Page 79 of Crossing Paths
“Ohhh.” As he talked to the dispatcher, she remembered she had a call to make too. Digging out her phone was complicated, but she finally succeeded, only to have it plucked from her fingers. “Hey!”
Dash must’ve finished his conversation with dispatch, since his phone was nowhere in sight, and he held hers out of reach above her head. “I’ll call your sisters for you. Right now, you’ll just freak them out.”
She pouted for a second and then shrugged. Even with her brain not functioning on all cylinders, she knew he was right. She held up her thumb, and he touched the phone to it. Once it was unlocked, he made the call.
“No, it’s Dash.” There was a pause before he added, “She’s fine now. Just not fully coherent yet. No. Drugged.”
Norah was glad she had gotten out of making the call, as Molly’s voice on the other end got louder and higher pitched the more Dash told her. “Thought the plan wasnotto freak her out,” she muttered, making him give her a sideways look.
“Laken, working with Leifsen.”
Molly’s voice said something Norah couldn’t make out, but she could tell that her sister had switched from frantic mode to straight-up rage.
“He tried to take her. I stopped him.”
Molly asked a question.
“Not dead. Unconscious. Stuffed in his trunk.”
Norah was starting to feel impossibly exhausted, so she leaned heavily against Dash. He took her weight, pulling her closer without missing a beat of his phone conversation.
“Alley behind Dutch’s.”
She tipped her head up and saw his eyebrows quirk.
“No explosions. Why?”
“She’s always getting almost blown up,” Norah tried to explain, but that didn’t calm down Dash’s eyebrows.
“Yeah. Okay. We’re closer to Petunia Street.”
Something about Dash saying “Petunia” struck her as funny, and she started to giggle. He looked at her with an odd look on his face as he ended the call.
“Thanks for doing that,” she said, trying to stop laughing but only succeeding in giving herself the hiccups. “If I’d called—hic—it would’ve been a disas-hic-ter.”
“Yeah, pretty much.” He was half smiling as he said it, and she stared up at his interesting, fantastic face, her feelings striking her hard.
“I love you—hic—so much.”
His half smile turned into a whole one. “Love you too.”
Completely contented, she burrowed closer into his side. “Now that that’s sett-hic-led, is it okay if I pass—hic—out?”
Without waiting for permission, she let her eyes close and darkness drop over her, knowing that Dash was there to keep her safe.
Eighteen
It’d beendayssince she’d passed out in his arms, and Norah had long since recovered, but it was becoming more and more obvious that Dash hadn’t yet.
“You’resureyou’re up for this?” Dash stared at her from the driver’s seat as if he was trying see right under her skin to check for hidden injuries.
She held his gaze so he could see she meant what she was saying. “Yes. If I had to stay home any longer with all four of my sisters, one brother-in-law, and two boyfriends-in-law checking on me every two minutes, I would’ve done some sort of damage. I’m fine.”
“You passed out.”
“I was tired.” She waved a hand, dismissing that. “I woke up as soon as you started poking at me.”
“You werehospitalized.” He said the word like it hurt him.
