Page 12 of Over the Top

“Jeez. Paranoid much?”

Gunner didn’t bother to answer as he moved to the window and quickly pulled the curtains shut. He asked over his shoulder, “What are you gonna do with the kid?”

“Me?” Chas squawked. “Do I look like Mary Poppins to you? I’m no nanny.”

“She was a governess, not a nanny.”

“You’ve watchedMary Poppins?” Chas asked skeptically. “I challenge you to hum a few bars of any song from it.”

Gunner ignored the challenge. “I heard from my mom that you’re a schoolteacher. Little kids, right? Which means you’ll have a better idea of what to do with a kid than I will.”

He’d gotten updates from his mom on what Chas was up to? Color him shocked. Chas frowned and looked around the room. “Can we ask for a crib from the motel?”

“We could, but it would draw attention to us. Make us memorable. Better to, I don’t know, put pillows around her to keep her from rolling out of bed?” Gunner suggested.

“Sounds good to me.”

They had to borrow the cushions from the crappy sofa, but they made a cage of pillows around the sleeping toddler.

“How old is she?” Gunner asked quietly as they stood side by side, staring down at her.

“I’d guess a year and a half.”

Gunner reached for her, and Chas restrained him, grabbing his biceps quickly. Sweet baby Jesus, Gunner’s arm might as well be carved from granite, it was so hard. “Don’t wake her up. She’s traumatized as heck.”

“Gotta check her clothes for labels. Might be a name written in them.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t thought of that.

It turned out the baby didn’t give a flying fig if someone was poking or pulling at her clothes. She slept through Gunner’s whole label inspection. He took pictures of her and the clothing labels with his phone, and the flashes didn’t even make her stir.

“Labels are Japanese. No name in her clothes.” Gunner quickly sent the pictures over his phone, presumably to Spencer. “Should we clean her up?” he asked doubtfully.

“Grab a hand towel, and I’ll make a makeshift diaper for her. There’s a sewing kit here in the bathroom, and it has a couple of safety pins in it. They’re small, but they’ll have to do for now. As for getting the dried blood off her, let her sleep. Tomorrow morning is soon enough to give her a bath. Assuming the police won’t want to collect samples of the blood on her.”

Gunner snorted as he handed over the towel. “They can pull all the samples they need from you. Have you looked at yourself in a mirror recently? You look like an extra from a Friday the 13th movie.”

He flipped Gunner off and headed for the bathroom, where he tossed the toddler’s diaper in the trash. He gave himself a nasty start when he glanced up at the mirror. He was caked in dried blood. It was in his hair, under his fingernails, and had stiffened to kidney brown in his clothes. Even his face was liberally smudged with the stuff.

He stripped off his clothes and took a shower, scrubbing both himself and his shirt until they were more or less blood-free. The shirt was trashed, but at least he didn’t look like an axe murderer now.

As the blood washed away, so did some of his earlier tension, and the reality of the situation finally started to sink in. He was alone in a motel room with his first and only true love. The same guy who’d immediately left town and never come back when he’d found out how Chas felt about him.

He dried off and reluctantly donned his jeans, which were only brown with dried blood from the knees down. Shirtless, he stepped out into the bedroom.

The baby was awake and Gunner was sitting on the floor with her. She had something in her mouth, long and metal. “What is that?”

“Ammo magazine.”

“You gave a baby bullets?” he exclaimed.

“Of course not. I took the ammo out of the mag first. And it’s not like I gave her the pistol too.”

Chas raced over and snatched the gun part out of her mouth. “You’ve never been in the same room with a child under the age of five in your life, have you?” he accused.

“Not since I was under the age of five.”

Chas bent down to scoop up the baby and deposit her back on the bed. Glaring at Gunner, he gave her a clean washcloth to play with. She promptly commenced sucking it, and her eyes closed.

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