Page 36 of The Last Straw

Wyrick shrugged. “You call it confiscate. I call it stealing.”

Charlie glanced up in the rearview mirror as he moved into the outside lane and sped up.

“Well, you put an end to that when you threw it in the firepit at the cabin and let them all watch it go up in flames. It was, in my opinion, one of your finer moments,” he said. “Want to pick up lunch somewhere, or are you up to a public outing?”

Wyrick glanced at him. “I’m good with either, but I’m thinking you’re angling for dining out.”

“A Stackhouse burger and fries sure sounds good,” Charlie said.

“I’m in,” Wyrick said. “You’re buying. It’ll be a tax write-off.”

He laughed. “I can do that.”

A few minutes later Charlie pulled off Gaston Avenue into the Stackhouse Burgers parking lot, found a parking place and killed the engine.

Wyrick shoved her laptop back into her bag and pushed it under the seat, pulled down the visor to look in the mirror, which caught Charlie’s attention. He’d never seen her do that before.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Just checking to make sure my hair is okay,” she drawled.

“Don’t be a smart-ass,” Charlie said. “I’m serious.”

Wyrick sighed. “It feels like something is in my eye, but I can’t see anything.”

“Let me look,” Charlie said.

Wyrick hesitated. That would put her closer to him than was comfortable, but her eye was burning.

“Whatever,” she muttered and leaned across the seat.

Charlie tilted her head back, then gently pulled up the upper lid, then the lower one down, looking for something that didn’t belong.

“See anything?” Wyrick asked.

“I don’t... Wait. There’s a speck of something just inside the lower edge. Don’t move. Let me get a tissue. I think I can get it out,” he said, then felt for the box of tissues in the console and pulled one out.

When he aimed the tiny corner of a tissue toward her eye, it took everything within her not to blink, so she focused on the faint wisps of gray hair at his temples and how blue his eyes were instead.

“Got it!” he crowed, and showed her the speck on the tip of the tissue.

Wyrick breathed a sigh of relief, blinking more easily now.

“Thanks, Doc.”

Charlie grinned. “I’ll send you my bill. And your hair’s fine, so let’s go eat.”

Wyrick gave him a look, but he ignored her. To her, that was one of the best parts of Charlie Dodge. He was full of shit and made no apologies for it.

The moment they entered, a number of the diners looked up, and within moments the whispers began.

Charlie glared on her behalf.

Wyrick ignored all of them.

The diners knew who she was.

What Wyrick didn’t know was, after revealing herself and her abilities to the world, most of the people in Dallas had come to consider her as “theirs.”

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