Page 64 of Ocotillo Kisses
Chapter Twenty Two
Conwoke alone, his arm stretched across the bed. The empty bed. He blinked, rolling toward the window where the sunlight streamed in between the heavy curtains.
Sunlight. He never woke in the sunlight.
Then everything came flooding back to him. Britt. The scent of her surrounded him in the bed, but she had gone.
He never woke quickly, but this morning his brain snapped into quick alertness. He reached for his jeans and his phone to see he had several text messages, but the most glaring information was that it was after ten in the morning. Panic slammed his heart against his ribs.
He swung his legs over the bed and ran his hands over his face. He needed to get home. Probably Britt had too, and that’s why she’d gone, but why hadn’t she woken him first?
He should shower, but he didn’t want to take the time. He should deal with his texts but he didn’t want to take the time for that, either.
He tugged his t-shirt over his head, even though, gah, it was rank, but he was going to go straight to work on the ranch anyway. At least he’d gotten some sleep.
Next to Britt. Something they’d never been able to do when they were teens. And he’d missed it altogether.
When he stood to pull on his jeans, his gaze dropped to the two room keys on the bedside table, and dread rolled his stomach. Sofia had given them two rooms and they’d only used one. She was going to notice. Part of him was tempted to run next door and rumple the other bed, toss some towels on the floor, just to throw her off the scent.
He picked up both keys and bounced them in his palm, considering if he really wanted to do that, or just face the fact that Sofia would figure it out, and go from there.
He opened the door to the motel, then stopped short.
Britt was sitting in the courtyard at one of the tables, a brown bag and two to-go coffee cups in front of her. She smiled at him, so pretty, and sat forward to open the bag.
“I didn’t know if you were ever going to wake up. I was going to give you another fifteen minutes, then wake you. Come have tacos.”
He blinked. She looked fresh, even in her clothes from yesterday, and everything from last night replayed itself, how she was once familiar and new, the eagerness of the girl replaced by the confidence of the woman. Softness replaced by strength, and oh, so sexy. His body stirred and he wanted to cross the sunny courtyard and drag her back into the room.
But he had responsibilities, obligations he had to get back to.
But a few more minutes, to eat with her. He owed her, owed himself that much.
“You should have woken me,” he said, crossing the courtyard to sit across from her.
“Con.” She set two foil-wrapped tacos in front of him and nudged a cup toward him. “I got up, took a shower and got dressed, and you didn’t budge. You were out. I didn’t know a human could sleep so soundly.”
“I was pretty worn out.” He gave her a wink, and was rewarded with a blush before she turned her attention to her taco.
She’d gotten him bean and cheese, and potato and egg, his usual order from when they used to ride to school together. He supposed it was probably a hard order to forget, since he got it literally every day, but he was still touched that she remembered.
And he was hungrier than he thought. The bag of chips and package of donuts didn’t hold out after last night. He hadn’t had a bean and cheese taco in years, and this one was delicious, if messy. He looked up from his taco, the beans dripping from the tortilla onto the foil beneath to see Britt grinning at him.
“What?” he asked after he washed down the bite with some coffee.
“Glad to see you’re not too worried about being graceful the morning after.”
He wanted to say something clever, or something romantic, but truly, his brain wasn’t awake yet. And all that he could think about was that he’d fallen asleep without appreciating her in his arms. He’d fallen asleep like a damn idiot.
“I’m sorry for passing out on you last night.”
“I think we passed out on each other.”
Ah. Well, that was reassuring, anyway. He wiped at his mouth with one of the thin napkins in the bag. “Probably not the most memorable first night.”
