Chapter 4
Kevin
I pulled into the Fairview Motel parking lot a little after one. Gravel shifted under the tires. In the office window, the vacancy sign hummed with half its letters dark.
Lauren stayed quiet in the passenger seat, her ankle propped on the dashboard, head tipped back against the rest. She didn’t say much on the drive over. Pain would do that. So would humiliation.
“You still with me?” I asked.
“I’m having the time of my life.” Her mouth twitched, but it wasn’t close to a smile.
I took my medical bag from the back seat and came around to her side. This time, she took my arm without argument. When she stood, her weight dropped hard through my shoulder before she caught herself on her good leg.
Inside, the office smelled like burnt coffee and pine cleaner. A woman in her sixties looked up from a crossword, glasses hanging from a beaded chain. I knew the face before I placed it. Mrs. Henderson’s sister.
“Dr. Kevin Thorpe,” she said, and then her eyes moved to Lauren tucked against me. “Been some time.”
“Evening. I need a room for tonight.”
Her gaze dropped to Lauren’s raised foot, then to my hand at her waist. “Just the one?”
“Two, if you have them.”
“Only one left. Upstairs. Room twelve.”
Lauren shifted against me. I felt it along the line of her body before I looked past the counter and saw the staircase through the open doorway, narrow and steep.
“Anything on the ground floor?” I asked.
“All taken. Hunting season.” She glanced at Lauren again. “Inn closed at ten, and that ankle’s not making those stairs look pretty.”
Lauren’s mouth tightened. “I’ll spare everybody the show.”
The woman slid the brass key across the counter. “Sixty dollars.”
I paid cash. She kept watching while she counted it out. She already had enough. My name. Lauren leaning on me. One room. Late enough that no one in town would call it innocent.
I got Lauren to the bottom of the stairs, her arm across my shoulders, my hand firm at her waist. She was warm through her jacket and wound tight all over. Her breath hitched once when she looked up.
“I can do it,” she said.
“You do not need to prove it.”
“That’s good, because this is not my strongest performance.”
She got her good foot onto the first step and tried to bring the other after it. Her whole body locked against mine. I felt the shudder go through her before she forced herself up another step.
By the fourth step, her ankle buckled.
She grabbed for the railing. I caught her first, one arm around her waist, the other braced hard at her hip. Her weight came down on me full on. Her breath broke hot against my neck.
“Stop,” I said.
“It’s fine.”
“It is not.”
She tried to straighten anyway. The movement put more weight on the ankle, and her face changed immediately.
“Jesus Christ,” she snapped, loud enough for the clerk to hear. “What do you want me to do, hop?”
The clerk came to the office doorway. She stood there with her arms folded, taking it all in.
“She cannot get up the stairs,” I said.
“Well,” the clerk said, looking from Lauren to me and back again, “the room is still upstairs.”
I took Lauren back down before she could argue and got her into the worn chair beside the office door. Her hands shook when she let go of me. The wrap was biting where the swelling spread.
I crouched and loosened it. “You made it worse.”
“No kidding.” Her voice cut across the room. “Maybe say it louder. The clerk’s clearly listening.”
“Sit still.”
I checked higher up the ankle, quick and careful. Nothing suggested a break, but she had made the night worse for herself.
A rough little laugh slipped out of her, more reflex than humor. “Great. So I’m not broken. I’m just embarrassing.”
“Do not do that.”
“What, then?” Her eyes flicked toward the clerk, then back to me. “You were right. I made it worse. I can’t get up the stairs. She’s standing right there taking it all in for tomorrow morning’s gossip. So yeah. Everybody wins.”
The last word barely made it out.
“Sorry,” she said, smaller.
I finished rewrapping the ankle. “Don’t apologize for this.”
Her face emptied out.
I stood. The clerk was still watching. She didn’t need more than this. By breakfast her sister would have a version, and by lunch the whole town would have it.
I set a twenty on the counter. “For the inconvenience.”
She took it without comment.
Outside, I got Lauren back into the passenger seat and lifted her ankle onto the dash again. She turned toward the window as soon as I shut the door.
I stood there for a moment with my phone in my hand. The inn was closed, the motel was useless, and there was nowhere left that didn’t make things messier.
I called Jackson.
He answered on the second ring. “What happened?”
“I need you,” I said. “Lauren tried the stairs. Her ankle’s worse. The motel only had an upstairs room.”
He was quiet for half a beat before he replied. “Bring her here. She can take my bed.”
I looked through the windshield. Lauren went still at his name, her face turned away, one hand pressed flat over her mouth.
“You sure?” I asked him.
“Yeah. I’m still at the bar. Come around the back.”
I ended the call and got behind the wheel.
“Change of plans,” I said.
She gave one short nod. Nothing else.
I backed out of the lot. In the rearview mirror, the clerk still stood in the office doorway, watching us leave.
By morning, Mrs. Henderson would have the motel story. By sunrise, it would have all three of us in it.