Chapter 19
Rosie set the urn in the footwell and clamped her feet around it.
Nope, that wasn’t going to work for the next hour.
She could already imagine Shay braking sharply for some haphazard driver, and her mom’s ashes exploding all over her feet before they were even out of the city.
She could feel Shay staring at her from the driver’s seat, and Rosie glanced over. “What?”
Shay grinned. “There’s a Home Depot nearby; we could stop and get some duct tape.”
She raised her eyebrow and gave Shay her best wicked little smile. “Do we have time to roleplay? Our flight is in four hours.”
“That’s not where my mind was at,” Shay said, her grin growing wider, “but it is now.”
Rosie rolled her eyes and got out of the car.
She popped the trunk and wedged the urn into a neat side pocket, then she shoved their cases and purses around it.
She looked through the back windshield at Shay’s silhouette and couldn’t stifle a guilty giggle at the thought of being “kidnapped” by her.
Rosie hadn’t expected the somber trip to Mexico to pick up her mom’s remains to turn into the sex-fest that it had, but she was far from sorry.
It had made the whole thing bearable, and it hadn’t been the death knell on their situationship like she’d thought it was going to be either.
As for that pesky love thing, she’d harbor that quietly and talk to Lori when they got back.
“All good?” Shay asked.
She slid back into the passenger seat. “It’ll be fine as long as you don’t drive like you’re in a Fast and Furious movie.”
Shay looked incredulous and started the engine. “In this piece of modern junk? It’s so slow, it’s got a calendar instead of a speedometer.”
Rosie shook her head and laughed. “Missing your car much?”
“More than I should.”
She had no response for that. Rosie liked her new Mercedes 400E, and she enjoyed driving it, but she couldn’t imagine missing a pile of metal.
Shay pulled out of the hotel parking lot and into traffic on the Avenida de los Insurgentes, and they fell back into easy conversation by the time they were driving past Parque Morelos.
The journey to the San Ysidro border crossing was stupidly busy, and Rosie began to wonder if she should’ve booked a later flight.
“Do you think they’ll check the urn for drugs?
We don’t need any more delays,” she said when they got to the checkpoint and, unlike on the way in when the light remained green and they drove straight into Mexico, it turned red for them to stop.
Shay glanced her way, and Rosie couldn’t interpret her expression.
“You’re white, and you look like a nice, respectable woman. You don’t need to worry.”
“Does that mean that you do?”
Shay nodded. “Relax. I know how to handle myself around cops.”
Rosie bit the inside of her lip. “I’ll kick their ass if they mess with you,” she said with a brave edge that she didn’t particularly feel. But she’d find it if Shay was threatened.
Shay turned in her seat and looked at Rosie seriously. “You do nothing, Rosie. This isn’t a game. Keep your hands visible, and don’t give them any sass, you understand me?”
“I understand,” she said quietly and placed her hands on her thighs.
An icy chill ran up her spine even though the wind blew the eighty-degree heat in through her open window.
She’d always felt safe when the police were nearby, but Shay’s unease evaporated that security like water in the Mojave Basin.
The American border patrol officer seemed nice enough.
He inspected the car thoroughly, but Rosie expected that in the current climate of post-Trump America and the ongoing struggle with immigrants.
She explained the nature of their trip, and he asked her to pop the trunk but to stay in the vehicle.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said to herself as much as to Shay, who was gripping the steering wheel so hard, Rosie thought she might tear it off the dash.
Shay huffed. “You don’t know that,” she said quietly.
When the officer appeared beside her window like he’d materialized from thin air, Rosie jumped.
He held her mom’s urn in his hands at such an angle that she was worried the top might fall off, and her mom’s final resting place would be all over the ground in…
Were they technically still in Mexico? Or were they on American soil?
She imagined her mom might be inclined to haunt her if the officer didn’t have steady hands.
“Are these your mother’s remains?” he asked.
Rosie felt the white heat of Shay’s glare without needing look at her. No sass. If she’d been in the car with Lori, she wouldn’t have been able to hold back a smart-ass comment. But the tension radiating off Shay quashed that desire. “Yes.”
He thrust the urn through the window. “Open it, please.”
Rosie wrinkled her nose and bit her top lip.
