Page 7 of When the Storm Breaks
“No.”
She exhaled. “That’s good. I never caught your name.”
“Brody.”
“Brody?You’reBrody?”
“Were you expecting someone different?”
“I ... didn’t know what to expect.” She cleared her throat. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“No problem.” I nearly laughed at myself. What a dumb shit.No problem. Funny how my tune had changed. But I had a bad feeling this girl would be a problem and more trouble was the last thing I needed. “What do you plan to do in Cypress Springs for six weeks?”
“I heard it’s a good spot for drug dealers and fugitives to lay low,” she deadpanned.
Smart ass. A smart ass who had no intention of telling me what had brought her to Texas. Her accent was Southern, but it wasn’t Texan. Judging by the hat, I’d say she was a Louisiana girl. “Did you stash your drugs in the case?”
“Nah. That’s where I stashed my semi-automatic. A girl’s gotta protect herself.” She shot me a finger gun and blew the smoke off it. Cute. Not that you’d call her cute. Lethal, more like it.
“I forgot how hot it gets down South.” It was the beginning of May, not even summer yet, but we were having a heatwave. She eyed the A/C but didn’t ask me to turn it on. I always drove with the windows down. Summer. Winter. Spring. Didn’t matter. I hated being cooped up in an enclosed space. She didn’t ask me to roll up the windows and maybe I should have offered but I didn’t. Kate had tried to instill good manners in me since the age of ten but they’d never fully sunk in.
I side-eyed her as she unzipped the hoodie and slid her arms out of the sleeves. A tattoo wrapped around her left bicep and disappeared under the strap of her black tank top. Her black hair was braided into a thick coil that hung over one shoulder and reached the top of her breast. Round, full tits. More than a handful. Bigger than you’d expect on her small frame.
“Keep your eyes on the road, Cowboy.”
I returned my eyes to the road. “What makes you think I’m a cowboy?”
“Your truck smells like leather and horses, I’m guessing you live on the ranch and you have that cowboy swagger.”
“Cowboy swagger, huh?”
“You look, act and talk like a cowboy. I know trouble when I see it.”
“Funny. I was thinking the same about you.”
“I’m not looking to cause any trouble.”
“People never are. But sometimes it just finds you.”
“Sounds like you know something about that. Do you attract a lot of trouble?”
“More than my fair share. You’re in my passenger seat, aren’t you?”
She laughed. “Kate said she’d be happy to send a car to pick me up. In fact, she insisted on it.”
That sounded like Kate so it didn’t surprise me. Kate was the contact person on the website. She didn’t mind using her own name and photo whereas I had balked at the idea. I liked my privacy and guarded it fiercely.
“Do you work on the ranch?” she asked.
“Yeah, I work there.” It was the truth. I worked my ass off. “How about you? What’s your line of work? Drug dealer? Assassin?”
“Those are my side gigs. They fund my music addiction.”
“As far as addictions go, that’s a good one.”
“I guess it is,” she said thoughtfully, her voice tinged with sadness. “Music is my life. My salvation. The one thing that’s always there for me in good times and bad.”
I wanted to hear about her bad times and what she’d needed to find salvation from. That’s what told you what a person was truly made of. Anyone could get by in the good times when life was easy and ran smoothly. But all the bad shit that went along with being human? That’s where you found your strength. That’s what made you who you are. But she was a total stranger, and I wasn’t in the habit of digging too deep. If you got too personal, people expected you to reciprocate.
