Ben agreed. “Was it Sherlock Holmes who said that you strip away the impossible and what remains is the truth? I’m just trying to figure out what’s actually impossible.”
“I get that. But in the meantime, I hope you won’t get your panties in a bunch if I stick to Ainsley like maple syrup to a short stack while you’re figuring out what’s what.”
Ben sighed. “I was hoping I could convince her to go back to Savannah.”
“You must be thinking of that other, pliable cousin.”
Despite himself, Ben grinned. “Yet you’re volunteering to be stuck with her?” He held up a hand. “And please don’t say anything else about syrup. I don’t need those images in my mind.”
Cal’s lips twitched, but then he glanced over toward the ambulance, where the object of their discussion sat.
“She told me that she saw Carly the night she died. Sneaking out to meet a man.”
Ben swallowed. Thinking back on the events of that night, and those that followed, made him more uncomfortable than he wanted to admit. “Yes.”
“You know how you said that you question people over and over, in case they recall a new detail? Maybe,” Cal said “someone is afraid that now that Ainsley’s back in town, she’ll remember some detail. One that they’d rather she permanently forgot.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AINSLEY didn’t think she’d ever been this exhausted in her life. As the police cruiser pulled up to the hotel, it took her a moment to realize that the deputy behind the wheel had spoken.
“Don’t bother,” Cal was saying in response to the deputy’s question – whatever it might have been. “I’ve got it from here.”
Ainsley blinked, a long, slow process, because her eyelids felt as if they weighed easily ten pounds.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” Cal assured the deputy. “Thanks, Grady.”
And then the door beside her opened, and Ainsley found herself looking up at Cal, who’d been sitting beside her just moments ago.
He stared at her for the space of several seconds, and then sighed. “Come on.”
To Ainsley’s surprise and displeasure, he leaned down, scooped her up in his arms. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you inside by the most expedient means possible. You try maneuvering around on crutches, it’s not going to be pretty. You’re practically asleep as it is. Can you put her purse strap… yeah, thanks,” Cal said when the deputy – Grady – draped her purse around his neck. Ainsley hated feeling like she was a puppet with someone else pulling the strings, but she couldn’t seem to think straight.
And she had to admit that it felt good not to have to move.
“I’m going to be upset about this tomorrow,” she mumbled, tipping her head against Cal’s shoulder.
“Color me surprised.”
He shifted her in his arms while Grady used her key card to open the side door. It was closer than wandering through the lobby.
Cal thanked the man one more time, accepting the key card before turning sideways to carry her through. Then the door shut, and the deputy was gone, and Cal headed toward her hotel room.
“Is Beaumont going to be okay?”
“The vet will have the final say, but yeah, I think so. I just felt better leaving him at the emergency clinic overnight.”
“I tried to hold onto him.”
Cal glanced down at her. From this distance, she could see the shadows beneath his eyes, and the irritation snapping in them.
“I tried to keep us from crashing into that tree. Should I beat myself up because I couldn’t?”
“No.”
“Exactly.” He stopped in front of her door. “I’m going to put you down for just a second.”
He did so, swiping the keycard until the little light flashed green, and then pushing down on the handle. Ainsley started to protest that she could walk just fine from here, but her reaction time was slower than normal and he’d plucked her off her feet again before she could.
She sighed. She couldn’t remember ever being this tired.
“What,” she finally said “was in that pill the EMT gave me?”
“Acetaminophen,” Cal said. “With codeine.”
“Can they just… drug people like that?”
Unless she was mistaken, there was a muffled laugh in his voice. “She was on the radio with the ER doc,” Cal said “and got verbal approval to administer. They had your medical history on file, given that you’d been in there earlier today. Plus, she told you she was giving you a mild narcotic to help you sleep tonight, since you refused to go back to the hospital.”
She tipped her head against his shoulder again. “I don’t like hospitals.”
“Yeah,” he said after a lengthy pause. “Me either.”
And then he laid her on the bed.
He took a step back, looked her over. “I’m going to remove your shoes – well, your tennis shoe and your medical boot – but I don’t feel right taking off anything else. Not when you’re impaired.”
“I’m not impaired.”
“Of course you’re not.” And then he bent over her legs, his attention on undoing the Velcro that held her boot in place. Soon he had both it and her sneaker sitting on the floor beside the bed.
Ainsley lightly wiggled her toes. Her ankle didn’t ache, for the first time all day. Cal gently inserted a pillow beneath her foot before giving her a critical once over. “You’ve had a hell of a day, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.” She sniffed. “And you’re the one with the bloody nose.”
“It stopped bleeding a while ago.”
Ainsley stared at him, wondering how she’d grown so comfortable with this man within such a short span of time. Although comfortable might not be the right term, as it implied a certain lack of excitement, to her mind.
And they’d certainly experienced more than their share of excitement.
“Get some sleep,” Cal said, and pulled the duvet from the end of the bed, covering her with it.
Ainsley wanted to grab her book, or turn on the TV, or almost anything other than sleep, because really, the man was impossibly bossy, and she wasn’t one to allow herself to be bossed.
