Her voice was teasing, but he merely looked away. Didn’t answer as he opened the door and started to head outside.
Vincent skidded to a halt and when Jill glanced around him, she knew why.
The sky had made good on its threat of snow.
Lots of it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jill and Vincent made a solid go of it, but ten minutes after leaving Holly Adams’s house, they realized that trying to make it back to Manhattan in a near blizzard was stupid and dangerous.
“There,” Jill said, squinting through the white blur of their windshield. “I think that’s a motel up on the right.”
“‘Motel’ is a strong word,” Vincent said as they inched closer, pulling into the near-deserted parking lot.
Jill reached for the door handle, but Vincent gave her a skeptical look. “You do know that deserted motels like this are where people come to die, right?”
She leaned over and patted his thigh. “You’ve got a gun, big guy.”
The woman behind the reception desk had both the whitest skin and the blackest hair Jill had ever seen. Add to that a complete inability to smile, an obvious disdain for her job, and a disarming habit of maintaining eye contact for three beats too long, and Vincent had a pretty solid point about the whole death-in-motel theory.
The place was seriously creepy.
“Good thing Holly served us a big old meal so we won’t have to worry about dinner,” Jill said as they made their way to their side-by-side rooms.
“Or not,” she muttered, watching as Vincent stopped in front of a vending machine, pulled out some cash, and began punching buttons for everything from mixed nuts to M&M’s.
Their rooms were on the first floor. “This is me,” Jill said, pointing at 104. The “0” was missing, but as long as the bed was clean and the bathroom spider-free, she’d make do.
Vincent nodded at 105. “I’m next door if you need anything.”
“I’ll be good,” she said. “I have every intention of taking a hot shower and then watching some truly appalling old movie on TV.”
“And calling Tom,” Vin said.
She’d started to put her key in the lock but glanced over her shoulder in surprise at that.
“Sure,” she said, a little confused by the sudden and unprompted mention of her fiancé. “And calling Tom.”
She hadn’t thought much about it actually. But they talked most nights, so yeah… she’d check in.
Vin nodded once before taking a couple steps toward his own room. He passed before entering, glancing at her once. “If you hear me scream… save me?”
Jill grinned. “You got it, partner. Be brave in there.”
Then, to her utter surprise, Vincent Moretti smiled at her. Not a big toothy grin… the man didn’t have any of those… that she knew of.
But it was a definite smile. As rare as it was beautiful.
She stood there for several seconds even after he’d shut his door, still feeling a little off balance.
Jill shook it off and went into her motel room. It was about what one would expect from a roadside motel in a town whose borders took all of five minutes to drive through.
The carpet was less than pristine. The bedspread was standard, ugly floral print. The pillows looked flat, the lighting horrible.
But it was clean—ish. No hairballs in the bathroom, no dead bugs on the nightstand. Jill abandoned the shower idea after remembering that she’d have no clean underwear to put on after.
Instead, she set her gun in the drawer of the nightstand, pulled off her boots and bulky sweater, and settled back on the bed in her white camisole and pants. She made herself as comfortable as possible against the two pathetic pillows and pulled out her cell phone.
And got Tom’s voice mail.
She settled for a text. Call me when you get a chance. Interesting day.
Jill started to set the phone aside, then paused, and wrote another message.
Love you.
She stared down at her screen for several moments, wondering if maybe he’d respond right away with a “love you too” as he usually did.
Nothing.
Jill shrugged. Tom was still in Florida, in the last phases of that deal before he’d shift his attention to Chicago. No doubt he was out schmoozing some businessmen and -women.
He wanted her to fly down next weekend. She hadn’t seen him since last week when he’d come up to meet the Morettis, and she tried not to let herself get freaked out by the fact that since he’d slipped a ring on her finger, they’d been apart more than they’d been together.
She should go down to Florida. There was no reason not to make the short trip. She wouldn’t have to miss work if she kept it short, and she could totally go for a dose of sunshine.
And it was important—vital—somehow, that she keep Tom fresh in her memory.
And her in his.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she muttered to herself, tapping her fingers against her mouth. “You’re marrying the man. It’s not like he’s going to forget you.”
Jill dropped her hand to her lap and stood staring at the wall, wondering if this is what people meant by prewedding jitters.
Granted their wedding was still several months away, and she didn’t have jitters so much as…