9. Champion
Chapter Nine
CHAMPION
I woke up to Kitten singing, ‘Twistin’ the Night Away’ along with the radio. That’s what she’d been singing on the porch the first time I’d seen her, and now we were… Where were we?
I carefully opened my eyes and turned my head to see Kitten with her hair in a messy bun using chopsticks to hold it up, wearing a white tank-top that showed her yellow bra straps while she sang and car-danced like no one was watching.
I was smiling before I registered the pain in my arm. It didn’t feel too bad, actually.
I put my hand on her knee and she jumped, swerved and then recovered, patting my hand absently while she gripped the steering wheel.
“Sorry I startled you,” I said, my voice gravelly and my whole body loose and heavy. I felt fine, really, really good, in spite of the bullet wound.
“You shouldn’t be awake for hours,” she said, glancing at me from behind her sunglasses. No, those were my sunglasses on her cute nose.
“I shouldn’t?”
“No. After I gave you stitches, I gave you a lot of morphine.”
Wow. She made it sound so natural and looked so cheerful about it. “Ah. I wondered why I felt so good. Are you making a drug addict out of me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
She beamed a stunning smile at me that eclipsed the bright sun shining through the windshield as we drove down an endless highway.
“Absolutely not. My aunt’s a doctor so the good drugs are still at the house.
I just got something to help you deal with the first part.
Don’t you think the first few days of an injury are the most painful?
I tossed your phone, you know, in case someone’s tracking it.
I hope you don’t mind. I would have asked you, but you were unconscious.
I’m just glad you passed out in front of your house instead of on the road. That was lucky.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “All right. Let’s back up. You gave me stitches?”
“Sure. I have a friend who was in medical school, and he was going to do the stitches on me when I was rock climbing and slashed my knee open, but he thought I should learn how to do it myself, so he taught me. It’s not hard, unless there’s twitching and screaming. You were out so it was easy as pie.”
“Thanks to your morphine.”
“You were already passed out. You are heavy. It almost killed me dragging you into the car.”
“And your hips? Any more dislocation relapses?”
She beamed at me sunnily. “No, sir. I was really careful, like I was weight lifting.”
“You do weight lifting?”
“Not now, but I did for a little while. You know, for fun and just to learn the correct technique for whenever I had to haul around unconscious men who are twice my weight. Seriously, you’re dense.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I’m feeling dense. You tossed my phone?”
“Right. I figured if mine was compromised, yours might be too. You have to be paranoid when you’re dealing with psychopaths.”
I squinted at her. She was so beautiful in my glasses. “Those sunglasses were on my floor next to my mattress.”
“I packed a few things for you. My bag was already packed. I always like to be ready to go in case an adventure comes calling.”
“You’ve had a lot of adventures?” Or run-ins with stalkers.
“Sure. Last summer I sailed around the Mediterranean for months. I have a few rich friends I mooch off of.”
“Like the med student?”
“Oh, he was probably rich, but he was too lazy to bring money to things. Maybe his parents didn’t approve of him wasting his life.
Oh, look! A doll museum. Do you want to go?
” She pointed at the exit as it went by.
She was far past overtired, or she wouldn’t be quite so bright and overglazed. She was still adorable though.
“I guess we’ll do that next time. How long have you been driving?”
“I have no idea. No phones. Isn’t it liberating not to be tied to time?”
I tugged my glasses off her nose and peered into her eyes. Her pupils were dilated and her smile was more than slightly manic. “Honey, did you have any of that morphine?”
“Not morphine, no, but I did take some pain meds my aunt gave me to deal with the dislocation thing. I don’t know why she gave them to me; I feel fine.”
“Mm hm. You look fine. Take the next exit, okay? We’re going to stop for lunch, and figure out where we are.”
“I’ve been driving west,” she said confidently. “I have a compass on the dash.”
I smiled at her. She was so adorable exhausted and medicated. I covered her hand on the steering wheel. “This exit. You got it?”
She nodded and veered off the road and onto the off ramp too fast. She slammed on the brakes before we went into the cross traffic, even though there wasn’t anyone there. She took a right and then pulled into a truck stop.
