“I’m so sorry, Franny,” Brooke said again. She held out a wet washcloth. “Why don’t you try to wipe your face again?”
Franny took it, wiped it over her face. “Please don’t be sorry.” Sneeze. “It’s my own…” Sneeze. “…fault. I forgot how bad…” Sneeze. “…it can get, and I should have asked if you had a cat.” Sneeze. “I haven’t been around any in a while and…” She trailed off and sneezed three times in quick succession.
Royal took her by the arm, tried not to notice his sister’s expression going from worry tonotice.
“Let’s get you home,” he told Franny.
She held out the washcloth to Brooke, but Brooke refused. “You take it with you. Royal will bring it back. No worries.”
He led her down to the car. She sneezed the whole way, sputtering out thanks and goodbyes and apologies as her face turned redder and her eye seemed to get evenmoreswollen. He went to the back of his car and grabbed a box of tissues. When he slid into the driver’s seat, he handed it to her. “Here.”
She shook her head. “I’m allergic to tissues.”
“What?”
“It just makes it worse. I have to use handkerchiefs or napkins or paper towels or…” She went into another sneezing fit.
“Why’d you go in the house?” he asked, baffled by this entire thing. He left the ranch, pushing the speed limit more than he usually would.
“Brooke had the book I wrote that she helped with, and she wanted me to autograph it, so I did that.” She sneezed. “Iamterribly allergic to dogs, but it would have been fine. I’m usually fine for a little bit. But there was a cat…” She gestured to her face.
And sneezed, four times in a row. “Cats are worse. Still, it’s been a long time and maybe I was a little optimistic I’d grown out of the allergy. You know, they change every seven years.”
She said it so earnestly he found himself with twin urges to laugh and just…gather her up and take care of her.
He resisted both. “Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
She shook her head. Sneezing through another sentence. “I just need to get home. Run through the shower, take an allergy pill. I’ll be good as new.”
She fumbled with her purse, then pulled out a little contraption. Once she put it to her mouth he realized it was some kind of inhaler.
“Franny…”
She took another big breath of air from that thing, still shaking her head. “A shower. That’s all.”
He was more than a little concerned she needed an entire hospital stay, but he followed her instructions and just drove back to Hope Town while she kept sneezing and wiping her face with the washcloth Brooke had given her.
He pulled up next to her stairway, parked illegally. She got out of his car about as fast as he did, fumbling through her purse again.
“Give me your keys,” he muttered.
She handed them over while she fumbled with her phone to turn off the security alarm. She wasn’t sneezing quite as much, but she was still red and looked miserable.
Once they were inside, she handed him her phone. “You can set the alarm and leave if you want. I’m going to run through the shower.” Then she made a beeline for the hallway.
He looked down at her phone in his hand. He obviously wasn’t going toleave. He set it on her kitchen counter, then paced the small area.
What could he do? He wanted to…dosomething. Fix it. Hell, it was practically his fault. He’d taken her over to Brooke’s. He could have just left her under Mayfield’s watch. That’s what heshouldhave done.
And he could tell himself a lot of reasons why that had been,hadtold himself a lot of reasons. But he knew none of them mattered as much as the non-police one.
He liked being around her. He’d wanted to see her with Brooke. He’d wanted…something he couldn’t quite articulate to himself.
Or maybe he could, thanks to Zeke.Matchmaking.He scoffed, taking a few steps toward the hallway.
She was pretty and funny and interesting, but what was he? A kid from a biker gang. He’d done terrible things in his life. Maybe mostly for good reasons, or to try to protect people, but… They were still there, living inside of him. His record could be expunged, but his memories couldn’t.
And Franny was privileged and…nice. She’d probably never had so much as a speeding ticket. She’d gone into that house to sign his sister’s book to be nice.