But the ten pound weights on her eyelids suddenly seemed more like twenty. Or maybe fifty…
CAL watched Ainsley for a couple minutes, just to make sure that she was asleep. Or at least that’s what he told himself. Really, he liked having the opportunity to study her when she wasn’t spitting at or challenging him. Not that he minded the spitting, so much. In fact, he far preferred it to giggles or simpering or any of the other methods of flirtation that some women employed. Cal supposed he could try to be humble, and consider that the spitting had nothing to do with attraction and wasn’t in fact its own form of foreplay, but he’d never been overly humble. And he was also a firm believer in calling it like he saw it.
And as he saw it, Ainsley Tidwell had the hots for him, just as he had them for her in equal measure.
But because he wasn’t going to be doing anything about those mutual hots at this point, and because he felt more than just a little creepy staring at her while she slept, he turned his attention elsewhere.
Like the bathroom. His muscles were screaming for a hot shower, tense and aching as they were from the accident. Good manners dictated that he ask Ainsley if she minded if he showered in her hotel room, but then – much to his mother’s despair – he frequently ignored polite society’s dictates.
Plus, she was asleep.
Practicality – and aching muscles – won out over concerns about propriety. Cal closed the door before stripping off, and then studied the bruise, nearly full blown now, which extended from his right rib cage to his left shoulder. He imagined Ainsley had one as well, though he wasn’t about to mess with any of her clothing to check.
He wasn’t that uncouth.
Cal let the water run until steam began to rise, and then simply stood beneath it. What a day. And he had the feeli
ng that it wasn’t over.
Metaphorically speaking.
When the heat had finally chased some of the ache away, Cal opened up the little bottle of complimentary body wash and dumped some onto a washcloth. Absently dragging it over his skin, his mind began to replay the events of the day.
He’d arrived back in town late yesterday evening. Ainsley had arrived early today. Between those two events and being run off the road, someone had obviously noted that one or the other of them were back in the area.
The question was, which one of them presented the greatest threat?
Cal knew he hadn’t read those journals, but like he’d said to Ainsley, whoever took them didn’t know that. But he’d been much in Ben’s company today. If he’d read something incriminating, surely he would have told the man already. So it seemed a bit like closing the proverbial barn door after the horse was out to try to eliminate him now.
But Ainsley… Ainsley hadn’t been in Dahlonega since that long-ago summer, other than a brief visit for her grandma’s funeral. She’d been an emotionally devastated and frightened child all those years ago. But now she was an adult.
An adult, Cal considered – as he’d pointed out to Ben – who might, conceivably, recall things that she’d forgotten, or mentally buried away. Spontaneous memory recovery didn’t happen all that often, as far as Cal was aware, but then the circumstances – Ainsley’s cousin missing – were similar enough in terms of emotional impact, that perhaps it was more likely.
Or at least that might be what the person they were dealing with feared.
Cal’s muscles tensed up again. Catching them on that mountain road had been fortuitous as far as making it seem like an accident, should they happen to be killed.
But would the driver of the other truck risk coming after her more directly?
Maybe he was overreacting, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Ainsley was in danger. She didn’t seem sold on the idea that Sabrina’s disappearance and Carly’s journals were connected – and Ben had said things weren’t as clear cut as they seemed. Maybe not, but looking at the situation as an outsider who didn’t have a background in criminal investigations or legalese, he didn’t see how they couldn’t be.
Ben’s idea about getting Ainsley to return to Savannah seemed like a good one, but even though Cal had only known her for a short while, he doubted that dog would hunt. Which meant, as he’d already warned Ben, Cal would be sticking.
She may have been the one to literally fall at his feet, but he had the sinking feeling that he was the one who was… well, sunk.
Cal paused, suds dripping from his fingers. He must have hit his head harder than he’d realized if he was thinking like that.
Not that sticking to Ainsley Tidwell would be a hardship, he admitted. A challenge, maybe, but Cal had never been one to back down. But there was no point in confusing attraction, even a powerful attraction, with… something else. The situation was intense, that was all, and intense situations – particularly those that involved brushes with death – tended to cause stronger emotional reactions than normal, and quickly forming bonds.
This, Cal knew from experience.
But there was no harm in exploring their attraction a little further – or a lot. Particularly if the few kisses they shared were any indication of the heat they’d generate in bed. He’d practically exploded earlier when…
“No. No, no,” he said, glaring at his groin. He was not going to masturbate in her shower, while she was drugged and passed out not fifteen feet away.
Switching the water to cold, Cal winced as it hit his bruise, but it was better than being a creep. Once his body got the message, he shut the water off and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then he took care of what grooming necessities he could manage – the mouthwash would have to do in lieu of brushing his teeth – and pulled on his jeans. The shirt he left off. It was spattered with a combination of blood from his nose, dirt from the old store, and dog hair. Sleeping in it was out of the question.
Cal checked on Ainsley. She was sleeping like the dead. He found himself reaching out, stroking a lock of dark hair away from her face.
