Jace pulled a chair over and sat down beside the sofa. Carefully so as not to wake her, he blotted the rainwater from her face and hair with the towel. Lily Mae moaned in her sleep, parting her lips. He studied her face, a little more mature than the last time he’d seen her, but just as pretty with its high cheekbones and sharp little nose.
The long golden braid hung over her shoulder. It was a bit disheveled, so he undid the tie at the end and ran his fingers through the wheat-colored tresses before squeezing them in the towel for good measure. It wouldn’t do her any good to lie there all night with a wet head.
She needed to get out of those damp clothes, but he wasn’t about to undress her. He did remove her shoes, deciding as they did that these were—just as he expected—expensive city girl shoes. Placing them on the floor by the sofa, he stood up and removed the crocheted afghan his granny had made and laid it over Lily Mae.
“There you go, you hot mess,” he said.
With Lily Mae reasonably bedded down, Jace now had to do something about her vehicle. Back outside, he inspected her little SUV with a flashlight and determined that the lightweight material of her fender had been no match for his heavy-duty work truck. The back of her vehicle was caved in, the tail light broken. She was lucky in more ways than one that she’d not been able to pull out of the drive. A cop surely would have pulled her over and she’d be sleeping off her booze in the county jail had she not gotten stuck.
And stuck she was. The day’s rain had been the third bad storm system to hit west Texas that week, leaving the usually thirsty ground saturated. He had to hook a chain to the bumper of her vehicle and pull it back on the gravel drive. He still had her keys in his pocket, so he was able to start the SUV and drive it over to park it near his.
The inside of it smelled like air freshener. There was a flip-top drink bottle in the cup holder between the seats, and an iPod still attached to the radio dock. Jace looked down at the playlist and smiled when he recognized their songs. He wondered what on Earth had happened between the time he saw her leaving the funeral and the time she arrived at his house.
He wasn’t sure how to handle the accident. He supposed he’d make up a story to cover for her in the morning, as much as that went against his principles. But she would need her insurance information. He remembered that she always kept that in the glove box, so he leaned over and popped it open, sending an avalanche of papers onto the floor.
Jace muttered a curse as he leaned over to pick them up. He’d only intended to leaf through them until he found Lily Mae’s insurance information. He’d not intended to pry, but he could not help it when he realized that the papers he’d retrieved were all things she’d no doubt not want him to see.
It was mostly bills, almost all of them credit card statements stamped with red ‘Past Due’ notices. And that wasn’t all. There was a completion certificate from a court-mandated driver safety course, and when Jace read the letter accompanying it, he felt his jaw tighten. It was dated a year earlier, and stated the reason: a DUI.
His jaw clenched further as he continued leafing through the papers. The final one he found tested his patience the most. It was a cancellation notice on Lily Mae’s auto insurance.
He looked toward the house, feeling alternately angry and concerned. Lily Mae Slater wasn’t just a hot mess; she was a train wreck. Jace replaced the papers, shut the glove box, and leaned back against the seat of her vehicle. He wondered when her life had gone off the rails, and whether it was his fault. The broken woman who’d crashed into his truck certainly cut a different image than the poised one he’d glimpsed at her mother’s funeral.
Jace rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, wondering if he should call Janine or one of her other friends to inquire about what had been going on in Lily Mae’s life. But then he remembered that he’d not even seen Janine at the funeral, and suspected that she’d not had much contact with anyone after leaving.
“Damn it, Lily Mae,” he said, stepping out of the SUV. “I hope you get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow we’re going to have a come to Jesus meeting.”
Oh, yes, he thought. He was going to get to the bottom of things. And with that thought, he was hit with a stronger sense of déjà vu. Lily Mae, he decided, had not outgrown her need for a good spanking after all.
Chapter Four
“Ow…”
Lily Mae opened her eyes to the light of a new day, and discovered that the light hurt. She put her hand to her forehead as she slowly sat up, swallowing the sour taste that rose in her throat along with a wave of nausea.
She looked down, momentarily stupefied by the rainbow of colors made up by the afghan that covered her. Then she dragged her gaze upward, slowly and apprehensively as flashes of memory returned.
The booze. The drive. The panic. She’d seen blue lights, but after that? Had she been pulled over? No. She’d driven on to…