Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(63)

He made short work of getting ammunition, then hit the corner drugstore. All right. Toothpaste. Toothbrushes. A carton of smokes. He bypassed the pharmacy with resignation. She was not that way, and wasn't interested in him like that yet. All right. He thought about her pretty hair, and found himself in an aisle looking at hairbrushes and combs. Crazy. He tried to remember the items he'd seen on ladies' dressers before. They had all sorts of potions and elixirs and lotions and junk. How did a man figure out what some woman needed in a motel room?

He studied the brushes and combs and just grabbed one of each. Motel soap, he knew from experience, was like laundry soap. On her pretty skin—no way. But what the hell was he doing sniffing different lotions trying to figure out the closest thing to lavender? Nuts! But he so hated that when she got sick she began to lose that lovely fragrance. She'd gotten this almost metallic scent like you'd pick up in a hospital. He found a lotion, then went to find a gentler scented soap. Then he thought about her hair… no, she needed shampoo and that other stuff that went with it. Yeah, conditioner. That's what they called it. Maybe that would make her feel better. Maybe she'd want that dusting powder stuff, too?

Rider cocked his head to the side as he looked at rows of deodorants and antiperspirants. He chose one and tossed it into the brimming basket in his hand. The thought of deodorant made him stop, sniff himself, and cringe. Christ… No wonder all she wanted was toothpaste and a hot shower. He glanced in a mirror in the cosmetics section and simply shook his head. How in the world was he supposed to take her to her people and withstand a family inquisition with road dirt and gnats in his beard? Three years of rebel pride since it grew in evenly, but it had to go.

Like a madman he started getting things he'd never truly worried about before. Razors, his and hers… yeah, ladies did that thing with their legs. Shaving cream. Damn, when it was just him, he traveled light. The pharmacy caught his eye again. Maybe?





CHAPTER 4


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This was not the adventure he'd planned. Twenty-four hours ago he had been drinking with the boys, on his way to a race, had had money in his pocket, and been a free man looking for tail in a honky-tonk bar. One woman later, and he was nearly broke, was running from the law, was dealing with a minister who carried a shotgun to the door but gave him an underground passport, and he'd bought so much female junk that it wouldn't fit in his bike. Here he was, like a fool, balancing women's clothes on his lap and trying to ride slow enough not to lose his parcel. Not to mention, the wind was like a razor on his jaw, ever since he'd submitted to a bunch of old men in a barbershop who had brutalized his beard and had shaven his face as clean as a baby's butt.

Was he out of his mind? Yes. Was he pulling up to a motel with stronger headache medicine, hoping that the ruination to his life felt better? Yes. Did an hour away from her feel like a year? Yes. Did he almost go skinny-dipping with some chick he really didn't know, and not care that he didn't have a condom? Hell, yes. Oh, brother, he was in too deep. Best bet, the most rational thing to do, would be to give her all the stuff he'd bought, just hand it over at the door, let her buy a new bus ticket with the money he'd put in her new purse, give her an I'll-catch-you-later kiss, then ride like the wind.

That would have been employing common sense. So why was he standing at the door, knocking three times, and holding his breath for her to open it? Easy answer. He'd lost his mind.

"Hi," she said, peeking from behind the door and shielding her eyes.

"How's the headache?" he asked, coming in quickly and sealing off the sun's glare.

"Better," she said, nodding toward the one lamp that was on. "A good shower helped a lot. Thank you." Then she looked at him hard and slowly covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, my goodness… you shaved?"

"Wasn't nuthin'," he said, dropping his parcels on the bed. He had to keep his eyes on the packages and not on her. She had wrapped a thin, white towel around her and her hair was dripping wet. It formed gorgeous, curly, jet-black tendrils about her shoulders and hung down her back. The fact that his new jawline pleased her had run all through him. Every minute under the barber's straightedge razor had been worth it just to hear that appreciative gasp come from her.

"I just picked up some odds and ends." He looked at the chintzy towel around her, ready to kick himself for not buying a thicker, fluffier one of those for her, too.

"My dress was so dirty, I didn't want to put it back on. It was making me nauseous." She glanced down at her towel and held the corner of it tighter.

"Well, then, great minds think alike." He smiled at her from a sideways glance, and then thought about what he'd just said. "No, what I mean is—not that you made me nauseous… but I figured the dress was in pretty bad shape."

"It was." She laughed and he relaxed. "Man with a good heart, you're crazy, you know that?"

"Tell me something I don't know," he said, chuckling at himself. "Yeah, I'm out of my mind," he added, and began unpacking the first bag.

"This," he said, holding up extra-strength tablets, "is for those nasty, stress-induced migraines." He raised one eyebrow. "If I was with my boys, I'd have something much stronger than that to kill the pain, but… since I'm with Mother Teresa, we'll go with over-the-counter meds."