She looked out into the starry night. “Drive.”
“Rory, please tell me he’s rotting in a jail cell.”
“Drive, dammit.”
“Hang on a sec—-”
“I didn’t press charges and he’s not rotting in a jail cell because I don’t remember what he looks like!” she burst out. “I accepted a drink from a stranger, he drugged me, and I remember nothing. Not his face, not anything about him, and not a single second of that night at all. So no, I didn’t turn him in. I had nothing to turn in. I was an idiot, okay? I was a complete idiot and I paid the price, and now if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about it ever again.”
“I get that, but—-”
“Not. Ever. Again,” she said tightly. “And I mean it, Max. Bring it up and I’m out. I’ll walk to Tahoe, I don’t care.” She turned to him then, eyes blazing with strength and temper. “We clear?”
Her strength was . . . amazing. “Crystal,” he said quietly.
She nodded and relaxed marginally. “Good. And one more thing. If you so much as try to be gentle or handle me with kid gloves, I’ll kick your ass. And I could do it too—-your boss taught me some mean moves.”
He believed her. If Archer had taught her then she was lethal, and he was glad for it. No one would take advantage of her again. He started the truck and navigated their way through the falling snow back onto the highway, where they left most of civilization behind as they hit the wild Sierras.
It was always a surreal thing to drive in heavy snow in the dark of night. In the black landscape, the snow came at them in diagonal slashing lines across the windshield. The road narrowed to two lanes, winding back and forth in tight S--turns as they began to climb the summit.
They hadn’t seen another car in miles when Rory started to wriggle in her seat.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the road to look at her. It was always best to not look at her because doing so messed with his head in ways he couldn’t begin to explain.
“I’ve got to make a pit stop,” she said.
For this he took his gaze off the road and stared at her in disbelief. “I just asked you if you had to go. While we were at the damn gas station.”
“That was thirty minutes ago. And I didn’t have to go then.” She glanced back at Carl. “He has to go again too.”
Bullshit. But as if on cue, Carl whined softly.
Hell. Max gestured to the scene in front of them. Nothing but thick, unforgiving forestland. “Where would you like to stop?”
“At a bathroom.”
He let out a short laugh. “Okay, princess. I’ll just wave my magic wand and make one appear.”
She wriggled some more. “Fine. I’ll make do. Pull over anywhere, I guess.”
“Serious?”
“As a heart attack,” she said. “Unless you’re not fond of your leather seats?”
He pulled over and together they peered out the windows to the endless sea of woods. “Pick a tree,” he said. “Any tree. Make it close to the road because I don’t have any snowshoes in the truck.”
“I’m not going to pee close to the road.”
“Unless you want to wade in up to your cute ass and swim through the accumulation of snow in those woods, that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
Rory blew out a sigh, zipped up her jacket, and pulled the hood over her head. She opened her door and Carl leapt out ahead of her. She let out a low laugh and then hesitated.
“What?” Max asked.
“Do you think there are bears out there?”
He eyed the foot of fresh snow, still coming down sideways in the vicious wind. “I don’t think there’s anything out there tonight.”
“I bet you’re just saying that,” she said. “You probably want a bear to get me.”
“I don’t want a bear to get you.” He didn’t. But he wouldn’t mind if, say, she stood beneath a tree and it unloaded snow on her . . .
She blinked into the night. “Where did Carl go?”
“Probably to do his business.” He hopped out too. “Carl!”
Nothing but the sound of the wind beating up the trees two hundred feet above them. The heavy snow continued to fall but it did so with an eerie, ominous silence.
Shit. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ve got a flashlight in the back.”
“I’ve got a flashlight too—-”
“Mine’s better.”
“How do you know?” she asked, sounding insulted.
“I just do.”
“Are you always so obnoxiously stubborn—-”
He ignored the rest of that sentence, knowing she couldn’t find Carl with the flashlight app on her phone. He dug and came up with his big Maglite, turned back and . . . nearly plowed Rory over because she was standing right there, close, like she’d been snugged up to his back, afraid of the dark. He grabbed her, slipping an arm around her to steady her. “Sorry—-”
Sorry nothing. Because she was soft and smelled good and she stood there, right there, with . . . a decent--sized Maglite of her own in one hand, Carl obedient and smiling at her other side.
“Got him,” she said sweetly.