Dirk: A Stepbrother Romance(68)

“Can you just help me find a hotel or something? Then I’ll be fine,” she said, exhaustion taking over.

“I’m taking you to the only hotel in town that’s going to let you check in at this time,” he said. “I know someone who’s running when I see them.” He turned to smile at her and his eyes glinted brightly through the dark. She struggled to find words to either protest or express gratitude, but ended up settling on just taking a much needed deep breath.


“You don’t have to say anything, you’ve had a rough night. Just let me take you somewhere safe and then I’ll walk back for my own car.”

“But the men?” Laurie turned around and looked out of the back window. The crumpled heaps of her two attackers were still there, spread right across the middle of the road, silhouetted by the beams of their still running truck.

“Oh, I’ll finish with them,” he said again. “Don’t you worry about that.”

He gripped the wheel and she marveled again at the size of him. His hands were big and rough looking and the bulk of him in the seat next to her made her feel tiny. His wide muscular arms were perfectly sculpted. As he turned the corners she let her own eyes trace lines over them. Despite being in a semi-state of shock, she had the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch him.

“Here it is,” he said, slowing down. He pulled over to the side of the road and parked in front of a modern looking building with double glass doors. There were lights on inside and a man in a suit sat behind the desk.

“Twenty-four hours,” he said, “I know because I’ve checked in pretty late here myself, on occasion. It’s not the best, but it’s not the worst either.”

“Okay,” Laurie stammered, still in shock and not really with it. She still felt like she was half in a dream.

“Try and get some sleep,” the stranger said as he stepped out of the car and leaned down to look in at her. He flashed her his amazing smile again, and his eyes glistened, as if on cue.

“Are you going to be ok?” he asked.

“Yeah, I just need some sleep. Thank you,” Laurie whispered. “I mean it, really, thank you.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said before he turned and disappeared into the night.

Laurie sat in the car without moving for a few moments and then she turned and looked through the glass doors to the hotel reception. She got out and locked her car, taking her purse and one of her clothes bags with her. She realized she had never even gotten her hero’s name.

As her head hit the pillow her mind was swarming with a mix of her attacker’s rotten teeth, the stranger’s piercing blue eyes, and the glimpse of whatever that animal was had appeared. She realized that if it had not been for whatever animal that was that had taken out the one guy and scared off the other, things could have turned out much differently tonight. Thank you scary animal, she thought with genuine gratitude. The sounds it had made still rang in her ears, now that she was ok, she could almost imagine that it had been there to save her. After all, it did leave her alone completely. She thought on that a moment more before moving on the mysterious stranger, as she had taken to calling him in her head. He seemed so powerful and in charge, like he had been in that situation a million times before. She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. She was still jumpy and nervous but she had double locked the hotel door and had even sneaked in a baseball bat that she always kept in the trunk of her car. A girl could never be too careful. Not that it had done her any good that evening. Maybe she needed to start keeping it in the passenger seat she half joked to herself. At least she still had a sense of humor. As she drifted off to sleep the sun was coming up and pink light shone through the crack in the curtains. She could finally rest. Tomorrow she would wake up and get the hell out of Blakestone Ridge.





4.



At eleven in the morning Laurie woke with a start and about two seconds of having absolutely no idea where she was. She sat up and looked around the hotel room and piece by piece fragments of the night before came rushing back to her. She put her head in her hands.

She had left Brad.

She had driven to a town she hadn’t visited in over ten years.

She had been attacked.

And rescued.

By a wild animal.

And the mysterious stranger with those beautiful blue eyes …

She got out of bed and tiptoed over to the bathroom where she ran a sink full of warm water and splashed her face. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw the same ghostly look that the girl who had turned up at the jewelry store had. Her skin and lips were pale and her normally shiny blonde hair was limp and dull. She turned on the shower and got in. She wanted to wash away all traces of the last twenty-four hours and forget. Except for the stranger. She didn’t want to forget or wash him away at all. But lusting after some mysterious man who had come to her aid in the middle of the night in a strange town was the last thing she needed. She still couldn’t believe it had all happened…the whole thing was so crazy. And the more she thought about it the more bizarre and crazily coincidental it seemed that the giant dog, or whatever it was, had appeared at just that moment. Maybe it had been a wolf she mused.


Whatever, she thought, as she moved on to wondering what her rescuer had done with the men he had found assaulting her.

After she showered, she got dressed and went down to the reception area of the hotel. She found that the water had helped wash away some of the less than positive aspects of the previous night’s events. She also felt mildly renewed by the rest as well as she surveyed the comings and goings in the lobby. Considering how dead the town had been at three AM, it was pretty busy down there now. A lot of people seemed to be there on vacation, just like she had been when she was younger. But Laurie and her family had never stayed in a hotel there. They had always rented a lovely little log cabin just outside of a camping park near one of the lakes. She wandered into the restaurant and was shown to a table by the hostess. As she sat down she wondered if the cabin would still be there. It was a shame she wasn’t going to stick around to find out. After last night she just wanted “out of Dodge”, as they say.