Even if the now scared thebeejezusout of me.
Therefore I was sitting in the room with all the stations,chairs facing each other on either side of a wall that was half glass,partitions delineating the stations.
Phones hanging on a partition at each station.
I watched him come out, and regardless of the fact he lookedabout as rough as me, and then some, I remembered what I’d thought the firsttime I saw him in the bar Bounty hung at.
That could be mine.
And I’d made it mine.
He copped a blank look as he moved to me, his big, powerfulbody no less attractive in an orange jumpsuit with a white T-shirt under it.
And it was proved.
The stitched slash that carved from just below the corner ofhis inner left eye across his cheekbone then down to his jaw only made him looktough, hot, and cool.
Making the trek from door to sitting opposite me, Beck didnot lose hold on my gaze.
Only when I did nothing but sit there, staring at hisstill-handsome face, did his brown eyes slide to the telephone and back to me.
Now he wanted to talk.
I looked down at my lap where my purse was.
It was a cute purse.Total biker chick chic, black leatherin a saddlebag shape with lots of rivets and a fantastic, heavy silver chain asa strap.
Since I was no longer going to be a biker chick, I wasprobably going to have to switch out my entire purse inventory, finding hipsterpurses or something like that.
The problem was the very idea of hipster purses made me wantto cringe and I didn’t even know what a hipster purse looked like.
The sleek clutch Lanie was carrying, I could do.
Hipster…
No.
I stopped thinking of hipster purses, which was just my wayof controlling my fingers’ need to start trembling because Beck was rightacross from me and the last time I’d seen him had not been a celebratoryoccasion.I got myself together and opened my purse.
I pulled out the folded piece of paper.I unfolded thepaper, turned it the way I needed it, then slapped it up against the glass offto the side so that Beck could still see my face through the glass.
His gaze went to the paper and I thought he’d keep the blanklook, close me off, shut me out, or alternately, sneer.
He didn’t do either.
He looked at the color copy of the picture of me beforethey’d cleaned the blood off my face in the hospital but after the swelling hadbloated me beyond recognition and he flinched.
Flinched.
What was that all about?
So abruptly that I jumped in my chair, his big hand came upand curled around the phone.
He yanked it out of the cradle, tapped the top against theglass, gaze back on me, and put it to his ear.
I shoved the picture back into my purse and picked up thephone even though I had meant the picture to speak for me.
That being,I already paid, leave me alone.
