for a few weeks. She didn’t want to argue, not when they could be doing something much more relaxing.
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “If you go out tonight and something happens, how am I supposed to live with that?”
She needed this back on track. “Listen. Thank you for being concerned. But I’m not your responsibility. This is my job. I’m only on call once a week”—usually—“and I’m careful and smart. If someone is drunk, I have no compunction about calling Ben or one of his officers. I even keep a Taser in the truck. All right?”
“I don’t like it,” he bit out.
“Fair enough.”
Frustration lay tight across his face, but he didn’t say anything more. He just tapped a finger against the table in a frantic rhythm.
Lori looked purposefully down to the plates. “Tell me what we’re eating.”
He kept his jaw stubborn for a few moments more, and then glanced down in resignation.
“Come on,” she urged. “Truce.”
