I chuckle. “I should have added a Scottish accent and said ‘wee’ a few times. I never took a drama class, but hey, maybe I missed my calling.”
“You deserve an Oscar.” He hands me an empty prosecco bottle. “Wanna make a speech?”
Warmth spears me as I laugh shyly and take the bottle. The tightness in my shoulders finally eases completely. He’s all right, once you get past the exterior. I pretend there’s an audience and put my hand over my heart. “Thank you for this award. It means everything to me. If only it wasn’t empty.” I bow.
He smirks. “Had a big night drinking, huh?”
“Just drowning my sorrows. Bad breakup and all.”
“Hmm, if I’d arrived earlier, I could have joined you.”
“Bad breakup for you too?”
He shakes his head. “Just life.”
“Maybe we can meet up at the honky-tonk later and swap stories?” I ask.
Without answering, he peers over my shoulder and out the window. “It looks like he’s left.”
A tinge of disappointment hits—and that is just downright silly. Do I want to keep talking with Lambo? Maybe.
“I’m Emmy, by the way.”
“I’m . . .” He stops, his brow furrowing as he debates.
“Ah, it’s okay,” I murmur. “Names have power. No need to share.”
“No, it’s fine. Call me G.” He sticks his hand out, and I place mine in his. It engulfs mine and it’s warm. Tingles race up my arm, and I laugh nervously as I pull away.
“Is it short for Greg?”
“No.”
“Grant?”
“No.”
“Geoff?”
“Is this the name game?”
“It could be. You already know my name and you won’t tell me yours, so now I’ll have to guess for the rest of my life. I’ll be wandering the shelves in the bookstore, thinking, ‘Who was that guy that saved me from a grave in the desert?’”
I bite my lip to stop the rambling. “Again, I’m sorry I pulled you into this . . . spectacle. You should have seen your face. Me, a complete stranger, jumping at you like a wild woman, talking about lube. The horror.” I wave my hands.
“Hmm. Not so much a horror now.” His eyes brush over me, his gaze pausing for a long moment on my lips again.
My breath catches.
Who are you, really?
What are you doing in this shithole?
“Thank you for the rescue,” I say softly.
The moments tick by and the silence builds up, for what I’m not sure, but it’s as if—
A horn blows outside, interrupting the moment. I start, and he blinks. He picks up his duffel and room key. He’d set them on the desk chair when he walked in. Curious eyes linger on my throat again. “Um, you need me for . . . anything else?”
“If you see Clint later, give him a menacing stare, maybe bump chests, but nothing violent. I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me. Oh, FYI, I told him your name was Darcy.”
An eyebrow rises.
“The hero in Pride and Prejudice,” I say.
“Guess that makes you Elizabeth Bennet?”
Kill me now. He knows Jane Austen.
“Yes,” I squeak. “You read?”
His face softens into a smile. “Pride and Prejudice was my mom’s favorite book.”
Was? I hear the ache of loss in his voice. Already I feel an affinity with him.
And before I can reply to that, he hitches his duffel back to his shoulder and seems to think about his next words carefully. “I’m on the other side of you. If you need anything, bang on the wall or come over, yeah? I’ll protect you.”
I’ll protect you.
From a deep well inside me, unbidden, emotion rises up.
No one has ever protected me except Gran, and she’s gone.
I’ve been the protector of myself and my siblings ever since the day they came home from the hospital, bundled up in their little blankets. I took on the role of their mom with a ferocity that came from instinct. I kept the three of us safe by doing whatever it took to survive. Sometimes that meant climbing up the rickety steps with two babies and hiding in the attic. We’d sleep there in a cramped storage area surrounded by Christmas decorations and old dresses until the rage had cooled in the house.
“You okay?”
I nod, kicking away those thoughts. “Actually, do you mind if I make some loud noises later, just to show him we’re, you know, having a good time?”
He gives me that ten-thousand-yard stare, the gaze almost tangible, the intensity of it seeming to reach out to me and pull me closer. My body tingles as tension swirls in the room, thickening with possibilities.