He grinned at her. "Debbie Reynolds, you are baked."
"Yes," she whispered, shrugging. "You said to follow your lead."
"You wanna smoke? It's my own blend." The proud declaration came from a raven-haired girl shaking a silver cigarette case at Preacher. Flicking the case open, she revealed several neatly rolled joints.
Holding up a hand, Preacher shook his head. Things might seem amicable at the moment, but the Road Warriors had still coerced him into a meeting. A head full of drugs was the last thing he needed while among men he didn't trust.
The girl glanced at Debbie. "Wheels seemed to like it."
Brows up, Preacher looked to Debbie, who quickly turned away. Her cheeks had gone pink and her bottom lip had disappeared beneath her teeth.
Chuckling, he sat down beside her and nudged her shoulder with his. "Wheels, huh?" he whispered, and Debbie ducked her head, burying her face in her hands.
"We've got whiskey and moonshine." Rocky stepped forward, a bottle in each hand. He shook one of them. "Right outta the backwoods of West Virginia."
Knowing better than to put himself in a moonshine coma, Preacher gestured for the whiskey.
"Turn some music on!" someone demanded. Someone else complied, and a country song filled the space between idle chatter.
Some of the Road Warriors headed back to the fair while others found seats around the fire. One Road Warrior cozied up beside a woman with her face buried in a magazine. Another, gripping a large hunting knife, was sharpening the blade on a nearby rock. Several yards away Rocky had tugged the black-haired girl onto his lap, and his hands were all over her.
Preacher took a swig of whiskey, grimacing at the bitter taste.
"So you're the vice president of a motorcycle club?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Preacher noticed Debbie studying his leather cut. He grimaced through another swallow of whiskey before answering. "That's what they tell me."
"What does the vice president of a motorcycle club do?"
"Whatever the president tells him to do."
"What does the president tell you to do?"
"You should have left," he said, veering her away from questions he couldn't answer.
Debbie blinked. Confusion flickered across her features as she glanced around the campsite. "But … I thought I was supposed to wait here for you?"
"I'm talkin' about earlier. You shouldn't have gotten involved."
"I thought they were going to hurt you," she whispered. "I only wanted to help."
As ridiculous as it was-this slip of a girl thinking she could somehow protect him from the Road Warriors-Preacher also found it admirable.
"I took on all those guys at the truck stop. You don't gotta worry about me."
She shook her head. "This was different." Her eyes slid to the Road Warrior sharpening his blade. "They're different."
Preacher paused, unable to dispute her reasoning. The men from the truck stop weren't good men by any stretch of the imagination, but he doubted they were killers. Preacher didn't doubt for a single second that a man like Rocky had a body count.
"I'm blamin' it all on you, you know," he said eventually. Facing the fire, he lifted the whiskey to his mouth. "You're a whole lot of bad luck. Got me slapped with a baseball bat, stole my wallet and my goddamn jacket-"
Before he was able to drink, Debbie grabbed hold of the whiskey bottle, threw her head back, and took a stunningly long swallow. Amused, Preacher watched as she began to sputter and cough.
"Holy shit," she breathed, thrusting the bottle back into his hand. "That was horrible!"
A drop of whiskey slipped down Debbie's chin, and before Preacher could think twice about it, he wiped it away. Her eyes shot to his, and his thoughts took a tire-squealing turn back to earlier-back to their kiss. A claiming kiss he'd given her only to ensure the Road Warriors would keep their hands to themselves.
He hadn't expected her to kiss him back like she had. If anything, he'd expected her to be mostly unreceptive. And she had been … at first. A little shaky, too. But then, out of nowhere, she'd been on fire, kissing him with a wild eagerness he hadn't experienced since he was a teenager. Back when Preacher had been about girls, girls, and more girls. Any girl he could get his hands on, he most definitely put his hands on. He'd been all too eager and therefore messy, lacking in the skill and finesse that would come later, with time and experience.
He'd forgotten what that felt like. To be so enthusiastic about something or someone that you temporarily lost yourself and just … lived in the moment. Just thinking about kissing Debbie again, experiencing her energy and enthusiasm again, had his dick twitching.