wait here with the Jeep.'
He cracked a slight smile, but it didn't look amused. 'I'm not letting you out of my sight. You're looking a little deranged, Angel. We'll go together.'
Crossing my arms, I stood up to him. In tennis shoes, my eyes came level with his shoulders. I was forced to tilt my neck back to meet his eyes. 'I'm not going anywhere near a motel with you.' Best to sound firm so I was less likely to change my mind.
'You think the two of us and a slummy motel make for a dangerous combination?'
Yes, actually.
Patch leaned back against the Jeep. 'We can sit here and argue this.' He squinted up at the riotous sky. 'But this storm is about to catch its second wind.'
As if Mother Nature wanted her say in the verdict, the sky opened and a thick concoction of rain and sleet hailed down.
I sent Patch my coldest look, then blew out an angry sigh.
As usual, he had a point.
Chapter 22
Twenty minutes later patch and I washed up at the entrance to a low-budget motel. I had not spoken one word to him as we'd jogged through the sleeting rain, and now I was not only soaked, but thoroughly… unnerved. The rain cascaded down, and I didn't think we would be returning to the Jeep anytime soon. Which left me, Patch, and a motel in the same equation for an undetermined amount of time.
The door chimed on our way in, and the desk clerk stood abruptly, dusting Cheetos crumbs off his lap. 'What'll it be?' he said, sucking his fingers clean of orange slime. 'Just the two of you tonight?'
'We n-n-need to borrow your phone,' I chattered, hoping he could make sense of my request.
'No can do. Lines are down. Blame the storm.'
'What do y-you mean the Mines are d-down? Do you have a cell?'
The clerk looked to Patch.
'She wants a nonsmoking room,' Patch said.
I swiveled to face Patch. Are you insane? I mouthed.
The clerk tapped a few keys at his computer. 'Looks like we've got… hang on… Bingo! A nonsmoking king.'
'We'll take it,' said Patch. He looked sideways at me, and the edges of his mouth tipped up. I narrowed my eyes.
Just then the lights overhead blinked out, plunging the lobby into darkness. We all stood silent for a moment before the clerk fumbled around and clicked on an industrial-size flashlight.
'I was a Boy Scout,' he said. 'Back in the day. 'Be prepared. '
'Then you m-m-must have a cell phone?' I said.
'I did. Until I couldn't pay the bill anymore.' He drew his shoulders up. 'What can I say, my mom's cheap.'
His mom? He had to be forty. Not that it was any of my business. I was far more concerned what my mom would do when she arrived home from the reception and found me gone.
'How do you want to pay?' the desk clerk asked.
'Cash,' Patch said.
The desk clerk chuckled, bobbing his head up and down. 'It's a popular form of payment here.' He leaned close and spoke in confidential tones. 'We get a lot of folks who don't want their extracurricular activities traced, if you know what I mean.'
The logical half of my brain was telling me I couldn't actually be considering spending the night at a motel with Patch.
'This is crazy,' I told Patch in an undertone.
'I'm crazy.' He was on the brink of smiling again. 'About you. How much for the flashlight?' he asked the clerk.
The clerk reached below the desk. 'I've got something even better: survival-size candles,' he said, placing two in front of us. Striking a match, he lit one. 'They're on the house, no extra charge. Put one in the bathroom and one in the sleeping area and you'll never know the difference. I'll even throw in the matchbook. If nothing else, it'll make a good keepsake.'
'Thanks,' Patch said, taking my elbow and walking me down the hall.
At room 106, Patch bolted the door behind us. He set the candle on the nightstand, then used it to light the spare. Lifting his baseball cap, he shook the ends of his hair like a wet dog.
'You need a hot shower,' he said. Taking a few steps backward, he ducked his head inside the bathroom. 'Looks like bar soap and two towels.'
I tilted my chin up a fraction. 'You can't f-force me to stay here.' I'd only agreed to come this far because I didn't want to stand out in the downpour, for one, and I had high hopes of finding a phone, for two.
'That sounded more like a question than a statement,' said Patch.
'Then ans-s-swer it.'
His rogue smile crept out. 'It's hard to concentrate on answers with you looking like that.'
I glanced down at Patch's black shirt, wet and clinging to my body. I brushed past him and shut the bathroom door between us.
Cranking the water to full hot, I peeled out of Patch's shirt and my clothes. One long black hair was plastered to the shower wall, and I trapped it in a square of toilet paper before flushing it. Then I stepped behind the shower curtain, watching my skin glow with heat.
Massaging soap into the muscles along my neck and down through my shoulders, I told myself I could handle sleeping in the same room as Patch. It wasn't the smartest or safest arrangement, but I'd personally see to it that nothing happened. Besides, what choice did I have… right?
The spontaneous reckless half of my brain laughed at me. I knew what it was thinking. Early on I'd felt drawn to Patch by a mysterious force field. Now I felt drawn to him by something entirely different. Something with a lot of heat involved. A connection tonight was inevitable. On a scale of one to ten, that terrified me about an eight. And excited me about a nine.
I shut off the water, stepped out, and patted my skin dry. One glance at my soaked clothes was all I needed to know I had no desire to put them back on. Maybe there was a coin-operated dryer nearby… one that didn't require electricity.1 sighed and pulled on my camisole and panties, which had survived the worst of the rain.
'Patch?' I whispered through the door.
'Done?'
'Blow out the candle.'
'Done,' he whispered back through the door. His laughter, too, sounded so soft it could have been whispered.
Snuffing out the bathroom candle, I stepped out, meeting total blackness. I could hear Patch breathing directly in front of me. I didn't want to think about what he was-or wasn't- wearing, and I shook my head to fragment the picture forming in my mind. 'My clothes are soaked. I don't have anything to wear.'
I heard the sound of wet fabric sliding like a squeegee over his skin. 'Lucky me.' His shirt landed in a wet heap at our feet.
'This is really awkward,' I told him.
I could feel him smiling. He stood way, way too close.
'You should shower,' I said. 'Right now.'
'I smell that bad?'
Actually, he smelled that good. The smoke was gone, the mint stronger.
Patch disappeared inside the bathroom. He relit the candle and left the door ajar, a sliver of light stretching across the floor and up one wall.
