I waited until she’d belted in before shutting the door and rounding the truck. “Honey mustard dipping sauces?”
She glanced at me as I slid in behind the wheel. “You hear about that guy who drove through a guardrail in the winter a few years back?”
It sounded vaguely familiar.
“He ate nothing but ketchup packets for three days.”
“You plan on driving through a guardrail?”
“No. But I like to be prepared. And I don’t like ketchup.”
THREE
A PINT-SIZED CRIMINAL
Naomi
“What room are you in?” Knox asked. I realized we were already back at the motel.
“Why?” I asked with suspicion.
He exhaled slowly as if I were on his last nerve. “So I can drop you at your door.”
Oh. “Nine.”
“You leave your door open?” he asked a second later, his mouth tight.
“Yeah. That’s the way it’s done on Long Island,” I deadpanned. “It’s how we show our neighbors we trust them.”
He gave me another one of those long, frowny looks.
“No. Of course I didn’t leave it open. I closed and locked it.”
He pointed toward number nine.
My door was ajar.
“Oh.”
He put the truck in park where it sat in the middle of the lot with more force than necessary. “Stay here.”
I blinked as he climbed out and stalked toward my room.
My weary eyes were drawn to the view of those worn jeans clinging to a spectacular butt as he stalked toward my door. Hypnotized for a few of his long strides, it took me a hot minute to remember exactly what I’d left in that room and how very much I didn’t want Knox, of all people, to see it.
“Wait!” I jumped out of the truck and ran after him, but he didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down.
I turned on the speed in a last-ditch effort and jumped in front of him. He walked right into the hand I held up.
“Get your ass out of my way, Naomi,” he ordered.
When I didn’t comply, he brought a hand to my stomach and walked me backward until I was standing in front of Room 8.
I didn’t know what it said about me that I really liked his hand there. “You don’t have to go in there,” I insisted. “I’m sure it’s just housekeeping.”
“This place look like it has housekeeping?”
He had a point. The motel looked like it should give out tetanus shots instead of mini bottles of shampoo.