Page 12 of Show Me How
Or so I’d thought.
My blood hums beneath Millie’s attention. Everywhere her eyes fall, my skin tingles. Instead of going into detail about every piece, I sit in silence and let her look. From the hooded reaper on my bicep to the teal riverbank with the Rockies in the background running along my forearm and the five chunky letters on my fingers, she stares, examining.
There are too many pieces to show her in this place, and I’m one second away from asking her to come back to my place so I can show them off properly when the bartender slips back behind the bar from wherever it was he’d gone off to.
I grit my jaw and search her face for any sign of her wanting to leave before waving him over when I don’t find one. It was both the worst and best timing he could have had to interrupt.
“Water for me,” I say and then point at Millie. “Another beer or something else?”
“Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“No, princess. Just trying to make sure I can drive you somewhere safe tonight. You’re more than welcome to get a water, but I’m driving you either way. There’s a campground just out of town with decent cabins. It’s the best place there is around here.”
She rolls her lips, thinking. “I’ll take a beer, then.”
“You heard her, Matty,” I tell the guy staring at us.
“You have ID?” he asks her.
Millie reaches a hand into the hoodie drowning her and pulls a thin card out. When she flashes it at Matty, I try to catch a look at it but only catch a glimpse of the British Columbia written on it before she’s tucking it away.
Settled, Matty leaves to get the beer and then slides it across the bar to her. This time, the cap is already off, and she takes it without needing encouragement.
“So, you’re not from Alberta,” I say.
“You’re a snoop.”
“Can you blame me? You come here in a wedding dress, diamonds in your ears that have got to cost more than my car, and pretty eyes that demand my attention, and I’m not supposed to wonder?”
She shrugs. “I didn’t come here on purpose.”
“So, you just chose a road and took it?”
“Yes. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
I get more comfortable on the stool, spreading my knees wide. “Why Cherry Peak?”
“I’m hoping it’s a place nobody will think to look for me in,” she answers honestly.
“And that’s important to you? Not being found?”
She takes a long drink of her beer. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“I’m curious, Millie.”
“You also seem to be pretty confident in yourself, considering you’ve decided you’re driving my car tonight without asking me first.”
The surprise that travels across her features after she says that intrigues me. Fuck, everything about her does.
“Cherry Peak is a quiet town, princess, but it’s not private. You’re better off hiding somewhere else.”
“And I suppose you know where that is?”
I grin. “Yeah, I’ve got a good idea.”
“Well, do tell.”
“Oak Point’s about a half hour from here. It’s quiet, and unless you’ve driven through it, you don’t know it exists. Cherry Peak’s home to one of the biggest names in country music, and since he’s moved back home and gotten married, the world knows this town.”
