Driving Her Crazy

The crunch thankfully drowned out another resounding growl from her belly.

By the time they’d crossed the state border and arrived in Cunnamulla, Sadie was definitely ready to call it a day. She was tired and over her strong, silent travelling companion, who had snacked all day, read, slept, listened to music and devoured two pies and a large carton of iced-coffee for lunch, whilst disparaging her pumpkin and feta salad with a Diet Coke.

All with only the barest minimum of conversation.

She wanted a shower. Then a bed.

The welcome glow of a vacancy sign cheered her enormously. ‘This okay?’ she asked him.

Kent nodded. ‘As good as any, I guess.’

Sadie parked the car in front of the reception and she and Kent went inside, the night air already starting to cool.

‘Two rooms, please,’ Sadie said to the middle-aged woman behind the desk.

‘I’m sorry, we only have one left,’ she apologised.

‘Oh,’ Sadie murmured, her shoulders sagging.

The woman looked from Sadie to Kent, then back to Sadie, and brightened. ‘It has two doubles, though?’

Kent opened his mouth to tell the woman they’d go elsewhere but Sadie, standing tall again, butted in. ‘We’ll take it.’

He blinked at her. ‘I’m sure there are other hotels here that will have two separate rooms,’ he said to her.

‘I’m sure there are,’ Sadie agreed wearily. ‘And if you want to go and track them down I’ll wish you luck. But I’m exhausted. My butt is numb. The thought of getting back in the car again makes me want to cry. So I’m going to stay right here, if it’s all the same to you.’

Kent looked down at her doe eyes, the lashes fluttering against her cheek. She did look pretty done in and she had driven all day without complaint.

‘Fine. I can sleep in the car.’

Sadie cocked an eyebrow. She doubted the confines of his back car seat would be very accommodating for a man of his proportions. ‘I’m an adult. You’re an adult. There are two beds. I promise not to wake up in the middle of the night and try to seduce you.’

Kent gave her a grudging smile. His first for the day. ‘Well, now you’ve just taken all the fun out of it. And you, going to the trouble of bringing your frilly negligee.’

Sadie blinked, surprised to discover that beneath all that guarded silence, a sense of humour lurked. ‘Well, will you look at that,’ she murmured. ‘He does know how to smile.’

Kent suppressed another smile. ‘Don’t get used to it.’

Sadie absently massaged her neck, too tired for this conversation. ‘Fine, tough guy, sleep in the car. Just don’t moan tomorrow when you have a crick in your neck.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve slept far rougher.’ Being embedded with active forces in the Middle East on several occasions had been far from luxurious.

Not that he’d slept much then.

Or now, for that matter.

Sadie sighed. ‘Well, bully for you, He-man.’

Kent was so surprised by the nickname he actually laughed this time. He’d never been called that before, at least not to his face, and it was bemusing. ‘Did you just call me a he-man?’

Sadie felt his laughter undulate through every muscle in her body right down to her toes. It might have taken her all day but it had been worth the wait. ‘I call it as I see it.’

Kent opened his mouth to deny it but Sadie was looking up at him with long, sleepy blinks and he had the wildest urge to see what she’d look like between motel sheets.

He turned to the woman behind the desk, who’d been watching their exchange like an engrossed spectator at a tennis match. ‘Where do I sign?’ he asked.

THREE

The room was clean but basic. A bar fridge, a television, a bathroom. And two very hard-looking double beds. Still, they beckoned, more inviting than a Bedouin tent, and right now Sadie wouldn’t have swapped it for the Waldorf Astoria.

‘I bags the shower,’ she said as she threw her backpack on the bed closest to the bathroom and delved through it for some clean clothes.

‘Do you want something to eat?’ Kent asked plonking himself on the other bed and flipping through the information folder placed next to the fluffy towel folded into a fan with a wrapped bar of soap strategically placed in the centre. ‘They serve bar meals until eight.’

Sadie was starving. But not as much as she was sleepy. She was used to denying herself food. Sleep not so much. Sleep was as vital to her as air.

And woe betide anyone who deprived her.

‘Nope,’ she said, picking up her towel.

‘Celery again?’ Kent asked.

He wasn’t sure how much she’d brought in that fridge bag but there seemed to be an endless supply of it today. Every time he opened a packet of something or rustled a wrapper more appeared.

Sadie was too exhausted to make a pithy comeback. ‘Too tired. Need to sleep,’ she muttered, closing the bathroom door even before the last word was out of her mouth.

Kent heard the shower turn on and fell back against the bed. It felt like a rock and he literally bounced a little. The back seat of his vehicle would have been softer. But then it wouldn’t have had a hot, busty, naked woman just three metres and a wall away.

Getting wet. Getting soapy.

He felt heat bloom in his loins and placed the open information folder over his face.

Sadie Bliss was a bad idea. No matter what her body, her delectable smart mouth, her quick wit or her name might suggest.

He didn’t need a psych consult to know he was still pretty messed up. He’d had nearly two years of being held ransom by his body and the surgeons and physios had pronounced him cured—or as cured as he was going to get. But it was pretty dark inside his head still. He’d put off tackling the psychological fallout from the accident, thinking and hoping that time would heal as it had his physical ailments.

But it hadn’t.

So, he really didn’t need a fling with Sadie Bliss. Or, more importantly, she didn’t need a fling with him.

He wasn’t in a good headspace.

And she was too chatty, too pushy.

Too young.

He didn’t have a right to screw with that.