CHAPTER 15
Cheyenne
“Cheyenne.”
A deep, baritone voice penetrated my consciousness and my lids opened revealing a slice of bright light and I cringed and shut them again. Heat radiated from my pillow so I snuggled against it, wanting to absorb all of its warmth. I inhaled and smelt the delicious scent of wood chips and aftershave. I felt like I was floating in a sensory pool of deliciousness.
“Cheyenne.”
A vibration spread through me at the gravelly melodic sound of my name. It wrapped around me like a blanket but warmed me from the inside out and I melted into the sensation.
“Cheyenne.”
The third time must be the charm because it took me that long to hear my name before I realized that it was Cash who was saying it.
Cash?
I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was an eagle inches away from my face. Well, a tattoo of an eagle. I blinked and realized that it was Cash’s neck. I was cuddled up against him like a koala hanging onto a tree branch. I jerked away and sat up straight as my surroundings began to make sense to me.
I was in Cash’s truck.
He was driving.
It was daylight.
I looked out the window and saw that we were in a residential neighborhood that didn’t look at all familiar to me.
“We’re almost there,” he explained.
That’s when everything came back to me. The road trip. My promise to stay awake.
“On no, I’m so sorry!” When I spoke, I realized that I had drool on the corner of my mouth. I wiped it with the back of my hand as guilt and embarrassment swamped me.
“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” he grinned.
Damn. That grin. It could make a saint blush. And seeing it first thing when I woke up wasn’t fair. I had no defense against it.
“Um, yeah there is. I fell asleep…on you…and I drooled on you.” I was sure that I wasn’t the first woman to drool on Cash, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing. Speaking of embarrassment. I’d been asleep. So that meant… I cut my eyes over to him and asked, “Did I snore?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled and I knew the answer. Of course I had. I’d never known that I was a snorer until my freshman year of college when my roommate told me I did. She said that it wasn’t loud, it just sounded like a pug dog breathing through its compacted snout.
Now Cash knew that I sounded like a pug dog. Great.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized again.
I’d fought so hard to stay awake, but car rides had always put me to sleep. So did airplanes. And so did boats. Some people got motion sickness, I got motion sleepiness.
I was so busy being mortified that I didn’t realize we’d pulled to a stop alongside the sidewalk.
Cash kept the truck running as he nodded his head across the street. “That’s it.”
I stared at the house he’d indicated and confusion swirled in my brain. I had just woken up so there was a chance that me not firing on all cylinders was why I was so confused. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d been expecting, but this definitely wasn’t it.
The house was lime green and had a banana yellow door and electric blue shutters. There were flower boxes on each of the windowsills filled to the brim with colorful foliage and perennials.
I double-checked the numbers on the side of the house to the address I’d entered into Cash’s navigation system. They matched.
The house being so opposite of anything that I would expect caused reality to crash down around me. I realized then that I hadn’t thought this through completely. Or maybe at all.