Page 9 of True Valor
He asked again.
“I’d have used the twenty bucks I took fromyour wallet for gas and...gone, well, somewhere else.Out of yourhair, for one thing.”
Nic laughed, hoping to dislodge the guiltthat settled in his stomach.He had wanted to get rid of her.Stilldid.But he’d hoped he hadn’t let her know that.Obviously hehadn’t been successful.
“Take off your shades.”
“What?”
“I can’t see your eyes.”
He slid his sunglasses up on top of hishead.
Julie searched his eyes, her own serious,cautious.
“I’m not going to the police station,Nic.”
“No, you’re not.”
Her eyes widened at this.
“I changed my mind.We can give it some time,I guess.”
“Thank you.”She squeezed his hand.
He nodded and led her to the car.
They stopped at the store, and Nic boughtgroceries—canned soup, sandwich makings, whatever looked good.Then, he threw things for Julie into the cart—a toothbrush,mittens, a couple pairs of socks and a three pack of underwear.Shetried to talk him out of it, blushing furiously the entiretime.
“I don’t particularly want you washing outthe same pair and letting it dry in my bathroom.”
Totally rude and he knew it.But at least itshut her up.
By the time they reached the hotel, the snowhad started in earnest again.There wasn’t a parking place to befound in the garage, so they ended up walking a half block,carrying the grocery bags.
“God, I love the snow.”Julie laughed as shetried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.
She was so danged adorable, it was hard tostay irritated with her.Smiling at her antics on the outside,underneath, he cringed as the warmth of caring kindled insidehim.
“I miss it,” she said
Nic stopped in his tracks.
“What?”
Julie stopped as well, giving him a curiouslook.
“Did you hear what you said?”
“Yeah, I said I miss the...”Julie paused,the realization of her words showing on her face, “snow.”Herexpression darkened, the fun that had been there a moment beforereplaced with anger and frustration.“Argh.”The sound came outthrough clenched teeth.“Which way were we going?”
Nic lifted the bags he held in one hand topoint the direction.That was weird.A fleeting doubt came andwent.She’d have to be an Oscar-caliber actress to be faking it.Hedismissed the thought with the admission that amnesia likely wasweird like that, but took a moment to fervently hope she wasn’t anax murderer.Nic made a mental note to ask Cruz the next time theyspoke, to grab a paramedic book and look up the symptoms ofamnesia.Or call the team’s doc.Or Google it.
Julie was quiet as Nic cleared out a drawerfor her things.He left her to put stuff away, went to the livingroom and turned on the TV.When she hadn’t come out in fifteenminutes he went to check on her.
“You okay?”He had to ask twice before shelooked over.
“I can’t do this.”
