Page 48 of The Scenic Route
She kicked herself for mentioning the bullet wound. It was so minor, he wouldn’t have ever needed to know, and now she had to entertain herself for the rest of the drive. It had been an especially frustrating last few hours in Vegas. There was no sign of the old pickup in the parking ramp of the hotel where Clint and Dino had stayed the first night, and all the front desk attendant could tell Felicity—when she pretended to be a friend of Dino’s looking to meet up with him—was that they’d checked out that morning.
They didn’t have any better luck at the dive bar. The greasy bartender from the night before had walked off the job, according to the bar owner, who wouldn’t give them their main suspect’s name or any information about him. The owner hadn’t been in the night before, and he claimed to not know Dino Fletcher or Clint Yarran.
Which meant that they were driving back to Simpson, Colorado, with nothing to show for their trip to Vegas…well, nothing except a brand-new marriage license. Her brain wouldn’t stop running and rerunning all her mistakes from the previous night until she pulled into a gas station and parked.
“Everything,” Bennett said as he got out of the car.
“What?” Felicity got out as well, looking curiously at him over the vehicle’s roof. They hadn’t said a word for almost an hour, but now he was talking like they were midconversation.
“I remember everything.” Turning away, he walked into the gas station, leaving her open-mouthed next to the car.
Twelve
Felicity couldn’t think of a way to bring up his comment once they got back on the road, Bennett driving this time. She couldn’t stop thinking about it though. If he remembered everything, did that mean he hadn’t been as affected by whatever their drinks had been spiked with? If the skeezy bartender had given them the same dose, that would make sense, since Bennett was so much bigger than her. But did that also mean he’d been thinking semi-rationally when they’d gone through with everything—the declarations of love, the license, the marriage?
She remembered at the diner, when he told her how beautiful she was, how smart and brave, and she wondered if he’d meant that. Could his inhibitions have been lowered but his true feelings not changed by his spiked drink? That line of thinking made her emotions go haywire—hope and wariness and worry that she was being naive, that she was inventing things to make herself feel better.
Tired of the thoughts rolling over and over in her head,she turned to Bennett as much as her seat belt would allow. She saw him glance at her from the corner of his eye, his body stiffening, as if he was bracing for whatever she was going to say. That reaction made her relax, strangely enough. The idea that he was more worried about that conversation than she was made her brave…although not brave enough to actuallyhavethat conversation.
“Where are we going to stay?” she asked instead.
He blinked twice, as if he was mentally adjusting to a topic he wasn’t expecting.
“Once we get back to Simpson,” she continued, still too wound up to risk any awkward silences. “Since we’ve been banned from their only motel. Lou said we could stay with her and Callum, but I don’t know them well enough to sleep down the hall from them.”
From Bennett’s expression, he strongly agreed with that. “What else’s close by?”
“Um…” She opened a travel app and did a quick search. “Nothing within ten miles…or fifteen…” As she broadened the search, she shivered. She hadn’t realized how very isolated Simpson was. What happened in the winter, when the highways closed because of a blizzard? Was the choice either rooming with strangers or staying in her car? A few more options popped up once she expanded her search to twenty miles and even more when she went to thirty. “Here we go. There’s a so-called bed-and-breakfast in Liverton, which is south of Simpson, but the pictures make it look like a murder cabin. We’d be better off in the car, I think. Connor Springs is about twenty miles west,and it has a few places. Rosehill is thirty miles away, but it’s an upscale ski town, so we’ll be paying a lot more.”
“The second one.”
Felicity clicked on the first Connor Springs option, a decent chain hotel, but they were full. She tried the next place, a more run-down-looking motel, and that one was closed for repairs. “Or to clean up after the last serial killer went through,” she muttered.
He made an inquiring grunt.
“Sorry. My imagination is still stuck on the murder cabin.” She started checking the Rosehill listings, but everything was booked. “There’s not even any snow yet. Why are people packing the place now?”
“Trees.”
“What about them?”
“The aspens.”
“Pbtt.” She blew a raspberry, even while ignoring the fact that she’d been excited to come to the mountains for that very reason. “They’re aspens. All they do is turn yellow. Maybe some of these hotel-room hoarders should try the East Coast. They have all sorts of leaf colors there.” Her grumping was interrupted when an available room at a Rosehill boutique hotel popped up. She eagerly read the details as her finger hovered over theBookbutton. “Oh, for Pete’s sake.”
“What?”
She tapped the button to book anyway and started entering her credit card information. “There was one room open in Rosehill. I’m grabbing it now.”
He paused as if waiting for her to continue and then finally asked, “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing.” Her voice came out a touch sullen, even as amusement at the situation rippled through her, easing her sour mood. “It’s beautiful. It costs an arm and a leg, but according to the reviews, it’s worth every penny.”
He huffed, and she couldfeelhim waiting for the rest of her answer.
“Fine. It’s the honeymoon suite.”
After a moment of silence, a laugh ripped from his chest, so loud and booming and unexpected that it was irresistibly infectious. Felicity joined in, and every time another bellow of laughter came from him, she had to echo it. Uncontrollable Bennett laughter was the absolute best.
