Page 22 of Devil's Due: Sarge

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I wouldn’t think that you’d care for deserts.”

“Depends on the area I’m visiting. I sometimes have a hard time being around people – I like the wide-open space.”

“I’ve only ever lived in large cities, well, before ending up in that safehouse in Halfway. I grew up in Las Vegas. After my mom married Drew, we moved to a city outside Miami. Then for college, I went to UCLA.”

“You going crazy being in Bentley?”

“No, actually, not yet at least. I like knowing that people have my back. Vlad, Nic –and you. I like that Mr. Prichard makes inappropriate comments every time he sees me in the quickie mart, and Mrs. Pritchard slaps him upside the head. I like that when we call to order pizza, the staff at Antonio’s knows my voice. I feel like I’m part of a family, and I haven’t felt like that since my dad died.”

We fall back into companionable silence once again. And while he looks straight ahead, I can’t help taking in his beautiful profile. He’s so strong, and handsome – and those tattoos… Oh my god. I’d never imagined myself with a man covered in tattoos. Most educated men of my acquaintance didn’t have more than maybe one or two small ones, if any at all—but his are so sexy, and they mean something more than a drunken mistake. The one on his chest, dedicated to his fallen brothers, I think that’s my favorite.

He wants us to ride off together. Me, on the back of his bike. I found out that means something. When Vlad put Nic on the back of his bike, it meant he was serious about her.

“You know,” he says, breaking through the silence. “That’s what’s great about families. If you don’t like the one you’re born into, you build your own.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Building your own?” I didn’t mean it to be, but I think I just asked a loaded question.

“Yeah, baby…” He grips my hand a little tighter, pulling it to rest on his lap. “That’s what I’m doing.” Then he continues to drive as calm and cool as could be while my heart is busy thudding a million miles a minute in my chest. I don’t even know what to do with that information, so for now, I leave it hanging in the air without a response.

With Sarge being such a smart man, he knows what my silence means and doesn’t push the issue, instead releasing my hand to turn on the radio as we eat up the miles on the highway. I find that Sarge likes seventies rock. My dad was a fan, and because of that, I know the lyrics to most of the songs that play. As it turns out, his parents had both been fans, which is how he got turned on to the music as well.

I was in the middle of belting out “Sweet Home Alabama” the first time I caught him watching me. Now, every so often, I glance over to see him half-watching me, half-watching the road with a smile on his face. What we are heading into isn’t going to be fun, and I need to remember that. Because right now with Sarge and I road tripping across the country – I’m having a really good time.

We stop a couple of times for food, gas, and bathroom breaks, but seeing as we have very little time to get where we need to be, we have to keep pushing through.

Most of the truck ride, he holds my hand, either resting our joined fingers on his lap or mine. When we stretch our legs walking inside a place to eat, he keeps me tucked close to him, his arm around my waist. Now, I don’t go out of my way to make people jealous. It’s not my thing. But I have to admit, it’s nice catching the envious looks from those women seeing me on his arm. I’m the sole focus of his attention. A point made abundantly clear at this last restaurant we stop at, a truck stop. Sarge and I walk in, the smell of meatloaf and gravy – their special for the day – hanging heavy in the air.

He walks us over to a booth, helping me down into my side before sliding down onto the seat across from me. The waitress, a buxom brunette with three buttons too many undone down the front of her blouse, wanders over with her pen and order pad in hand. Sarge holds a menu in his hand, perusing it. Then he does something that completely floors me, in the best way, that is. He orders for me. No one has ever done that before, and it’s not like it’s a control thing. It’s him showing that in the time we’ve spent together, he’s listened… he really knows me.

“I’ll have a Coke, and my girl will have one of those coffee drinks.” He points to the menu, but she doesn’t look down at the menu. Her eyes grow wide as she slowly turns her head, a puzzled look on her face as if she’s just noticed me sitting here – which she probably has.

The waitress apparently thinks a great deal of herself. I mean, she’s certainly pretty but it’s thatwatch me take your manlook she tosses my way before reaching the tip of the pen to stroke it down the length of Sarge’s arm as if an extension of her finger that cements it. “I’ll be right back with that drink,” she says, then she has the gall to wink at him.

Seriously, lady? Does this really work for you?

When she arrives back with our drinks a few moments later, Sarge has pulled me halfway across the table engaging us in quite the lip lock. She clears her throat, but he never pauses kissing me, instead using his finger to point at the drinks in her hand and then down at the table. She sets them down hard enough to slosh some of the Coke and coffee over the rims of the cups and stomps away in a huff.

Once she’s gone, he pulls away, leaving my body locked exactly where he held me a moment ago, in a daze for about another minute. “There,” he snickers. “That should do it.”

“Does it for me,” I say, taking a sip of my drink through the straw. His snicker becomes a laugh while he reaches over the table to link our fingers together again. Sarge, I’ve found, likes to touch me… and I’ve found that I like being touched.

“Now, what sounds good?” he asks.

It’s not too long after that a new waitress wanders over to our table explaining how our waitress has gone on break. Sarge and I both order the meatloaf meal, as it comes with mashed potatoes and gravy, a vegetable, a side salad, and a roll.

The food is fantastic but the attention he pays to me is even better. Whose life am I living?

From the truck stop, we continue west, eventually crossing over the border into Oklahoma, after first journeying from Kentucky into Missouri. From Bentley, Kentucky to Tulsa is a twelve-hour drive, not counting stops. Including stops, we’ve been on the road for fourteen hours, so when he decides to find us a hotel for the night, I’m more than ready.

He pulls into the first place we see from the highway. A Best Western. Nothing fancy, but it will definitely work for our purposes for the night. I shrug the backpack over my shoulders and take his hand when we meet around the front of the truck. Together, we walk into the lobby, where he registers us as guests. After all is said and done, we’re handed a keycard and head for the elevator, then to our room on the second floor.

I’m so travel weary, that all I want to do is lie down. But many years ago, I watched this program—a hotel-flipping program, rather than a home-flipping program. The professional flipper, he touched on the subject of bedbugs and since then, the first thing I do is check for bedbugs around the base of the mattresses, and the outlets, and all the other places that he’d said they like to hide.

The room is quite clean. It’s nothing against Best Western or their fine hotels – they employ competent housekeeping – it just gives me some peace of mind. And no, not a trace of a bedbug in sight.

The second thing I do is roll down the top comforter because that was another thing I’d read you’re never supposed to use. Only then do I feel comfortable enough to kick off my shoes, flopping backward onto the bed and I sigh, stretched out over the mattress. Sarge kicks off his shoes and follows me down, but he doesn’t flop – oh no, not Sarge. He crawls up my body, scooting me farther up the bed by catching his hands in my armpits.

Heaven help me…The look of intense heat in his eyes sucks the breath right from my lungs. In the back of my mind, I knew we’d end up doing this tonight, but now that we’re here, and it’s real, I have… I don’t want to say reservations, because I want this, I’m not about to lie to myself and say I don’t. But there are questions, things I don’t know that I need to know before this goes any further.

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