“She’s with me, I won’t let this coward near her,” Travis said thickly, his brows dipping low over his eyes intensely. “You have my word.”
“I’ll call you later, Free,” Roxy snapped, hanging up the phone and slamming it down onto the counter next to them. Fire lit through her as she glared up at him. “Look, Travis, I appreciate your help last night, but I don’t need you to drive me to Michigan.” He simply stared at her, silent in that way of his that unnerved her. “I have been on my own since I was sixteen, okay? I don’t need a babysitter; I don’t need you swooping in and trying out that newly fitted superhero cape. I’m not a damsel in distress—”
“I beg to differ,” Travis muttered darkly, crossing his thickly muscled arms over his chest. She pulled her lips in through her teeth and closed her eyes, counting to ten in her head and letting out a long, heavy exhale in an attempt to keep herself calm. When she opened her eyes, he nodded toward her face, indicating her cheek, and said, “I’m no hero, Red, and I’m not here to save you. But I’ve seen firsthand what men like Neal are capable of when they get it in their minds, and I’ll be damned if I sit back and watch it happen again. Until I get you to Petoskey safely, baby girl, you’re fucking stuck with me, so you better get over this temper tantrum quick.”
Twenty-Two
The fire in the hazel eyes that glared up at him gave him a perverse sense of pleasure. It was a relief to see that fire return to her after the emptiness he’d witnessed the night before. He understood her frustration, but this was one fight he wasn’t willing to lose.
His chest had seized when he’d pieced the conversation together, realizing she was leaving. He knew it was best, she would be safer up north, but still… it ached. He’d gotten used to having her around, enjoyed having her at the gym, liked the banter that they shared, the fiery nature that had come out to tempt him on more than one occasion. He’d miss that spark in her, those gold and jade green eyes that haunted him at night when he was home alone. The fiery curls that bounced when she moved that he ached to touch with his fingers, to have those strands wrapped around his fists…
He’d missher.
Dammit, he’d fucked up.
Travis admitted to himself—even if he would never admit it out loud—that he had gone and caught feelings for the fiery bombshell standing before him.
He sighed. Maybe… maybe if they’d had more time, something could have come from all of the flirting, the banter, the electrically charged glances and heat-filled exchanges between them.
He hadn’t wanted that anyway, he reminded himself. This was for the best, for both of them.
He took a sip of his coffee, raising one eyebrow at her as he stared down into those hazel eyes. After swallowing, he asked, “So what do you need to do first? Put me to work.”
Roxy shook her head slightly, her lips pursed into a thin line, her eyes bouncing back and forth between his own. “You don’t need to do this, Travis.”
He took another drink of coffee, nodding. “But you’re stuck with me nonetheless. So put me to work. What all are you taking? Do we need a U-Haul?”
She sighed deeply, a long, slow expulsion of breath that rounded her cheeks. “I don’t know,” she admitted almost dejectedly, her shoulders slumping. “I hate the idea of leaving all of my furniture, but the time that it’s going to take to get the U-Haul, pack everything into boxes, and then load the big pieces into the trailer… It leaves a lot of time for him to figure out what’s happening.” She shrugged. “Whereas if I just pack what I need to get there, I can always hire a moving service to come back in and move the rest…” Pinching the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb, she shook her head. He hated seeing her so dejected. He preferred the fire from before. “What do I do?”
Fuck if he knew. Whathewanted to do was track down the son of a bitch and pummel him into oblivion so that he couldn’t terrorize her anymore… but he’d been to jail before and didn’t relish the idea of going back for pre-meditated murder.
“Pack the necessities and anything you can’t leave behind. We should be able to fit everything into the back of the4Runner, provided you don’t deem half the house necessary—” she glowered at him and he smirked, continuing, “—and we can hit the road before he’s any the wiser. But you’re right, a U-Haul would attract too much attention, and it would slow us down.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and down over his beard, scratching under his chin lightly. “When do you want to leave? I just have to tell Merv and postpone classes until I can get back.”
She groaned, then swiveled her head so that she was staring up at the ceiling. “I need to contact work and tell them I’m leaving. Ugh, I hate leaving them like this. And Natalie is going to hate me.”
“If she’s a true friend, she will understand that you need to go for your own safety,” he said gently. “It’s a helluva lot easier to contact someone a few thousand miles away than it is to talk to a gravestone.”
He watched as she blinked several times, and then a tear tracked down her cheek as she remained staring unseeing at the ceiling. She nodded sadly, her lips pinching tightly together, though he could see the trembling in that full lower lip. “I hate this. I hate him so much for running me away from my home.”
“I know.”
She brought her head back down until she could look at him again, and he wasn’t sure what he saw in her eyes as she stared at him.
“Thank you.”
Setting his coffee down, his brows drew together. “For what?”
She shrugged. “For everything. For teaching me. For last night. For being willing to take a stranger on a road trip halfway across the country purely out of the goodness of your heart.”
Stepping forward, he backed her against the opposite counter, then braced his hands on either side of her hips on the edge. Leaning closer, he dragged his lips across her cheek,inhaling the jasmine and gardenia scent of her. “You’re no stranger to me, Red. And believe me, I’m not doing this to be selfless. If this is all the time I have left with you, I’m not going to miss one second of it.”
Twenty-Three
Oh fuck.
Every nerve ending was on fire, where his lips had grazed her cheek… and down. Straight to the very core of her. She ached.Why did she have to find him now? Now, when she was leaving?
Life was so unfair.