Jesus, she was beautiful. Even with the butterfly bandages and her mouth hanging open in a soft snore. Luscious mouth, he considered, taking the opportunity to examine it when it wasn’t running. Maybe a trifle wide for her otherwise delicate facial bone structure, if one was thinking along purely aesthetic lines. But he’d had a sample of that mouth, and didn’t give a fig for aesthetics in this case. Not when she tasted like some kind of nectar and…
Because that was the path to the dark side – or at least to getting himself all worked up again – Cal turned away and assessed the loveseat instead.
And grimaced.
Far from ideal for a man of his size, but it would have to do. Cal took down a spare pillow from the closet, and a blanket. As he carried them back, he spotted the bag of rice on the desk.
Out of curiosity, he picked it up, fished around for Ainsley’s phone. Maybe the stuff actually worked.
The phone wasn’t there.
Hadn’t she told him she’d left it in the rice? Cal looked around to see if she’d poured some rice in a cup or something, but there was nothing. And given the amount of rice left in the bag, he didn’t think there was any missing.
Cal took the ice bucket, emptied the bag of rice inside it. Definitely no phone.
Maybe she’d put her phone in her purse, thinking she would take it by the store later.
Cal once again felt like a creep, but he looked through her bag anyway. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for her phone not being in the rice, but it raised his hackles.
And over the course of the past decade or so, he’d learned to trust those little hairs on the back of his neck.
The phone wasn’t in her purse. Setting his sensibilities aside, Cal located her luggage and went through that, too. She might be mad when he told her in the morning – and he would tell her – but he’d deal with that problem when it arose.
After looking in drawers, under the bed, every conceivable place for a phone to be, Cal concluded it wasn’t in the room.
And that didn’t sit well with him, to say the least.
He pulled out his own cell phone, dialed Ben’s number.
“What’s wrong?” the other man asked in lieu of a greeting.
“In addition to the fact that Ainsley’s cell phone appears to be missing from her hotel room?”
“Shit,” Ben hissed. “You’re sure?”
“She’s out – that codeine knocked her flat – so I can’t ask her if she may have hidden it somewhere that I haven’t looked, but I don’t think that’s the case. She mentioned leaving it in the bag of rice before she went to lunch, and she’s been with me ever since.”
“Shit,” Ben said again.
“Yeah.”
“Is anything else missing?”
“I have no idea. The place doesn’t look as if it’s been tossed, but that doesn’t mean much if the thief was careful. You’ll have to wait to talk to Ainsley to see if anything else is gone.”
After a brief hesitation, Ben spoke. “You staying there tonight?”
“On the loveseat,” Cal said. He didn’t think it was the time to take a poke at the other man’s sensibilities.
“I returned your firearm.”
“You surely did.”
“You didn’t hear this from me, but…”
“Understood.”
If someone attempted to get near Ainsley tonight, Cal wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the bastard.
THROBBING pain drew Ainsley reluctantly to the surface of sleep, where she hovered for several moments. Her head pounded like a piece of concrete at a jackhammer convention.
What the hell had she done last night? Emptied out a winery?
Winery.
Something about that registered, despite the cotton wool that seemed to wrap both her thoughts and her tongue.
Winery. The o
ld produce stand. Sabrina.
Ainsley forced her eyelids open, stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. She was in Dahlonega, in a hotel, because Sabrina was missing. And Ainsley had been in a car accident last night.
Although not so much an accident, as they’d been purposefully run off the road. If Cal hadn’t…
Cal.
He’d… had he carried her into the hotel last night? Like she was freaking Scarlett O’Hara? Bad enough that she’d been forced to allow him to cart her across the creek, given that her ankle hadn’t wanted to support her, but at least she’d been in full control of her faculties.
Last night she’d… well, she didn’t know what she’d done, exactly. Or said. The pain medication she’d taken made her loopy. She hated not remembering clearly, and she hated even more the idea that he’d taken over, taken charge.
And she’d let him.
A sound to her left distracted her. A sort of… snuffle. Ainsley shifted her eyes to the side, because her neck didn’t want to cooperate without a protest. And there was Cal, sleeping on her loveseat. As if he had every right in the world.
His long, long legs hung over one side, one arm was bunched beneath a pillow, while the other dangled along the floor. He looked horribly uncomfortable, and feeling uncharitable as she was at the moment, Ainsley allowed herself a moment of satisfaction.
The fact that he thought she needed a babysitter was, well, mortifying.
She scowled, which hurt, and then winced, which hurt, too. Everything hurt.
Despite the pain and the irritation, Ainsley couldn’t help but notice that Cal was bare-chested. She would have appreciated the sight a lot more if it weren’t for the angry bruise stretching across his left pectoral.
Which reminded her that he’d been in an accident, too. While looking for clues to Sabrina’s disappearance. He’d ruined his truck, scared his mother’s poor little dog to pieces, incurred a nasty bruise and a bloody nose, and then spent what had to be an uncomfortable night on the loveseat in her room. Because he was trying to be helpful.
Ainsley sighed. It was hard to remain annoyed with his taking over when she thought of it like that.
The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set Page 45