“Well, you can visit San Fransisco by a long train ride if you miss the lavish life.”
“I’m going to California,” I guessed.
“Carson City,” Gunner corrected, almost seeming apologetic.
“Nevada.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “Carson City isn’t that big of a city. Wouldn’t a big city be easier for me to get lost in?”
“Sometimes. But big cities also have something else in common. Big organized crime. If Cortez put feelers out, and men on the street came looking, your neighbors in a city wouldn’t think twice about talking about you. A smaller, western town… they’d question why you were asking. Their knee-jerk reaction would be to try to protect you from unwanted attention.”
“They won’t consider me an… outsider?” I asked, stomach clenching at the idea of not fitting in.
“I wouldn’t worry about that. You’d be a single woman in a new town with no family there or big job to draw you to the area. They’d likely figure you were there because you were running from some shithead boyfriend. They’d embrace you. You might have to put a little effort in at first, but you’ll get there.”
“Does everyone?”
“Who?”
“All these people that you, what did Quin call it?”
“Ghost.”
“Yes, all these people that you ghost. Do they all build good lives in their new locations?”
“Honestly, duchess, I have no fucking clue.”
“You don’t keep touch?”
“I don’t,” he agreed, but he almost sounded like he didn’t want to admit that.
I would be completely on my own.
I mean, to be fair, I was alone a lot.
But I had my people.
I had my name.
All that would be gone.
I would be no one.
I tried to shake the thought, knowing that I had done this before. I could do it again. I had to do it again.
“Okay,” I said when the silence hung for too long.
“You’ll be fine.”
“I know,” I agreed.
“Come on,” he said, moving away from the side of the couch. “Hop in. I have a cot to set up.”
With that, I hopped in, pulling the sheets up over my body as Gunner moved off back into the bedroom, slamming around, then coming back with a folded metal cot, popping it open, then dressing it.
The head of his cot butted up to the edge of the couch where my feet were situated under the blankets. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t seem to force my eyes to look away as he emptied out his pockets, tossing the contents on the table. A wallet, a cell, the keys, some kind of small multi-purpose tool. Reaching behind him, he pulled out the gun before suddenly looking over at me, lips tipped up. “Can I trust you not to shoot your – or my – foot off if I leave it here?” he asked, motioning to the coffee table.
“I wouldn’t even know how to,” I admitted, shrugging. “I won’t touch it,” I added as he put it down, then lowered himself down on the cot. The creaking sound of the springs was sharp and promised a night of uncomfortable sleep.
“We’ll take turns on the couch,” I offered. “I will take the cot tomorrow.”
At that, his head cocked to the side. “Why?”
“Because if it feels as uncomfortable as it sounds, you aren’t going to be feeling great tomorrow. And after shoveling, you are going to need a good night of sleep. It’s the most fair solution.”
“Fair,” he said, scoffing a little as he lowered his gaze to the floor for a long moment. “You’re going through the most unfair thing you possibly could be, and you’re worried about what is fair to me.”
“Well, it isn’t your fault that I am going through what I am going through. You’re trying to help.”
“You’re paying me to.”
Right.
That was right.
I was a job.
It was easy to maybe confuse this in my head, to think he was doing this because he was simply a giving human being, because he liked helping those in need.
But that wasn’t true.
I was a paycheck.
I was something he had to handle so he could get back to his real life.
Nothing less.
But certainly nothing more.
“Okay. If you don’t want the couch, I will keep it.”
He had nothing to say to that, simply moved to rest on his back, yanking the blanket up over his body, and closing his eyes.
Sometimes, it wasn’t the big things you forgot about being around men. The sex. The chest to sleep on. It was things like this that always seemed to fascinate me, watching a man – big, strong, meant to be in motion – at rest, his powerful body still, his hard features softened a bit.
“Quit staring, and get to sleep.”
His eyes were closed!
His eyes were closed, but he somehow knew I was looking at him.
He was a very interesting man.
I closed my eyes, lulled to sleep by the soft crackling of the logs on the fire.