“I wasn’t trying to intrude,” he said.
Her smile slipped but didn’t vanish. She offered her hand. “I’m Shusan.”
“Andrew.” Walking away now would be rude. He shook her hand and sat. Her name—minus the lisp—jarred a memory he couldn’t grasp.
“Thank you again, good shir.” Her words bled into a giggle, as she gave him a mock bow. The laughter stretched on for several seconds, before she met his gaze again. Another couple of snickers slipped out. “Shorry.”
“How much have you had to drink?”
“This is like my fourth Coke? They’re really good here. I should shtop.” She lost herself in another fit of giggles, not calming down until she hiccupped for air. She pressed her palm to her forehead. “Owie. Dizzy.”
He grabbed her glass and took a sniff. No alcohol, as far as he could tell. He might be wrong, but her answer made him think she wasn’t drinking. Unusual in any other state, but welcome to Utah—Mormonville USA.
If she didn’t have any alcohol, that probably meant… Shit. A side-effect of having been a GHB addict for several years was that he knew the symptoms of the high. Odds looked good that Arrogant Asshole slipped her a roofie. “You should get home, Suzie-Q. Do you have someone you can call?”
“I drove. Why would I call someone?”
“Driving’s probably not in your best interest right now. A friend? A family member?”
“Nope.” She shook her head back and forth so hard, he thought it might snap off at the neck. “If my friends were free, they’d be here. Dad’s out of town. Mershy’s at dinner with her fiancé.”
His gut twisted in on itself. That explained why she looked familiar. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…” he muttered.
“What?”
“Casablanca. Mercy—your sister?”
“Does that make you her brother, too? How’d you know?”
Ask Mercy, and he might as well be. “I’m smarter than your average psychopath.” He pulled his phone from his front pocket and dialed the familiar number. It went straight to voice mail, and he disconnected before Mercy finished asking him to leave a message. He ticked off a list of possibilities in his head. Susan was worse than drunk, and if she was lucky, she’d forget most of this in the morning. She’d also be unconscious, or as good as, in the next couple of hours.
She shouldn’t be alone, so taking her back to an empty house was a bad idea. If he kept her out, he’d be the one who looked like a creeper, and he wasn’t interested in spending the couple of hours in jail it would take to figure the situation out. Other towns, he’d flash a business card and hope it got him a smile and a free pass. Park City? That had a much lower probability of working out in his favor. Telling them he was the owner of the second largest internet-porn company in the world might have him rotting in a cell until his lawyer showed up in person.
“It was nice meeting you. I need to get home.” She stood and stumbled.
He was on his feet in an instant, his arm around her waist. “Getting out of here is a good idea.” He guided them toward the door.
Outside, tinsel trees hung from every other lamp post, lit with multi-colored lights that reflected off the snow. He’d give the town this—it was gorgeous in the winter. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being here for the holidays.
He led them to his rental, grateful she didn’t protest along the way. He helped her into the passenger seat.
She scowled. “‘S’not my car.”
“We’ll grab yours later.”
“‘Kay.”
As he walked to the driver’s side, he called Mercy again. This time he was prepared to leave a message. “Miss Mercy, guess who? I need you to call me A-sap. I have a younger version of you, who needs her big sister. Did I mention A-sap? Talk soon.”
“Who’d you call?” Susan asked the moment he was in the car.
“Mercy.”
She pouted, crossed her arms, and sank lower in her seat. “She won’t call you back. She turns off her phone when she’s out with Ian and Liz.”
Of course she did. In that case, they were going back to his hotel room, and he was crossing his fingers and praying to every god and goddess who ever existed it didn’t bite him in the ass.
As he headed toward his home-for-the-month, she leaned her forehead against the window. “Where are we going?” The glass muffled her question.