Page 19 of Her Cadillac Cowboy
CHAPTER SIX
Sara watched him pull out his cell phone, turn on the flashlight app, and disappear into the alley. He was gone so long, she figured he’d left her to fend for herself. She searched in her purse and came up with a single tissue. Propping one ankle on the opposite knee, she bent to swipe at the goo and stones stuck to the bottom of that foot. The stuff smelled like a cross between sour milk and freshly used diapers.
She didn’t want to guess what the ick really was. She was still bent over the foot when McKinley, plunked something onto the car roof, put the phone where it would shine light between them, grabbed her hands and placed them at her sides.
“You’re making it worse.”
“I am not,” she protested. She’d be damned if she’d give the man the satisfaction of agreeing with him.
He reached for the items on the roof of the car, bringing them into the light.
Imagine that, he’d gone back for her shoes.
Before she could speak, he took one shoe then the other and ripped the heels from the stained uppers.
“Stop that. What do you think you’re doing?” Too late, she reached to grab the shoes away.
“I’m helping you.” He set the remnants of the shoes beside her on the hood of the car, then searched in a hip pocket while taking one ankle in his other hand and dragging her toward him and the edge of the hood.
She pulled back against him. “Do you destroy the clothes of every woman you help?”
“What do you think?” he snapped and continued to tug on her foot one-handed. A packet of baby wipes appeared in the hand he withdrew from the pocket of his jeans. He tugged a little more, and she slid closer to him. He grinned and bussed her nose. She continued the undignified tussle over her foot but stopped yelling at him.
First he yells at me, then he kisses my nose like I’m a two-year-old.Resistance was futile. She pressed her lips together then crossed her arms and hugged herself. “Why do you have to use those?” she grumped.
“Can you think of anything more sanitary to clean you up with? These things are loaded with alcohol and antiseptics. They’ve also got lotions on them, so your pretty size sixes won’t chap. Now hold still.”
“For your information, you can’t bully me into silence, nor will tending my feet gain my sympathy for that criminal in training.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything so reasonable of you.”
As he cleaned her feet, she glared at his lowered head. She vacillated between the desire to purr with each tender touch and kick him in the teeth for his superior attitude. If she kicked him, she’d only hurt her feet, and he’d stop doing those wonderful things to her toes. She eased back onto her elbows.
She watched as he stroked, rubbed, and eased the muck from her feet. Soon her feet were clean, but he dropped the packet of wipes and kept rubbing. Stroking the soles and massaging circles around her ankles and shins. His touch prompted a small shiver, and he stroked just a little bit higher, teasing the point where her calf yielded to knee. He looked up, and his mouth formed a thin, hard line. Then he stepped back, and her foot dropped.
It hit the hood of the car like a rock and bounced.
“Oowww!” Sara grabbed her ill-used foot. “What’d you do that for?”
Josh stuck his hands in his pockets and swept an imaginary line on the tarmac with his foot. “Sorry.”
With his head bent and his shoulders hunched he looked like a little boy who’d been chastised for eating a forbidden cookie. Sara couldn’t resist a giggle.
He raised his eyes and smiled.
She smiled back at him.
“You have to admit you look pretty funny.”
She winced. “Yeah, I just wish it didn’t hurt so much when heel meets steel.”
He took his hands out of his pockets. As he leaned past her and reached for her shoes, the warm scent of bay spice and man filled her head. “Here, put these on, and I’ll walk you to your car.”
Sara stared at the mangled shoes that dangled from his large hand. The heels, of course, were gone. A black substance streaked kamikaze designs across the delicate leather of both shoes. “I’m not sure they’re safe to wear.”
He raised them closer to his face and inspected them in the dim light. He frowned then flung the shoes over his shoulder into the lot.
“Hey...”
