Page 31 of Snake

He ignored the sardonic note in her voice, too.

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~oOo~

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In her room, he got Autumn to the bed, got her boots and jacket off. He sent a thanks into the cosmos that she hadn’t made a mess of her clothes, so he left them on, got her head on the pillow, and pulled the comforter over her. Then he went to the bathroom, filled a water glass from the tap, wet and wrung out a washcloth, left the bathroom light on for a nightlight, and took the glass and the cloth to the nightstand beside her head.

As far as he was concerned, that was the end of his assignment. But he found himself standing beside the bed, watching her sleep, thinking ... about nothing much. Simply watching her sleep. Even passed out in a cloud of puke breath, she was pretty. In fact, he liked her more with her carefully cultivated sheen dulled. And fuck, he hated that bruise on her throat. Seeing it did something hot and sour inside him.

Yeah, no. He bent and switched off the nightstand lamp.

Before he could stand up straight, she caught his wrist. Not as passed-out as he’d thought.

“Don’ go. Don’ wanna ‘lone. S’place scares me.”

It took him a couple rewinds to make out that hazy mumble, but when he did, it gave him pause. She didn’t want to be alone. Because this place scares me.

Of the many adjectives he could list to describe his impression of Autumn Rooney after this night, no derivation of ‘afraid’ would be included. Exasperating. Infuriating. Amusing. Confrontational. Stubborn. Beautiful. Arrogant. Insensitive. Intelligent. But not fearful.

And what place scared her? The inn? Or Signal Bend?

Considering the night she’d had, probably the whole town scared her.

She still had his wrist, clamped on him like a lifeline. He eased her fingers free. “You’re okay, city girl. You’re safe.”

“Scared,” she insisted through her drunken miasma. Her fingers now coiled around his hand.

He stood there, feeling some kind of way about all this and not sure where his sense had gone off to.

Damning himself for a fool, Cox climbed onto the bed and settled her under his arm. She curled up against him like he was her childhood teddy bear. Her hand settled on his belly, resting on his belt buckle; Cox leaned his head back and focused on the ceiling, trying to ignore what that faint pressure was doing to him.

He stayed like that until he was sure she was fully under and for a while thereafter. Then he eased himself up and tucked her in.

He ignored the maddening urge to kiss her head before he left.

Chapter Eight

Autumn pushed the flusher and sagged to the floor, curling up in a ball on the towel she’d managed to spread out on the bathroom tiles. She pushed the plush terrycloth back, laid her sizzling cheek on the cold ceramic, and tried to muster enough mental energy to determine if she was actually dying.

She had no idea what time it was or how long she’d been in here, alternating between sprawled on the floor in a state of low panic, thinking she might truly have poisoned herself to a slow, horrible death by Jameson, and flopping her head into the toilet bowl to dry-heave out strings of what might be bile, or maybe the actual lining of her stomach. But it was still dark outside, so dawn hadn’t happened yet.

Not since her sorority days had she gotten so obscenely drunk or been so violently hung over.

Back then, she’d puke, swallow some Tylenol, gather the girls for a greasy diner breakfast and all would be well again. Now she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to stand again without puking.

Just like those old days, her brain apparently never turned off. She’d lost count of her drinks last night, but that was the only thing she couldn’t remember, up to and including kissing Cox and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, asking him to stay with her because she was scared.

Humiliation kicked her stomach again, and she dragged herself up to retch into the toilet. This time not even foamy bile came up. She was finally empty. She sank back to the cool tile.

She’d puked twice last night, too. Cox had held her hair back and cleaned her up.

And he had stayed with her. She’d woken alone, but she remembered snuggling up in his arms last night; in particular, she remembered how sheltered she’d felt. Like he was holding back all the shit in her head that had compelled her to keep tossing whiskey down like it was water, and she could relax.

But Cox couldn’t stand her. He’d called her a snake to her face. Now he was probably laughing with his ‘brothers’ over what a pathetic drunk she was.

Sweet Jesus, she needed to slip out of town through the back door and never come back.

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