“Morris.” The kid shakes his head. “We’re going to need to tow it. I can’t fix this without a repair bay and some parts.”
I nod and stand to face Alice. “Where were you headed?” I ask. “You’re gonna need a tow.”
Alice swallows hard, and it’s as if I can picture her doing the math in her head of how much a repair and a tow will cost.
“Don’t worry about the money right now,” I assure her. “One thing at a time. Where you headed?”
Alice’s face again goes blank. I step close to her, breathing her in. I want to take a fistful of that hair and tug her back against my chest. Reassure her that this shit is nothing. A couple bucks and a little time. I got this. I got her.
“You can trust me,” I say, trying to get past whatever walls she’s got up. “I only want to help. No strings.”
Alice rubs her face, and I can tell she believes me, even if she doesn’t want to.
“Alice,” I urge.
“We were going to get a motel room near Daytona,” she admits. “Well, that was the plan. Short-term, at least.”
“Short-term… You got an address?” I press. “We can drop you there.”
Alice shakes her head. Her caramel eyes look sad, like I’ve cracked her code in just one move. “I didn’t get that far,” she says. “We…don’t have a reservation.”
Well, fuck.
“Leo,” I call out. “Let’s get the sedan on the trailer.”
I turn to Alice. “You have what you need from the car?”
She shakes her head. “No, my phone and charger are in there. All our luggage. And the booster seat.” She points at the back seat. “Zoey still needs to ride in a booster.”
That’s news to me. But all right. We got a plan.
“Pop the trunk for me, sweetheart.”
I motion for Leo to help me move Alice’s luggage into the truck. She’s giving Zoey instructions to stand right by the car and not to move while Alice leans into the open rear door and starts messing with the booster seat.
I can’t help appreciating her long legs and that perfectly tight ass, but I tear my eyes away when I see Leo’s fixed on the same thing I am.
Mine.
“Hey, kid.”
“Yeah?” Leo comes up to me after loading the suitcases in the back of his truck.
I look at Alice and then Leo. Alice and then Leo.
“Let me make one thing clear,” I say, slinging a heavy arm over the kid’s shoulders. “Mine. Simple as that. You and me gotta sort out between us what’s yours and what’s mine, but this—” I nod toward Alice, who’s struggling to pull the booster chair from the back seat “—is mine. Unless you want your nutsac hanging from the tailpipe of my bike.”
Leo nods, a fast, curt move. “Got it, loud and clear. I got it,” he says.
“Good.” I motion for him to grab the kiddie seat from Alice. “Now figure out what the hell we do with that thing so we can get the fuck outta here. Then we got some things of yours to talk about.”
6
By the time Leo and Morris get my car onto the trailer, all the luggage moved over, and the booster seat set up, all of us are drenched with sweat.
I am braced for things to turn on a dime.
For Morris to turn from the passenger seat of the pickup, glare at me, and unleash a fury of blame.
This is my fault.
I did this.
I deserve to fail.
I deserve to be alone, broke, and abandoned.
I’m braced for the shift in him, and I can already hear his voice—some voice—echoing in my head with all that and worse.
But as I belt Zoey into the seat and strap myself in beside her, Morris turns and pulls a red bandanna from his vest pocket.
“Sweet motherf…” He looks at Zoey and widens his eyes. He redirects quickly. “Of princesses. Mother of princesses.” He stammers, trying to veer away from cursing.
Leo shakes his head from the driver’s seat, no doubt holding back laughter. I’m having a hard time believing what I’m hearing.
He holds out the bandanna to me. “Last chance,” he says, his cheeks ruddy from the heat. “I’ve only got one of these, and I’m the sweatiest mother…of princesses…I’m the sweatiest mother of princesses in this truck. You wanna towel off first?”
I look him over curiously. “But then that’ll be all sweaty for you.”
“Sugar, I don’t mind it sweaty.” Morris waggles his eyebrows at me, and I feel my cheeks heat.
Leo chortles and meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “I’ve got AC.” He fires up the truck, rolls the windows up tight, and blasts the vents.
“You go ahead,” I say to Morris. “We’re okay.” I open my purse and grab some tissues from a tiny travel pack and blot my face and neck.
Zoey’s cheeks are pink, so I urge her to drink a little water.
“Where are we going?” I ask, half not wanting to know. It’s completely insane, not to mention reckless, to have climbed in the car of a total stranger.
To have no place to go.
No way to get there.
As I worry through my many poor choices, my phone buzzes with an incoming call.
Jerry’s number flashes on my caller ID, and I quickly silence the phone. I stuff the phone back into my purse and put the wadded-up tissues in with it.
Morris seems to register my concern, but his eyes narrow only briefly before he turns to face forward and mops his neck with the bandanna. “I have a place,” he says. “Apartment. Don’t stay there much. But it’s safe and quiet. I’ll bring you and Princess Zoey there until we can get wheels back under you.”
I suck in a breath of the icy air that’s finally streaming toward the back seat of the truck. “Where do you stay if you don’t stay at your place?” I ask.
As soon as the words are out, I regret them. He’s probably got a girlfriend.
Of course, a man like this, a powerful, kind man, doesn’t sleep alone at home every night.
I don’t even know him, but I realize I really don’t want to hear the answer to the question I just asked. But then Morris surprises me.
“I got a room at the compound,” he says. “I’m VP, so I spend most nights in my room over there anyway, shooting the shi—” He flicks a glance behind him at Zoey. “Shooting the poop, playing cards. You know. That kind of thing.”
“Compound?” I echo, not entirely sure what that means.
“No shit, man?” Leo blurts out, pulling his eyes from the road to stare at Morris.
Morris lands a playful whack on the back of Leo’s neck. “Language,” he says. “Little ears.”
I shake my head, smiling at that. If only Morris knew the things Zoey has heard.
Fucking cunt.
Lying motherfucking bitch.
Asshole traitor of a wife.
All terms of endearment used by my very own husband. He never even bothered to ask Zoey to cover her ears, to leave. She knows she shouldn’t say the bad words, but she is not new to hearing them.
I don’t bother to share that detail with Morris. He’s my bearded, leather-wearing guardian angel. I don’t want to give him any reason to regret helping me.