“I love the hotdogs at these places. Don’t you love road trip hotdogs?” She beamed at me, leaning over the wheel and smiling blearily.
“I do, actually. Let’s go in, stretch our legs, and then you can rest on these nice pillows you put under my head.”
Inside the gas station/restaurant, we took bathroom breaks, got hot dogs and fruit cups, then sat down at a booth while I looked at a map.
We were in New Mexico, so she had been driving in the right direction more or less.
When I looked up from the route, she had her head on her folded arms and was fast asleep.
She was the cutest thing, all mussed and delicious, a natural born fugitive on the run.
I could have called for a ride, a chopper or something, but this would give us a chance to figure out our game plan.
I must have been in shock to have offered her marriage last night.
It was last night, wasn’t it? She could have been driving me around unconscious for days for all I knew.
I picked her up and carried her out to the car while she curled into me, rubbing her cheek against my chest. Maybe I should get a motel with a real bed so we could recover some and rest. I’d never been to the Grand Canyon.
Since we were going off the grid for the time being, we’d have to use cash for everything.
How much cash did I have? I pumped the gas and checked my wallet.
At least she hadn’t tossed that. I used her pre-paid gas card that wouldn’t show up if anyone was looking for us and then got in and drove.
We really didn’t have anywhere to be, and it was kind of pleasant to be disconnected from the rest of the world.
We could take the time to figure out what exactly we wanted to do about the whole situation.
I’d offered her marriage. Twice. I’d definitely been in shock at the time, because I didn’t do weddings, not even other people’s, but I’d put it out there and she’d gone with it after I’d pressured her.
Guilted her, really. I couldn’t marry someone I’d just met, or anyone ever, but how could I withdraw the offer now?
However hard it was for me to breathe when I thought about that whole process, dress, cake, ‘til death do you part, when she’d given me such neat stitches?
Kitten was the sweetest, most adorable woman I’d ever wanted to take to bed, but that didn’t translate to marriage.
I was Nix Death-Hammer, an egotistical Las Vegas superstar who was a player first, last, and always.
But I’d offered. Twice. How could I back out without hurting her feelings?
The stalker’s poetry had been so disturbing, outlining their wedding vows and the wedding night like only a truly creepy guy who had watched the Phantom of the Opera too many times could.
He’d shot me after he assaulted Kitten. If that wasn’t extreme motivation, I didn’t know what was, but marriage was past extreme.
So here I was, driving a sweet Camaro that someone had kept in good shape, other than a few issues with its gear changes.
Trix would love to get her hands on it. What would she think of Kitten?
She certainly wasn’t useless, not if the neat stiches in my arm were any indication, and she had taken me at my word about fleeing like someone who had done it often.
She’d given me stitches and morphine in just the right amount so I wasn’t groggy and cranky, just happy and hungry.
I glanced over at the sleeping woman I’d buckled carefully into the passenger seat.
Her golden skin was exactly what I craved.
There was something indefinable about her that was more than the individual parts, something that I hadn’t realized I’d been looking for until I saw her dancing on her porch.
I really didn’t want to tell her that I couldn’t marry her after all, not after she’d put so much effort into our escape.
She looked like bubbling champagne, but she was more satisfying than a six course meal.
Her lips pursed in her sleep and I dragged my eyes back to the road.
I was not about to become fixated on a woman, particularly one who had spent a good deal of her life avoiding psychos.
I’d spent my whole life avoiding psychos too, particularly the one that looked back at me in the mirror every morning.
My humanity had to be nurtured. Not that I’d ever had any stalker tendencies.
I’d had my fair share of women who got too friendly and a few of them probably did send me creepy packages with creepy poetry, but I didn’t look at anything from fans.
That’s what Tom was for. He also checked for explosives.
Kitten wasn’t the only one who could be paranoid, but I’d foolishly thought there wasn’t any danger in Alabama.
Who would dare touch the Crocodile’s precious offspring?
Only an idiot or a madman. Dupre struck me as both.
I took an exit that meandered north, with stunning mountain vistas that Kitten woke up in time to enjoy. Her sleepy smile was soft and sweet, exactly what you wanted to see first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.