She taps a finger on her lower lip. “Why did you join the army?”
“Ah come on, that’s an easy one. When you grow up in a one horse town in the ass end of nowhere, what else is there?”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Kentucky, the forgotten about state. Half my childhood friends are opioid addicts now.”
I feel Kayla’s eyes on me, and I glance at her. Her brows are furrowed as she peers at me with a mixture of curiosity and sadness, which is sweet, but I don’t need it. My upbringing sent me running into the army, and I don’t regret a thing.
“I was one of the lucky ones. I got out.”
The rain gets heavier, and I put the windshield wipers on full speed. Ahead of me, the road twists in a gray spiral, and I ease off the accelerator, adjusting my speed to the conditions. Looks like the storm is going to hit sooner than the weatherman predicted. I just hope we’re snug in the cabin before we get the worst of it.
“The turnoff should be up here somewhere.” Kayla peers out of the front window, but trying to see anything in this downpour is fruitless. “If you hand me my phone, I’ll check the GPS.”
I pass her phone back and concentrate on the road. If there was somewhere to stop, I’d pull over until this downpour eases, but the mountain roads are narrow and there’s no shoulder, so it’s safer to keep going.
“Damn.” Kayla is peering at her phone. “The turnoff was back that way.”
“How did I miss it?”
Half my life has been spent out in the field, moving from one point to the other. Every Army Ranger has to be able to move over any terrain without getting lost, while evading bad guys and not stepping on land mines. But give me one beautiful woman, and my navigation skills go to shit.
“It’s hard to see anything in this rain.” Kayla swipes at the map on her phone. “There’s a turnoff in about ten miles. We can double back and join the other road. It will take a bit longer, but we’ll get there.”
My ego is bruised enough, but I ask Kayla to keep her eye on the phone.
I can barely see the turnoff when we reach it. It’s an old logging road, and the SUV bumps along the uneven surface. The rain hasn’t let up, and if there was a place to stop, I would. I think about turning us around and going home, but it will be just as treacherous on the way down.
Kayla grips the side of her seat but says nothing.
She needs a distraction.
“When did you realize you were better looking than the average woman?”
She rolls her eyes and her entire head to stare at me, but her fingers loosen their grip on the seat. It’s a good tactic to make her relax, distract her by being a dickhead.
“Really? Are you really going to be an asshole now?”
“What?” I take one hand off the steering wheel. “You are the best looking woman I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. Was it awkward at school? Did the other girls hate you?”
She frowns at me. “Stop teasing me.” She turns away and blinks quickly, and I think she’s going to cry, which means I’ve really fucked up this first date.
“I’m not teasing you,” I say gently. “You truly are hot; you know that, right?”
She shakes her head. “I was always big at school. I got teased for it. Like I didn’t have the right to take up space.”
“Fuck.” Now I really am an asshole. “I’m sorry. People are assholes. But I wasn’t trying to be one. You look pretty damn perfect to me. And I was just being a dick trying to make conversation.”
She keeps looking out of the window, and I hate that she still holds onto the pain about this. That she worries about taking up space because some assholes at school judged her by her size and were too stupid to see her real beauty.
“I’ll make it up to you.”
She peers at me, suspicious again.
“You can give me a dressing down. Tell me something that irritates you about me.”
“Only one thing?” She smiles, and I’m pleased to see it back on her face.
