Page 23 of The Pretenders of Copper County
“C’mon. Motel lady said they’ve got good burgers, and they serve all night.”
It felt like it had to be five in the morning, but I had no idea what time it actually was. When we’d gotten into the car back at the safe house, the dash clock had only read eleven thirty.
I thought back to all of the soup Reed hadn’t offered me, and the granola bar hehadoffered me but I hadn’t accepted because I’d believed Reed was a nefarious kidnapper, and realized I was kind of hungry now that he mentioned hamburgers.
It had been an eventful day.
I let him pull me out of the car but almost stumbled because one of my legs was asleep. He released my hand and headed across the abandoned highway. “Let’s go.”
The painful leg tingling caused me to do a weird hop-shimmy as I hurried to catch up, and I pulled my sweater tighter around me. I wasn’t sure where we were, exactly, but it was chilly.
“You think those, um, folks from earlier might be around?” I looked up and down the road for any telltale signs, like headlights or the bright-orange pop of gunshots.
Reed darted a look at me. “We weren’t followed if that’s whatyou mean.”
“Yeah, no, of course not.” I nodded with feigned confidence and tried to will my tension away. “I figured. So, um, about the mistaken identity thing?—”
“Can we not do this right now?” Reed interrupted. “I’m tired and hungry, and I really don’t have the patience to have this conversation again.”
I felt a very uncharacteristic urge to tell himIdidn’t have the patience to be dragged all over creation when I didn’tneedprotection… but I was tired, too, so I bit my tongue.
Even though I firmly believed the situation at the safe house had been a coincidence and no one had been coming after me—there was no way in the world my uncle had done any of the stuff Reed said he had, so therefore, there’d be noreasonto come for me—I was still feeling a little shaky. I guessed maybe that was normal after a person had spent the early part of the evening thinking he was being kidnapped and then the later part of the evening witnessing a low-key gunfight, but it was the opposite of normal forme.
When we entered the loud roadhouse, it looked like something out of an old movie. Pool tables took up the far-right side of the cavernous space, red vinyl booths skirted the edges of the room, mismatched tables and chairs filled in the space in the middle, and a giant wooden bar spanned the far-left wall. Neon beer logos shone from various spots on the wall, and random sports collectibles spotted all the bare places where there wasn’t a beer sign.
It lacked the Bugle’s charm, but the place still felt familiar, right down to the sticky floors. It was packed with a familiar assembly of people, too, from bikers, to preppy college kids, to rode-hard barflies shouting at the Bruins on the flat-screen TV to “get thelead out and learn to skate,” though they, themselves, looked like they might have gotten winded on the walk from the parking lot.
Heads turned our way as we stepped inside, but most everyone ignored us again within seconds. I spotted the sign for the restrooms and beat a hasty retreat in that direction with a muttered explanation to Reed.
When I returned, I found Reed taking up one side of a booth shoved between the doors to the kitchen and the pool tables.
“Ordered you a chocolate milk,” Reed announced as I sat down. He shoved a sticky menu at me. “Pick something to eat.”
I lowered the menu to look at him, surprised and touched. “Oh my gosh, thank you so much. You’d be surprised how many places don’t serve chocolate milk. How’d you guess it’s my favorite?”
He lowered his own menu to stare at me, a spark of amusement in his green eyes. “I was kidding. I ordered you a beer, babydoll.” He frowned. “Did youwanta chocolate milk?”
Heat flared in my cheeks. “Oh. No. I mean, beer’s great, too.” I cleared my throat and tried to make it sound gruff and deep. “In fact, beer’s way better. H-heck yeah. Good stuff.”
I glanced back at the menu but not before seeing Reed’s expression soften again.
Gosh, the man was complicated.
On the one hand, Reed Sunday was a total pain in my behind. The whole competent, commanding, grumpy-and-taciturn thing was hot when John Ruffian did it, but it was seriously flipping frustrating when it meant someone was failing to communicate important information (like“Hey, Chris, you’re not actually being kidnapped… in case you were worried about that.”) or failing to listen when you were trying to communicate equally important information (like“Hey, Reed, my uncle’s not a criminal, which means you accidentally ‘picked up’ the wrong protectee.”).
On the other hand, Reed was kind of great. He was beautiful (which wasn’tnewnews but worth repeating, since I was pretty sure on the way here I’d dreamed John Ruffian came to save me and I’d told him “no, thank you” because Reed was already on the case), but more than that, Reed made me feel safe.
There was no logical reason for this to be true. I’d spent most of our time together trying to seduce him (or, okay, be seducedbyhim), escape him, question him, or force him to listen to me, and I hadn’t been successful at any of those things.
But considering I’d never had the courage to seduce, escape, question, or talk back to… well, anyone ever in my whole life, the very fact that I’d done all those things with a person I’d only known for a handful of hours felt sort of… momentous.
Also, if I was being honest, the way he’d done thatclick-clickthing to check his gun back at the house was the hottest thing I’d ever seen, because it turned out I could hate guns but still appreciate when a brave, muscly person was willing to use one to protect me… which might have made me a giant hypocrite, but here we were.
I startled a bit as an older woman with bright red hair appeared at our table and set down two glasses of draft beer.
“What can I getcha, boys?”
“Oh. Um. Do you have any specials tonight?” I asked politely.
