Chapter 23
23
“Let’s go.”
Kai was holding out both of his hands. One had my phone in it, the other was clearly for me to take. I took it.
“Good-bye, Betty. I would definitely love to meet up with your reading group sometime.”
I could barely get those words out of my mouth before Kai was dragging me out of the Onyx offices. When we got outside, I winced. I desperately needed my sunglasses; the bright sun was already giving me a headache.
“Are you alright?” Kai stopped marching forward and placed his palm against my cheek.
“I’m fine. What’s the rush?”
“Never mind the rush. Are you okay?”
“The sun’s hurting my head,” I muttered.
His thumb brushed back and forth along my jaw. “Fuck, I should have thought of that. Your purse is in my truck.”
“No, it’s not. It’s in the hardware store parking lot,” I protested.
“Sweetheart, my truck is right over there,” he pointed.
I squinted and saw that Dave Draper was standing beside his truck, and Alice was standing next to a Prius. “Dave and Alice helped us out and brought my truck over here, so I could drive you to the hospital, or home, or wherever.”
“Home?”
Oh no . I hadn’t even thought about home. Kai must have seen the pain on my face. He pulled me gently into his arms. “Marlowe, it’s all going to be alright.”
“But I like my home.” My words were so soft I knew he couldn’t hear.
“I like your home too. And you will not have to leave it,” he whispered back to me. “That whole eviction thing is bull-doo-doo.”
I choked out a laugh. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Let’s get your sunglasses out of your purse and get you into my truck with the AC blowing. How does that sound?”
“Can we get dessert someplace? I deserve a treat.”
“Marlowe, you can get whatever your heart desires.”
This time, I kept my laughter inside. What would he say if I told him he was what my heart desired?
“Thanks, Dave,” Kai said as he held open the passenger seat door. Kai bent inside, grabbed my purse, and handed it to me. I fumbled with the clasp. The headache that Doc had warned me about was coming on strong and my fingers were all thumbs.
I shoved my purse at Kai. “Here, you find my glasses.”
He just held my purse and stood there like an ice sculpture. “Open it,” I prodded.
“Your purse?” he asked.
Dave grabbed it out of his hands, opened my purse, and plucked out my glasses, then handed them to me. “Don’t mind him. Bachelors are scared shitless of a woman’s purse. It took Alice five years to get me over my fear.”
Kai took my purse from Dave, who was laughing, and then Kai helped me up into the passenger seat and put my purse onto my lap. I slipped my phone into my purse and he shut the door. I saw Kai saying something to Dave, but I couldn’t hear it. Then Kai jogged around to the driver’s seat and came in.
“How bad is your headache?” he asked after he got the truck out onto Hwy 321.
“I need some ibuprofen and sugar pretty darn fast. I should have asked Betty if she had any. It was my bad.”
“Marlowe, no beating up on my girlfriend, okay?”
I turned my head to look at him, but he was staring out the windshield. Then his hand reached over and grabbed mine, and he tangled our fingers together. I felt myself melt, despite the blasting air conditioning.
“Girlfriend?” I finally asked.
“I’ve got to say, I’d prefer calling you my woman, but I wasn’t sure how that would fly.”
My fingers squeezed his tighter. “If it’s just you and me, I like that just fine. Because I sure as hell would like to be able to call you my man.”
I watched as a smile spread across his face. Ooh, this was a better look than the brooding Scottish warrior romance cover. Hmm, maybe he could be a hot next-door-neighbor-type that goes from friends to lovers. Yeah, that would work.
“So have you decided?”
“Huh?” What was he talking about? He didn’t know about my romance cover fetish, did he?
“Is it sugar, or ibuprofen?”
Oh. That . “Ibuprofen,” I answered.
I watched as he hit a button on his steering wheel, and the name Pearl’s popped up on his dashboard display.
After two rings somebody picked up and said, “Pearl’s.”
“This you, Pearl?” Kai asked.
“Yeah, who’s asking?” She did not sound all that pleasant.
“It’s Kai Davies.”
“Well, hey, Kai. Why didn’t you say so from the start?” Now she sounded almost motherly. “Are you stopping by for dinner tonight? It’s on the house, you know.”
“I need to know if you have ibuprofen there.”
“Of course we do. It’s in the first aid kit. You have a headache?”
“Marlowe does. Somebody tried to kidnap her and used chloroform on her. Doc said she’d probably have a headache. But Marlowe also wants something sweet.”
“Kidnap her?” Pearl screeched. “You hustle your buns over here. I’ll take care of poor Marlowe.”
The line went dead.
“We’re going to eat at Pearl’s tonight,” Kai said.
“Works for me.”
Hell, everything worked for me. I was Kai Davies’ woman!
“What do you mean, you were evicted? That can’t be right. Beau wouldn’t evict you, would he?”
I think someone was talking to me, but Marlowe was using her straw to scoop up the whipped cream off her milkshake and daintily lick the cream off the tip. I was breaking out in a cold sweat as I watched her.
She’s hurt. No sex.
She’s been injured. No sex.
She’s been scared. No sex.
