Gun Shy(57)

Especially when the particular bastard who would be arresting me is Damon King. I can just imagine the goddamn gloating he’d do, carting me off to lockup on a murder charge. I’d be put away for real this time. It’s anxiety like that that makes you want to drown in a case of fucking beer.

Old Lawrence isn’t around much.

The cold messes with his arthritis, and now that I’m back and on minimum wage, he can spend more time eating pie at the diner and playing bowls with his old-timer friends.

It doesn’t bother me; I like being alone. But I make sure, whenever I get under a car now, I lock the doors first.

So when I hear her voice in the garage on a day when all of the doors should be locked — Leo? — I nearly piss my pants. Instead, I try to sit up, purely on reflex, and smash my face into the chassis I’m working on.

I wheel myself out from under the car, my face fucking throbbing. It’s probably a good thing I smacked myself because otherwise my dick would be throbbing in my pants at the sight of Cassandra Carlino, standing in the middle of my garage, with two cups of coffee.

Is this a fucking dream? What’s happening right now? I can feel the blood rising to my cheeks.

“Sorry if I scared you,” Cassie says.

I wave her apology away, flustered. What is she doing here? Why is she talking to me? “It’s fine. How’d you get in?”

She gestures to the back door with one coffee-laden hand. “It was open.”

Great. I’m fucking losing my mind here and I left the back door open.

She holds one of the coffee cups out to me and I take it awkwardly, not sure what to do. We stare at each other for a long moment, soaking each other in. I saw her at the diner, yeah, but everything was so rushed and I’d clearly scared the living piss out of her by appearing after eight years, in the middle of her workplace, covered in prison tattoos.

“Do you need help with your car?” I ask finally.

“I don’t have a car,” she says slowly.

“Oh.” What the fuck is even happening right now?

“Is this a bad time?” she asks, her eyebrows gathering into a frown. “You’re bleeding.” She puts her hand to her cheek, and I mirror her action, my fingers coming away wet with blood. Great. “Here,” she says, setting her coffee down on the workbench and producing a tissue from her purse. She steps closer, erasing the void between us as she reaches up and presses the tissue against my cheek.

I can’t fucking breathe. All I can smell is her perfume — oranges and flowers — all I can see is the tiny worry lines at the edge of her green eyes, the ones that weren’t there when she was seventeen and I went away. I left behind a girl, and now that I’m back, that girl is gone. She’s a woman now, with pain in her eyes that I put there.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” I blurt out before I can think. “I wanted to go to the funeral, but I didn’t think—”

“It was a good idea to stay away,” Cassie cuts me off. “From the funeral, I mean.”

She’s still pressing the tissue to my face. Without even thinking, I bring my hand up, letting my fingers curl around her wrist. I’m not sure if I’m taking hold of her because I want to get her hand away from me or keep it there. Her skin is cold from the chill outside, but I’m on fire just having her in my presence.

“I need something,” she says, her voice breaking ever so softly. Somebody else wouldn’t even notice, but I know Cassandra Carlino.

“Anything,” I say. She tugs her hand away and I let her wrist go, wiping my face with the tissue. I watch as she walks over to the first-aid cabinet hanging from the wall; it’s been there forever, but I’m surprised she remembers. I hold my breath as she opens the cabinet and takes out a multi-pack of Band-Aids, tipping a pile into her palm and selecting one before coming back to me.

“Here,” she murmurs. I lean down toward her, letting her affix the bandage to my cheek. Her cold fingers are like ice against my hot skin; hot for no reason, other than the fact that I’m burning up inside because she’s flesh and blood and here, touching me.

“What do you need?” I ask.

She takes a step back, biting on the inside of her cheek. “I need somebody to drive me to Lone Pine, California,” she says.

California. “I’ll drive you,” I say, a little too quickly. Then I realize how crazy that might sound — the guy who crashed his car and killed her mother, offering to take her on a road trip. “I don’t drink anymore,” I add quickly. “Eight years sober.”

“I’m not worried about your driving skills,” she says softly. I killed your mother. Maybe you should be.

“I didn’t think you were allowed to cross state lines,” she adds.

“I’m not,” I reply. “But I would. For you.”

I’d burn this whole fucking town down for her. “When do you need to go?”

She looks around the mostly-empty garage. “Now.”

“Now?”

Her face falls.

“Forget it,” she says, turning toward the back door of the garage. “It was a stupid idea to ask you.”

“Whoa,” I say, rushing to the door before she can open it. I cut her off, blocking her way to the door handle, and she just looks at me.