“Saying what out loud?” Jamie asked, and Brynn wanted to strangle her internal monologue for going all external on her.
She started walking down the sidewalk, swaying as she passed a small strip of retail shops. Jamie kept pace with her.
“I am hammered,” she finally said.
Jamie slung his arm around her shoulder, steadying her into his side.
“I’m not in any condition to drive. That’s for sure,” he said.
Oh, how she wanted to burrow into him and take in his scent while she had him this close. But wanting to smell him and lick him and tell him things that he probably didn’t want to hear—this was not part of the plan. And Brynn liked plans, especially when everything went according to them.
But everything she thought about this week had just gone topsy-turvy, and only part of that was because of the tequila.
“We’ll lose our reservation,” Jamie said. “And they might charge me for the night anyway because of the online discount code I used. It was kind of an all or nothing type deal.” They were supposed to stay in Adrian, Texas, tonight, a town about an hour west and the true midpoint of Route 66. But waiting out their inebriation would mean getting on the road after dark.
“You’re right,” Brynn blurted. “It’s a dumb idea. We’ll just go when you’re good to drive. I just—I don’t know—I kinda like this place is all.”
And then he dropped his arm from her shoulder and did that thing again where he linked his fingers with hers. They’d done it before, hundreds of times, but it all felt different today, and she found herself trying to read something into a gesture that had always been second nature for them.
“I kinda like this place, too,” he said.
That’s when the first raindrop pelted Brynn in the back of the head. At least that’s what she thought it was, but with one hand in Jamie’s and the other gripping what he was calling her lucky bouquet, she couldn’t check to see if it was water or something worse, like some sort of karmic bird making her pay for the free barbeque and tequila. But then Jamie’s free hand flew to the back of his neck where he wiped away what was clearly a drop of water.
And then it was pouring, the truck that now neither of them could drive was in one direction while they ran in another, seeking shelter in the first place they could find. After a couple of blocks, someone beckoned to them from the screen door of a house, and neither questioned the other as they sped up the sidewalk and under the roof of the covered porch.
“Look at you kids,” an older man said from inside the opened door. “You’re soaked. Come in and dry off, at least until the storm passes.”
They didn’t argue. Despite the warm desert air, the quick burst of rain had quickly chilled her to the bone, and when they got inside, a plump woman with chin-length gray hair approached her with an afghan and draped it over Brynn’s shoulders. Then the woman’s hand went to her chest as she inhaled, swelling with a smile.
“Frank, look. They’re newlyweds. No one’s booked the cottage for tonight…”
Frank, tall and lanky but for his paunch of a belly, scratched the back of his salt and peppered head and then clapped his hands together as if just then realizing what his wife had said.
“The cottage! Of course, Dora.” Frank turned back to the soaked and hammered Brynn and Jamie. “Let it be our wedding gift to you two.”
Brynn’s brows pulled together. She was still shivering, which made it harder for her to focus on the conversation. Okay, the alcohol might have had something to do with her focus as well. When she looked at Jamie, his hair dark with rainwater and his black T-shirt plastered to his form, he shrugged and half whispered, “Lucky bouquet.”
Oh my God. This was no karmic bird shitting on her head. It was a karmic joke, this lovely couple who seemed to be the proprietors of a B&B were offering them a room as a wedding gift. For their wedding. Because obviously, a girl in a white shirt and jeans holding a bouquet in one hand while her other was linked with the man’s next to her must be a bride.
“What do you think, sweetie?” Jamie asked, and a feeling of sheer terror shot through her. He was playing along.
“I…” Her mouth hung open. “We had that reservation in Adrian,” she started, and Dora tsked before waving the idea away.
“Y’all are not driving to Adrian in this.” She gestured outside. “We don’t get much rain around here, but when the sky decides to open up, she gives us everything she’s got.”