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“I can’t.” I turned to go.
She grabbed my forearm. “Wait.”
I snapped my head back toward her, and her fingers flexed in response.
“How hard is it to tell me your name?” she snapped.
My clenched jaw shot a fresh jolt of pain through my head.
Morgan blinked and awareness flashed across her delicate features. “You don’t know, do you?”
I couldn’t admit my vulnerability. I showed her the vest and pointed to the name tag on it.
“Tristan. Hmm, you don’t look like a Tristan,” she said. Then with a shrug, she offered me her hand again. “Nice to meet you, Tristan. Do you have a last name?”
I took her hand and shook without answering.
“Tristan No-last-name it is.” She chuckled softly.
The laughter seemed to be a nervous habit of hers. The sound of it lingered in my chest, loosening something that shouldn’t be loosened.
“If you’re not going back into the hospital, you at least have someone at home to take care of you, right?” she said. “You’re not supposed to be alone after a head injury. It’s the number one rule of brain bonks.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Her hand still lingered on my arm. The contact felt warm and raw. It somehow made me both want to recoil and remain so still she never let go.
She looked down at my ring finger.
“No wife,” she said.
I didn’t respond.
“Girlfriend?” she asked.
I said nothing.
“Your clothes look too fancy for you to need a roommate, but the vest betrays your sordid truth. You were well-to-do but then lost everything on your gambling addiction, so you took a job as a crossing guard to pay down your debts. Ooh, the only gambling you do now iswith people’s lives.Tell me if I’m getting warm.”
I stared at her, trying to decide what her angle was. She’d freely admitted to causing my injury, and therefore agreed to shoulder the repercussions. I’d grabbed her and pinned her to a wall, and still she didn’t run. Who was this woman? And why was she still here?
“All joking aside, I really can’t in good conscience leave you alone in your condition.” The look she gave me was one not of pity, but of finality.
“Then what exactly do you intend?” I asked.
“Where do you live? Wait. I can’t go back to your place. You could be a serial killer.”
A small smile pulled at my cheek. It hurt. I let it fall. “You think I’m going to kill you, yet you don’t flee?”
“I don’t think you’ll kill me, but I have to be smart and remember the possibilities. That’s what it means to be a woman. Now come on, we’ll go someplace public and neutral, and if you try anything, the next time I hit you with a hammer, it won’t be an accident.”
I should have been put off by her threat, but I wasn’t. I was intrigued.
TEN
MORGAN
I’d never seen a man go from domineering confidence to lost puppy in zero seconds flat. In fact, in my experience, men tended to pick a lane, and they stayed in it.