“Kai, are you listening to me?”
I looked away from Marlowe to see Pearl glaring at me. “Tell me your brother would not evict our sweet Marlowe. Tell me.”
“It wasn’t Beau. It was our father.”
“Arthur?” Pearl screeched again.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marlowe wince. She was seated right next to Pearl, the same woman who had taken our orders, delivered our food, then promptly sat down at our booth and demanded to know everything that had happened.
“Pearl, you’ve gotta keep it down. Marlowe has a headache, remember?”
“Oh yeah, the chloroform.” She nodded. She turned to look at Marlowe who plunked her straw back into her milkshake. “Are you okay, baby?”
“I could probably go for a piece of pie,” Marlowe said. “To go.”
“Sure. What kind?”
“Surprise me,” Marlowe said. She winked at me as Pearl hurried away to get Marlowe her pie.
“So, where are we staying tonight, my man?” Marlowe asked. Her voice was a low purr. “Are we staying in Randy’s room? Your suite, or my rented house that could have all of my possessions thrown out on the front lawn.”
“First off, I’ve called Nash. The person in charge of throwing your possessions out on the front lawn would be the sheriff. Guess who doesn’t intend to do that?”
“The sheriff?” Marlowe guessed.
“My woman gets a gold star.” I saw her wiggle in her seat as I used the phrase, ‘my woman.’ It seemed she got off on it. Good to know.
“In that case, I would really like to introduce you to my sheets,” Marlowe whispered.
“I would love that introduction.”
Kai was being amazingly difficult to seduce. It was past the point of irritation and was now beginning to piss me off. When we’d first arrived at Onyx, I’d gone into the bathroom and cleaned up as best I could. Then when I got home, I’d brushed my teeth, brushed my hair, washed my face, and brushed on some mascara and lip gloss, so I knew I didn’t look like a swamp creature. But still, no go. And that was after I had played with him at Pearl’s with the whole milkshake, whipped cream, straw thing.
What the hell?
We were on the couch; I was snuggled up to the corner, with one leg tucked up beneath my fanny, and the other hanging off the edge. Kai was in the middle, looking at me. He was telling me some hilarious stories about the guys he had served with. I was with him. I really, really hoped that Clay would find himself a girlfriend. But more than that, I wanted to get Kai into my bedroom.
I had been touching his leg. Touching his shoulder. Touching his arm. Making sure that my t-shirt collar hung down as far as it would go so that he could see ta-ta. Sue always said that showing ta-ta would get me somewhere, but apparently not tonight.
“Honey, sex is not on the table tonight.”
What?
What-what?
“What did you just say?”
“Marlowe, I need you to know that making love to you has been the highlight of my life.”
“Why do I hear a but coming on? Are you dumping me?”
Kai reached over and grabbed me. In a flash I was on his lap. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Uhm. I don’t know,” I said quietly. “That kind of sounded like the start of a break-up speech. Everything has gone so fast for us in the last twenty-four hours, so I thought maybe…”
“You’re thinking wrong. Marlowe, we’ve been seeing each other for five weeks. Yeah, the last twenty-four hours has been intense, but why would I want to break up with you?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to answer that question. How did you say, I’m kind of fucked up in the head?
“Let’s go back to where you were saying that sex with me was the highlight of your life.” I put a wide smile on my face.
“Marlowe, you weren’t listening. I didn’t say sex, I said making love. I said what I meant. Seeing that man with his hands on you? Seeing you passed out in that van? That has a tendency to make a blind man see.”
Insecurity mixed in with this headache meant that Marlowe was not the brightest tool in the shed. Or maybe Kai just wasn’t saying things straight. Either way, I was frustrated as fuck!
“Just say what you mean.”
Great, I sound like an angry fishwife.
Kai laughed. “I’m not saying this right. Marlowe, you mean the world to me.”
“But…”
“Stop it, woman! What I’m trying to say is that today scared the shit out of me, and it smacked me in the face that I was head-over-heels in love with you. My life wouldn’t be worth living if I didn’t have you in it.”
In love with you.
He kept talking, but all that kept rattling around in my head was that he was in love with me . This guy. This real guy. This wonderful man. He was in love with me. And he was real .
Aw shit, I could feel the first tear trailing down my cheek. What the hell? I didn’t cry! What was going on?
“Sweetheart, say something.”
I struggled out of his arms to go get a tissue.
“Marlowe, where are you going?”
“Tissues,” I mumbled.
“I’ll get them. You stay right here.”
He came back in just a moment with the box. How had he known where the tissues were?
Focus!
I took four out of the box and pressed them up to my face, trying to stop the fountain of tears, but it felt like a big plug had been pulled out, and my crying was never going to stop.
I found myself back in the crook of Kai’s arm. As if he were cradling me. He was stroking the hair away from my face and kissing my forehead, the curve of my jaw, and whispering silly things in my ear.
Silly, silly, things.
“I love you, Marlowe.”
“You’re precious to me.”
“I love your dog.”
“I want to build a life with you, Sweetheart.”
Silly, silly, things.