Page 38 of Wraith
He paid and hurried back to the car, setting the bags at Amelia’s feet.
“Did you get stuff for your wound?” She asked.
He smiled. “Yes, mother.”
She merely grunted at him and began going through the bags after handing him the keys. Wraith watched her for a second before starting the ignition and pulling back onto the road. Eventually, he found a secluded bit of land and pulled over. He sat patiently while she fussed over his wound and babbled about how it could get infected. She seemed irritated it might leave a scar. During her nursing session, Amelia was close. Her soft, perfume was long gone. Replacing cherry blossoms was the soap she’d used in her last shower. Still, he wanted her close.
“I’ll be fine, Amelia, really.”
“You might be used to this.” She held up a band-aid, frowned and dropped it back into the bag. She ripped another piece of her shirt and finished off dressing the wound by tying it over the gauze on his arm. “But I’ll never be all right with you getting hurt.”
“Does this mean you’re falling in love with me, Hummingbird?”
“Are you trying to get slapped?”
“I’d settle for a kiss.” He smiled. “I was told a great nurse knows when to kiss it better.” He wasn’t sure where those came from, but it was too late to take it back.
She hesitated but eventually dropped a chaste kiss to his lips. “Okay there.” She seemed quite proud of her work.
“That’s all I’m getting?” Wraith teased.
To his shock, Amelia placed a tender kiss over the material then turned to look out the window. He smiled, fixed his shirt back in place and started the engine.
They barely said two words to each other after. Wraith wasn’t sure what he could say without sounding like a complete tool. But the kiss she’d dropped on his arm did make him feel better. What did that even mean?
Knowing the conditions of the road the rest of the way would be terrible, he decided to stop for the night. He parked the Mustang at the back, away from view of the road then removed a large duffle bag from the trunk. He took her hand and led her into the crumbling building.
Stepping into the motel was like stepping into something from an old, horror movie. The windows looked as though they hadn’t been cleaned in years and the counter was stripping. The old sofa was something straight from the seventies. There wasn’t much left of it for the thing had seen too much action. One leg was propped up by three old books.
Bastards!
The clock on the wall was stuck on ten o’clock and the picture behind the old man at the front desk could be the statue of Liberty but with all the dust on it, who could tell?
Walking up to the front counter, Amelia gripped tighter to Wraith’s hand and he looked down at her and smiled.
“My wife and I would like a room for the night,” Wraith said.
The old man peered at them over the rim of his crack glasses and Wraith wondered why he was still wearing it.
“And you took her to this dump?” the man wanted to know as he waddled over to a key.
“It wasn’t our first choice,” Amelia said. “But we were told the roads ahead would be horrible so—you know?”
The man placed it into Wraith’s hand and eyed Amelia again before scribbling something into a book. “Makes sense.”
Wraith led her down a dimly lit hallway with cobwebs hanging off everything.
“Do you think they’ve ever cleaned this place?” Amelia asked.
“Maybe five hundred years ago.” Wraith frowned and turned the knob. If fell off in his hands and he swore. “Sorry.” He muttered. He wasn’t used to having a woman around him on a mission.
He smiled when she shrugged at him and pushed the door open to step into the room. Following her he looked around. The actual room surprised him and from the way Amelia’s jaws dropped he could tell it did the same to her. The walls were blue and adorned with pictures of different landscapes. The bed draped in blue sheets with matching pillow cases and a couple of black cushions.
Wraith dropped his bag on the bed and fixed the gun in the back of his waist. He dug through the bag for a shirt and handed it to her. “You can take a shower and put this on.”
“I keep losing clothes. And the last top I had, well, you’re kinda wearing it. I mean what’s the point?”
“I’m not upset you keep losing clothes.”
