Page 123 of Desert Rain
“It is not.”
“Sienna.”
She glared at me, but her lower lip trembled, and that just about did me in.
The package store sat off a cracked exit ramp beside a gas station and a motel that charged by the hour whether it admitted it or not. The sign buzzed yellow and red. CHEAP LIQUOR. COLD BEER. SLOTS. WEDDING SPECIALS.
Vegas before Vegas.
I parked Dolores near the door. The bikes rolled in around us, engines rumbling low like guard dogs.
Sienna looked at the building. “This place looks like where bachelor parties go to get food poisoning.”
“You hungry?”
“No.”
“Then we’re safe.”
She hugged my jacket tighter around herself. “I’m not drunk-marrying you.”
“You’re not drunk. You’re shaking.” I softened my voice. “There’s a difference.”
Her eyes flashed to mine, and under all that fire was fear so raw it made me want to put my fist through the windshield.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
The words were so quiet I almost missed them.
My hand tightened around the keys. For a second, all the jokes, all the noise, all the filthy bets outside disappeared.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m doing the knowing for both of us right now.”
Her throat worked.
“I’m not asking you for forever tonight,” I said. “I’m asking you to survive the next twelve hours. That’s it. Twelve hours. We get the paper. We get you protected. Then you can hate me somewhere with better locks.”
“I already hate you.”
My mouth tugged. “Good. Then nothing changes.”
I went inside before she could see how badly my hands wanted to shake too.
The place smelled like stale beer, old cigarettes, and bad decisions. I grabbed the first bottle that looked like it wouldn’t peel paint off the hood of Dolores, paid cash, and came back out with a brown paper bag tucked under my arm.
Sienna eyed it like it was a snake. “What is that?”
“Medicine.”
“That better not be tequila.”
“I’m not trying to kill you.”
I slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the bottle free.
Her face went blank. “Is that vanilla vodka?”
“Yeah.”
