He said, “You bake cookies?”
“She gets cookies for her birthday.”
“That’s tomorrow, right?”
“No, it’s quite a while until her birthday.”
“Mine’s tomorrow,” he lied.
“It is not. I saw your driver’s license, remember?”
“It’s a fake.”
“I’m not baking cookies.”
Morgan consoled himself with the beer, silently pleased at how well the last half hour of conversation had gone. They’d teased each other-a little-and she’d given him an insight into what had made her so reserved and self-protective. He hadn’t made a big deal of it, she hadn’t made a big deal of it, but he knew damn well it was a big deal because it had to be. Kids needed stability, and she hadn’t had that.
She took the pizza out of the oven and briskly zipped the pizza cutter through it, then brought the pan to the table and set it on a pot holder. As she sat down, she turned her head to check on Tricks, and the late afternoon light fell on her right cheekbone. It looked as if she had a faint smear of dirt on her face. He started to say something, then realized she’d done a damn good job of covering the lingering bruise. Some of the makeup had worn off, or he might not have noticed either. Then he realized she’d been covering up the bruise all along because he hadn’t noticed it since Friday night.
She didn’t want people fussing over her, or thinking she was anything except one hundred percent okay.
She could have been milking it for all she was worth, and he knew a lot of people who would have. Instead she preferred to be left alone.
They concentrated on the pizza and beer, and for the first time since he’d been shot, Morgan felt as if he was himself again, rather than a patched-up wreck. Did things get more normal than beer and pizza? He was still a patched-up wreck, but he was a wreck who was starting to get back to being human.
After dinner, she cleaned up and headed out with Tricks for their last walk of the day. He stood in the large windows and watched until they were out of sight, partly to make certain he knew in what direction they’d gone and partly because he liked looking at her curvy little ass.
While he had some privacy, he decided to test the limits of his strength. He wasn’t expecting miracles, but he wanted some kind of parameter he could judge his progress by. Going over to the stairs, he held firmly to the steel banister and began climbing.
The first step was okay; the second one was okay. The third one was mostly okay, but by the sixth one his knees were weak and he was breaking out in a sweat, which he took as a signal not to push his luck. He eased back down while he could still do it without having to scoot on his ass like a toddler. Tomorrow he would try it again, and maybe he could make the seventh step.
When he was back on the ground floor, he turned around and counted the steps. It was a long flight, more than a standard floor. There were twenty steps. If he could improve one step a day, in two weeks he’d be sleeping in a bed.
It was ridiculous how much he looked forward to going to Hamrickville. It was a small town-a very small one. But he’d spent five nights here, and he needed a change of scenery to relieve his growing boredom. Bo had lent him her laptop, yeah, but he couldn’t electronically check on the things he wanted to check on without tripping an alert, so he was reduced to checking regular news sources and playing dumb-ass games that he wasn’t any good at.
When it came time to leave, Tricks bounded out and raced madly around the yard as if she was overjoyed he was going with them. Bo unlocked the Jeep and called Tricks to her; while she was clipping on the harness, Morgan slid into the passenger seat. She led Tricks around to the driver’s side and said, “Tricks, up.”
The dog didn’t move.
“Tricks, up.”
No response.
Morgan glanced over at the dog standing motionless in the open driver’s side door, staring at him with what he could only describe as an appalled expression, if a dog could be appalled.
“Tricks, come on,” Bo said, then she too froze and stared at him.
“What?” he asked, impatience leaking into his tone. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew he wanted to be on the road.
“Oh, my God.”
“What?” He looked around for a threat, any threat, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there in the holster he wasn’t wearing.
“You’re in her seat.”
He went still. Had he heard that right? He looked at the woman. He looked at the dog. She had to be shitting him-the woman, not the dog. But Bo’s expression was earnest and kind of deer-in-the-headlights as if no way had she anticipated this, and Tricks was still looking appalled as she stared unblinkingly at him. The two pairs of dark eyes were unnerving.
What was he supposed to do? Obviously, even on short acquaintance he knew Bo placed the dog way above most, if not all, humans, but still-he looked at the backseat. The Jeep wasn’t the four-door model. The backseat was small, and just the idea of contorting himself to get back there made his chest hurt.
“I know,” she said helplessly. “I wouldn’t ask you to try.”
That was something, at least. Or he could drive and she could get in the backseat, since Tricks obviously wasn’t going to, but he was supposed to look pitiful-just thinking the word grated on his nerves-and pitiful people didn’t drive. But the Tahoe was sitting right there, and it was a four-door. “We can go in mine. Will it matter to her which seat she’s in then?”
“It shouldn’t,” Bo replied, though there was a tiny hint of doubt in her voice.
He got out of the Jeep and she went back inside the house to get his keys. She used the remote to unlock the doors and he got into the passenger seat before Tricks could beat him to it, just in case. Bo retrieved her weapon from the Jeep and circled around to the driver’s side, where she opened the back door and said, “Tricks, up.”
Thank God, Tricks bounded up into the backseat and sat down as if she were Queen Elizabeth in the royal carriage. He looked back at her, and she turned her head away. Outrage was in every line of her furry golden body.
Bo stifled a laugh as she fastened the harness to the seat belt. “You are so on her list.”
Tricks was an intelligent dog, no doubt about it, but dogs didn’t plot vengeance so he wasn’t worried about it. Besides, he’d sneak a treat to her and all would be forgiven. He wouldn’t tell Bo about the treat, though; he knew better.
He’d bypassed Hamrickville on his way to her house, so he paid attention to the route she took, noting the highway numbers and landmarks. The Tahoe had GPS and a navigation system, but he’d rather rely on his own knowledge than that of a bunch of people he didn’t know, who might or might not have been paying attention to detail when this section of the country was mapped. As it turned out, the drive was a grand total of twelve minutes, not bad at all. If he were driving in D.C., twelve minutes might take him a couple of blocks, depending on the direction and time of day.
There was no hint of civilization to come; she rounded a curve and there it was, compact, most of the buildings looking as if they’d been built in the 1940s or ’50s, sidewalks, no parking meters. Most of the intersections just had stop signs. He saw a bank, a hardware store, a barbershop, other small shops, and the bakery that must have been where the fight took place last week because he couldn’t imagine the town could support two bakeries. Some of the shops had flowerpots in front of them, or little bushes, but for the most part it wasn’t a fussy town.
“The school is about a mile in that direction,” she said at one intersection, pointing south.