Speed things up a bit?
We were going Mach Five and I wasn’t even certain Mach Five existed.
“Who was on the phone?” he asked.
I kept up the scowl and didn’t answer.
“Tel me one thing, are you in danger?”
I lost my scowl and felt my body begin to melt.
Shit.
He was worried about me.
Bil y had taken a sledgehammer to the door and he’d put his arm to my throat, once. Even after years of me running away and more than a year of no sex, he’d never raised a hand to me after the arm incident. He was intense, that was for certain, but every time I pretended to escape, he brought me back by talking me into it (or, at least, I let him think that).
I didn’t think I was in danger. I was just trapped.
“I’m not in danger, I just have… a situation. I’m fixing it,” I told Hank.
“Now isn’t the time to lie.” Hank told me in his authoritative tone.
“I’m not lying.”
At least, I didn’t think so, or, at least, I hoped not.
He watched me for a while. Then he let me go but grabbed my hand, tossed the phone on the bed and pul ed me toward the door.
“Good, let’s get some food.”
Simple as that.
He trusted me.
Good God.
I yanked hard on his hand and tugged him back into the room. He al owed this until my fingers closed around my Fendi bag, then, we were off.
Chapter Six
Hank Speeds Things Up
Holding my hand the whole time, he took me to his black Toyota 4Runner, helped me in, swung in the driver’s side and off we went. He drove one-handed and natural, like he was one with the 4Runner. I was beginning to think I was seriously a freak because, for some reason, the way he drove turned me on.
Okay, maybe it was everything about Hank that turned me on.
“Are you a vegetarian?” he asked, thankful y breaking me out of my thoughts of him turning me on.
“I ate three pounds of meat for lunch at Jerusalem’s,” I answered.
“Combo platter?”
“Yeah.”
“Good choice.”
He drove me through what could not be considered the best of neighborhoods, though it also wasn’t the worst. He parked in a parking lot and I saw Denver’s light rail train slide by. The building he took me to looked like it had been yanked right out of a John Wayne western.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Buckhorn Exchange, the oldest restaurant in Denver.
Great steaks.”
He held the door for me and I saw that the décor consisted largely of dead animal heads but somehow it seemed cozy, romantic and elegant at the same time. We sat at an intimate table for two with big, high-backed, comfy armchairs. Hank ordered a bottle of wine while I looked at the menu. It included rattlesnake, fried al igator tail, Rocky Mountain oysters and elk.
I looked up from my menu to Hank.
“Is the ghost of Wyatt Earp gonna walk through the door?”
He grinned at me, “Smart ass.”
“No, seriously.”
The grin deepened to a smile.
I shut up.
“Let me order,” he said and this surprised me. I’d never met a man who ordered for me before. I didn’t even know men did that anymore.
What the hel , when in Denver…
“No Rocky Mountain oysters,” I replied.
He nodded and kept smiling.
“And no al igator tail. Al igators are cute. I’m not a vegetarian but I don’t eat cute animals. Like lamb. Lambs are cute. We can try the rattlesnake. I think I could eat snake because snakes freak me out.”
He stared at me. The smile was gone.
“You think al igators are cute?” he asked.
“They always look like they’re smiling. I think al igators are misunderstood. They just want to laze in the sun and swim but people keep bothering them, forcing them to wrestle and stuff. It’s not nice.”
He kept staring at me.
“Do you eat cows?” he asked.
“I try not to think of them as cows, like that cute cow, Norman, in City Slickers. I think of them as bul s. Bul s are scary.”
More staring.
“How about pigs?”
“I heard somewhere that pigs are mean, they aren’t like Babe. Babe wore a toupee.”
His lips twitched. “You are definitely related to Tex,” he remarked.
“Wel … yeah,” I replied.
He ordered. When the wine came, we drank. When the food arrived, we ate.
It was good food. So good, I ate it even though I was stil ful from lunch. Hank ordered steak and it came in one big hunk of meat, which they carved in half at the table and plonked a big, old wodge of herbed butter on top of each portion so it melted al over. It was heavenly.
Al the time in between eating and drinking, we talked.
I was dreading it but it came easy.