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“Yeah, it’s only a few miles south. Got everything we need.”
That widened her smile. “As long as there’s beer in the fridge and condoms in the nightstand, you always have everything you need.”
He winked. “Bikini weather, baby.”
Sometimes he was so silly. His relaxed outlook put so much into perspective. She’d fallen down and yeah, it had hurt. But just like Danny said on the roller rink, he’d been there to dust her down.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m saying you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”
“I neverhadto do anything,” he said. “I don’t worry… about anything. You’re hot and you suck my cock.”
Folding her arms, she sank back against the dinette seat. That was all Danny needed to complete his world.
“You’re sweet,” Tess said, narrowing an eye. “In your own way.”
“Come, don’t come,” he said, waving his fork over his plate before stabbing the last piece of his pancake to sop up the syrup. “Your call. But if you don’t have any other place to be…” Then what was the point of saying no? “What about the numbers?”
She groaned and dropped an elbow to the table while scooping her hair up off her face. “Don’t remind me.”
The damn numbers. Still, they meant nothing to her. What the fuck? As a teen, she’d wanted to embrace tech like all the other kids in the various high schools she’d attended. Her mom was fervent in her opposition. And, of course, Anne won the battle. Since then, she hadn’t thought about it more than a handful of times. For the first time, plugging the numbers into the screen was tempting. It would be so quick. So easy… So stupid.
“If I ever figure them out, I’ll do something about them,” she said. “All I’m doing is staring at them. I don’t know what they mean.”
“Put ‘em in online.”
“Yeah, because at least something coming for me would be progress.”
Danny selected another pancake. “So… Do it.”
Finding a library would be easy. Figuring out the computer might be more difficult. Danny would help figure it out.
“I don’t know,” Tess said, mesmerized by the flame of the candle. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. My mom loved me, that’s all I need to know. Why should I open the can of worms? Once it’s open, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to close it again.”
“The easy life. Sounds good to me.”
“Easy.”
It would be easy to sink into life on the road with Danny. Maybe one day the Big Bad would catch up with her. Maybe it wouldn’t. If whatever it was only wanted her mother, it had won.
If it wanted her and she was with Danny when it came for her…
Tess didn’t want him to be hurt, but she was exhausted. After their trip and finding the letter, she’d expended so much mental and emotional energy that she was just spent.
Maybe a couple of weeks on the beach with Danny was exactly what she needed.
EIGHTEEN
STARTLED BY THE SQUIRT of cold lotion on her back, her torso rose a few inches from the flat lounge chair. The hands that pushed her down to massage the lotion into her skin belonged to the man who’d touched her everywhere. Those hands had been on her body so often they were becoming an extension of her.
Relaxing again, she smiled and settled into her happy half-slumber again.
“Sun’s dangerous, Little Red,” Danny said, taking his time about rubbing the lotion over her shoulders and down her ribs, his fingers meeting the side of her breasts more than once.
“So you keep telling me.”
Lying face down on the flat lounge chair, she’d untied the strings of her bikini so she wouldn’t have a line across her back. The Beast was just a few feet away. Home was in this perfect spot.
Her roommate was supposed to be out getting groceries. Though she had been sleeping there a while. Maybe he’d completed the errand and returned already. He’d sure got more lotion from somewhere.
