She glanced over at where Skylar’s head rested against a balled-up blanket tucked along the door, and smiled. “Yes,” she said, laying a palm on his arm.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?
“I’m fine.”
He grunted and gave her a curt nod. His eyes cut away from hers and refocused on the road. Tension tightened his mouth.
Unsure of what to do, and afraid she’d insulted him, she lay a tentative hand on his shoulder. His gaze snapped to hers again as he went rigid under her palm.
“Please, don’t be offended—I’m just wiped out, is all.”
His face remained frozen, giving nothing away.
She withdrew her fingers. If he wanted to be a rigid hard ass, well, it was on him.
“Why don’t you get some rest? We’ve got a long drive, and I have questions when we get there.”
“Questions?”
He jerked his head up and down. His hands clenched on the wheel. “Yes, about what happened. What you were investigating. What the boy told you.”
“Why would I discuss that with you?” The more she told people, the less likely it was she’d break the story. After going through all of this, she deserved to break the story.
“You want to go home, right?”
What was he getting at? “Yes.”
“How do you expect that to happen as long as Shepherd’s murderer is still out there, hunting you and the boy?”
She hadn’t thought of that. This case was huge. It could take weeks, maybe even months to wrap up. She couldn’t walk out of her life for that long. She had a family that would panic, worrying about her. She had a career she was trying to advance in, not destroy.
She couldn’t just go off hiding to—well, she didn’t know where—while her life imploded.
“Where are we going?” she asked, trying to see something, anything, out the window. She had a brief glimpse of the trees whizzing by, only visible by the quick illumination of the headlights as they flew past.
“It’s best you don’t know that.”
“Excuse me?”
“The last thing I need is you getting homesick and finding some way to call home and reveal where you are. That’s a surefire way to get dead.”
She leaned forward and gripped the back of his seat. “I thought you were a one-man army or something like that.”
“I’m skilled and I’m alive, but I’m not a superhero.”
And now he was mocking her. “Well, sorry I got confused with you parading all that brawn of yours around.”
“I did not parade.”
“Just existing with muscles like that is showing off.”
She knew how damned ridiculous she sounded. She also knew she’d just all but told him that she was attracted to those muscles by her continued rambling.
Attracted to the personality? Not so much.
His eyebrows shot up, his mouth fell open.
And she was just tired enough to keep the tirade going. She didn’t know what had gotten into her. The logical part of her, the professional part, was buried in her brain, screaming at her to shut up, but did she listen?
