He stopped being able to keep pace by the time I got to the end of the block, and even though I swore I wouldn’t, I looked in the rearview mirror.
He was crouching in the middle of the road, his breath steaming up the night air, and his head hung like he was both praying and accepting his punishment.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I don’t know how I made it to the parking lot of a hotel outside of Monticello—in one safe piece—but I guessed it had something to do with angels. There’d been numerous alerts coming through the radio advising people to stay off the roads, and if one had to go out for an emergency purpose, to make sure they strapped on chains.
So the fact a young girl who had never driven on snow or ice in her life managed to drive her car that didn’t even have snow tires on it hundreds of miles without bending it around a median in a state of choking sobs, I knew some kind of ethereal being or beings had to have had a hand in it.
Grabbing my purse, I popped out of the car. My heels slipped and slid across the parking lot, managing to make it inside the lobby safely. The air was perfumed with coffee and some sort of chemical cleaner. But it was clean and it was somewhere Jude wouldn’t be able to find me.
I knew he’d come looking—I’d been checking in my rearview mirror every mile, expecting to see the square headlights of his truck shining down on me, but they never had. But then again, who knows? Maybe I’d overestimated him. Maybe he got the whole chasing after me thing out of his system when he ran balls to the walls down the middle of an icy road, wearing nothing but a boxer loin cloth. The thought made me more depressed. I wanted to be chased, in some part of me I didn’t want to acknowledge—I wanted to know I meant more to him than giving up after a few minutes.
But then I remembered Adriana’s glistening naked body and that smirk of hers and I swore I never wanted to see Jude Ryder ever again.
I walked carefully across the lobby, like I was still traversing over ice, and the receptionist looked up. Her smile was warm. “Good morning,” she greeted.
“Hi,” I replied because there was nothing “good” about this morning. “I need a room if you have one.”
I hadn’t realized this one might be full. The thought of getting back in the car and white-knuckling a few more miles to the next place made my stomach turn.
“We sure do,” she said, thrumming her fingers over the keys. “How long will you be staying with us?”
As long as possible. To the end of time.
“Until Sunday,” I said. I didn’t want to be in my room or in a place I could be found until I absolutely had to be.
“Check-in isn’t until three, so I’m technically supposed to charge you for four nights,” she said, swiping a card key through a device.
“That’s fine,” I said, pulling out my wallet.
“But it’s Thanksgiving weekend and I like to give ‘technically’ a break on the holidays,” she said, looking up at me with that smile again.
“Thanks,” I said, handing her my card.
I didn’t know how much it would cost, I didn’t even know if the only room they had left was the presidential suite. I just had to crawl into a bed and let sleep take me away from reality for a while.
She took my card, studying my face. Her smile lined into concern. “Honey, are you all right?”
Great. I was a walking, obvious exhibit of emotion. I suppose my red-rimmed eyes and puffy face gave away something wasn’t “all right.”
I nodded. “Just tired,” I said, wishing she could run my card faster so I could get on my way.
Having me sign a copy of my receipt, she handed me my card back. “You give us a call at the front desk if you need anything,” she said, resting her hand over one of mine. Patting it, she gave me another smile. “Lord knows I love them, but men are one giant pain in the ass.”
I didn’t ask why in the entire population of hotel receptionists I’d wound up in front of the most perceptive one, because the irony of it just sort of fit the tone of the last twenty-four hours.
Trying to smile back, I tapped my card key on the counter. “Agreed,” I replied, before heading towards the elevator.
I made it to the third floor; I even made it down the hall and into my room before the next batch of tears came. For someone who loathed crying, I was eating a lot of crow today. Taking a few seconds to kick off my shoes and coat, I slid under the covers and closed my eyes. I was asleep before the next tear could fall onto my pillow.
I spent the next three days never leaving my room. I slept almost all of Friday, watched the television unseeingly after that, and didn’t order my first meal until Saturday afternoon because I’d lost my appetite. Even at that, I had to force myself to finish half of my toasted cheese sandwich. In between channel surfing and sleeping, I took showers. I preferred them to baths because I could pretend I wasn’t crying when I was in the shower. I even tried to find a ballet studio I could dance at just to get some of the pain sweltering inside of me out. Of course, not a single studio would be opened this holiday weekend.