Page 66 of Out Of A Fix

“I really hope,” Kara said, “that once all this is over—I mean, once she buries her mother—she can leave and see the world. She’s a very talented illustrator, and she’s always wanted to live in Paris. Now she can.”

Ronnie was nodding. “Yes. She can fly away like we all want to.”

Kara chuckled. “Bite your tongue. I like my husband.”

I enjoyed seeing Ronnie squint.

“Fine, I like him most of the time.”

“Remind her, please, when she wakes up, that no one thinks any less of her, but that she does need to give Luke a minute.”

“Yes,” Kara agreed, patting my soggy bicep. “Thank you, Nash. I’m glad you’re here watching over the family.”

I waved to them as they backed out of the garage into a monsoon, and then I darted back to the Jeep and drove it in. When I stepped into the mudroom, Luke was there.

I grinned at him. “I feel like we keep having all our grown-up conversations in here.”

“Yeah, I—no,” he said sharply, walking over to me with a towel in his hands. When I reached for it, he shook his head. “Come here.”

“I can dry my⁠—”

“Now,” he demanded, and it was stupid how fast the roll of electricity went through me as I leaned forward into his hands.

He gently dried my face, patting it, and then tipped my head so he could dry my hair.

“You’re soaked. You need to get everything off. What were you doing?”

“Moving cars, carrying Shelly out, stuff like that,” I replied, lifting my head. “All good?”

He reached out and put his fingers through my hair, raking it back from my forehead. “There you are.”

“Does it look all right?”

He smiled. “You’ve got a lot of hair, and some of it is standing up.”

“Aw, man,” I whined, walking by him, taking off my boots and leaving the mudroom in my socks. “Do you have any idea how much work it takes to reach this level of perfection every morning?”

“Well, it’s nearly two now, so it doesn’t matter anymore, though I’m betting you roll out of bed and it just falls into place with how thick it is.”

I rounded on him. “You would be correct.”

“Yeah, I figured,” he rumbled, his gaze locked with mine.

We stood there silently.

“I’m gonna go change.”

“Do it fast because I wanna talk to you.”

“Yeah,” was all I could think to say before I bolted from the room, moving quicker than I needed to.

In my room, I stripped down, throwing everything over the top of the shower door to dry, and then grabbed a pair of underwear, cargo pants, a long-sleeve T-shirt, and socks. On my way back out, I nearly plowed into Luke. He took hold of my hips to steady me.

“Sorry,” I said quickly.

He didn’t let go, instead taking a step closer and staring.

“You all right?” I asked softly.