What if she fumbled and ended up dropping it all over herself?
She took the container and secured it between her legs to remove the lid, then she tilted it toward him slightly so he could inspect the contents.
She didn’t look inside. She’d seen the ashes of her friend’s dog when she was fifteen and had been shocked at the amount of bone fragments.
Whenever they threw ashes in the movies, it was like a fine powder, and she had no idea whether the process was different for humans or not.
Whatever it was, she didn’t want to investigate.
He shifted his head from side to side and even shone a Maglite into the urn. Did he think it had magical properties and was some sort of bottomless genie urn with a million-dollar stash of drugs held within?
Stop it. She bit her lip harder.
“I need to see the paperwork,” he said and put away his flashlight.
“Can I close this and put it back in the trunk?”
He shook his head. “Close it but leave it there for now. Paperwork.” He held out his hand.
Rosie replaced the lid on the urn, wondering what her mom would’ve thought of being pulled over by cops even in death.
No doubt she’d make some sort of joke about it.
And Rosie would’ve done the same if it wasn’t for the tangible terror filling the inside of the car.
Maybe terror was an exaggeration. Shay seemed calm enough, just extremely tense and on high alert.
“The papers are in the pale blue leather tote bag in the trunk,” she said. “Would you like me to get them for you?”
“No,” he said and headed back to the rear of their car.
Rosie pulled down her visor and watched him rifling through what she assumed was her purse through the vanity mirror. He stayed there for a damn sight longer than she thought he needed to be, but when she shifted to call out to him, Shay shook her head, so she froze in place like a statue.
He slammed the trunk closed and came back around to her side of the car. “Everything appears to be in order.” He shifted slightly to peer back into the car and stare beyond Rosie at Shay, then he turned his attention back to her. “Sorry for your loss,” he said and waved them onward.
He didn’t seem like the kind of man who was ever sorry for anything, and his words were as hollow as his cold eyes. But she didn’t retort. She simply looked straight ahead.
“Is it okay to ask if you get pulled over a lot?” Rosie had waited until Shay had driven away before breaking the silence.
“More than you, for sure.”
“Good thing we didn’t get that duct tape, and you didn’t stuff me in the trunk,” Rosie said and nudged Shay’s shoulder lightly. Shay rewarded her with the smile she’d been hoping for, and she relaxed her own shoulders a little.
“Don’t think that means we won’t try it in a safer environment,” Shay said and winked.
“Is that what it’s like for you every time?”
When Shay nodded, Rosie wanted to convey how awful that must be, but everything she thought of sounded trite and patronizing. “It was scary,” she said, though that word didn’t quite encapsulate her emotions. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must’ve been like for Shay.
“I try to think that they’re just as scared,” Shay said. “They don’t know who’s in the car, or how someone might react if they’re doing something illegal. The window could roll down, and they could be facing the business end of an AK-47.”
Rosie sighed and shook out her arms, trying to lose the steel wire that had wrapped around her entire torso during the encounter. “That’s very philosophical of you.”
“That’s the only thing I can be in those situations. Philosophical and docile as a drugged cow.”
Rosie looked down at the urn in her lap. “Would you mind pulling over so I can put this in the back again?”
Shay flicked a glance in the rearview mirror. “Sure, but let’s put some distance between us and the border.”
She stopped the car after a mile, and Rosie opened the trunk to discover all of their bags had been opened, and the contents were strewn everywhere. “Motherfucker,” she hissed.
Shay got out and shook her head when she joined Rosie at the back of the car. “Good job you didn’t pack pack.”
Rosie giggled. “Now I know exactly what I want to do with you when we get home.” Shit.
“I mean, when you drop me at my place. You can come in. If you want. But you’ll probably be tired and just want to go home.
To your home.” Stop rambling. She began to stuff all of her things back into her bags, and Shay did the same without responding, thankfully.
She’d need to play this way cooler to have any chance of keeping her love for Shay under wraps.
“You’re in love, aren’t you?” Lori shook her head, but her smile was gentle.
Rosie gave an exaggerated shrug to make sure Lori saw it on the screen. “It was inevitable, wasn’t it? You knew it, and I knew it. Shay’s a goddess. My heart would have to be made of stone not to have fallen for her.”
“Does she know?”