Ro couldn’t help feeling like she’d just thrown a bit of a temper tantrum and deserved his annoyed glare. He’d never done anything to her to merit her throwing him attitude, but now that throwing attitude had moved back into her repertoire, it was instinctive.
“She won’t be going anywhere. So, that’s not a problem. You’ll wrap it up for her and grab her an ice pack.” That wasn’t posed as a question. It was definitely an order. And then Ro played his words over in her head. Um, yeah. That was a problem.
“Um, thanks, Conan, but I’ll just take the wrap and the ice. If you have a place I could crash for the night, I’m sure I’ll be all set in the morning. I’ve got somewhere to be.”
Zach let out a strangled laugh-cough. “I think that’s probably the most accurate nickname anyone’s ever given him. Gonna have to share that one with the team.”
Conan was silent, and she had to assume he was not as impressed by her creative naming skills. Her suspicions were confirmed when he said to Zach, “I know where you sleep.”
She could feel Conan’s intense stare drilling into her. When she didn’t look up at him, his hand shot out and tilted her chin up.
“You got somewhere to be? How ‘bout you share that with us.”
When Ro didn’t reply immediately, she swore she saw the muscle in his jaw twitch. Ro yanked her head away from his grip and looked at Beau, about to ask him for that ice pack, when the hand that grabbed her jaw turned her face back to meet a snapping brown gaze.
“Look, woman. You are in my house, and you will answer my questions. All of them. Get me?”
About to launch into a snit to end all angry snits, another hand on her shoulder stopped Ro. This one belonged to Zach.
“How’d you like to clean up? Get some of that mess off you? I’m not sure if there’s an inch of you not covered in dirt.”
Ro checked the snit. A chance to get clean trumped throwing another tantrum. Priorities and all.
She tried not to sound too excited when she answered, “That would be great. Even some water and maybe some paper towel would be fine.”
“Oh, honey, we can do better than that. You can take a proper shower, if you’d like.”
Shower? Um, yes please.
“That would be awesome.” Because six days of wet wipe baths left a whole lot to be desired. Ro figured she had to be pretty ripe, in addition to dirt-covered.
“She can’t stand to take a shower, dumbass. What’re you thinking?” Beau said.
Undeterred, Zach responded, “So we’ll get her a chair. She can sit and shower. I mean, I know she needs to get her foot up, but that can wait ten minutes while she cleans up, right? I’ll give her a hand.”
A grunt had Zach looking toward Conan. “You need to report for fire watch. Now.”
“I don’t have watch tonight.”
“You do now. I had to ... redeploy some assets, and you’re taking Alex’s shift.”
From the mulish set of his jaw, Ro could tell that Zach wanted to argue, but for some reason he didn’t. He just tapped her cheek with two fingers and said, “Later, doll. Enjoy the shower.”
Ro was so excited about the shower she didn’t even bother to ream him for calling her doll.
Ro’s excitement turned into uncertainly in a hurry. She really wasn’t sure about this. Well, she was damn sure she wanted a shower. But the fact that Conan was carrying her, bride-on-wedding-night-style, across the threshold of a rough-hewn wood-sided building was ... unsettling. First the handholding, and now the picking her up and carrying her places. And when he picked her up, it was like she weighed nothing. Ro wasn’t a stick figure; she struggled to stay in a size eight, and definitely toted around ten extra pounds she could stand to lose, but Conan didn’t seem to notice.
He flipped a light switch inside the building, and it worked! He sat her on a wooden bench in a room that looked, but didn’t smell, like a high school locker room. Complete with a shower room set off to the right with showerheads attached to the walls. No curtains, no stalls, no dividers. Ro would have dwelled on this design flaw a little more, but she was still marveling at the fact that the light switch actually worked. Where the hell was she anyway? Neither Zach nor Conan had answered her earlier question. Ro resolved to figure it out. Right after she showered.
Conan headed back to the door.
“Stay put.”
He walked out of the building, pulling the door shut behind him. Ro took in the yellow and white tiled interior. There was a long counter top studded with sinks every few feet. A mirror, hazy and spotted around the edges, ran the length of the counter. The big lockers lining two walls of the room had cage-like doors, so she could make out the contents. It looked like they were mostly filled with clothes in the colors of the camouflage rainbow—all black, green, brown, gray, tan, or actual camo print. Except for one locker, which looked like it held ... pink bath toys?