Fucking hell. Rosie had a son. This whole situation was getting more and more complicated, and she still hadn’t explained much of anything at all. There was an ex-husband, a gang of rednecks in trucks, and a fucking kid. And Rosie, barely over her panic attack, still shivered in the passenger seat even with the heat on full blast. Her soaking wet clothes weren’t doing her any favors.

“Right,” I said, tightening my hands around the steering wheel. “I’m going to find me a hotel on the other side of town. After I check in, you’re going to take a hot shower and get warmed up so you don’t catch pneumonia for fuck’s sake. Then, we’re going to sit down with some room service, and you’re going to start at the beginning and tell me what the hell kind of mess you’re in. Okay?”

I expected her to argue with me. She’d shown a certain amount of distrust since she’d laid eyes on me in the bar. I expected it had something to do with my bulk, my height, and my tats. But, to be honest, I couldn’t blame her, especially seeing she was in some shit up to her eyeballs with a lunatic of an ex-husband.

“Right, okay,” she said quietly as she sighed. “There’s a Holiday Inn two exits down, right off the interstate. I don’t think Scooter would think to check there.”

“Holiday Inn. Alright.” Gritting my teeth, I started the car and aimed it toward the interstate. I usually preferred to crash in cheap hotels that were happy to deal in cash upfront, not popular chains with security cameras and holds on credit cards, a requirement of theirs just in case someone trashed the place. I didn’t like to leave a trail, but I usually didn’t have to worry about anyone but myself. And I could see now that another cheap rundown place wouldn’t do this girl any good.

After I checked in, I left Rosie in the room so she could shower in peace. I wandered across the road to a gas station that was still open even at such a late hour, glad the storm had started to ease up. Inside, I found a small gift area where I grabbed a bright orange Tennessee t-shirt and a pair of cotton jogging shorts with the letter T embroidered on them, both in a size small.

As I checked out, I noticed the guy manning the cash register was around Rosie’s age. Twenty-five, give or take a few years. Giving him a friendly smile, I pulled out a small wad of cash and began counting out what I owed.

“Listen,” I said in as a nonchalant voice as I could muster, being sure to put some Southern drawl into my words. “I ran into that Scooter fellow at the grocery store the other day, mad as all hell. He’s something else, isn’t he?”

The guy blinked back at me, eyes alarmed. “I’d stay away from him if I were you.”

“I plan to, I plan to.” I handed over the cash and watched as he spun open the drawer of the cash register. “You ever have a run in with him and his boys?”

“Of course not.” He slammed the drawer shut and handed me my change. I’d clearly offended him, as if the very question was some kind of judgement on his character. “I don’t do drugs.”

Drugs. My lips twitching, I nodded. Of course it was drug-related. I should have known. Everything started to make sense now. Why he was so violent. Why Rosie had left him. And why she wanted to get her kid away from here. But it still didn’t explain why he’d been chasing after her in the rain, running her down like he wanted to take her out in any way he could.

Fuck, I hoped she wasn’t involved in drugs herself.

“Of course not. I don’t do drugs either.” Just as I turned to go, I paused, my finger going to my forehead as if a thought had only just popped into my head. “You ever hear anything about his ex-wife? I sure was fond of her.”

“Rosie Smith?” The guy gaped at me, another strange reaction. “How do you know Rosie? You didn’t go to our high school.”

“I’m a little older,” I said, easily spinning the lie. “I’d already finished high school when I moved here. She lived right down the road.”

The guy blinked at me before shaking his head, his eyes moving down to the women’s clothes I’d just bought. “Sure, okay. Well, I haven’t heard from Rosie in several months, not since she snitched on Scooter and disappeared. Her mom said she went into the witness protection program.”

My breath stilled in my lungs as I stared hard at the gas station attendant. Surely I couldn’t have heard that right. Alarm bells went off in my head, ones that said I needed to get away from this girl as fast as I could. If she was involved in something this deep, something this dangerous, helping her would only put my own identity and my own neck at risk.

“Yeah, alright,” I said with a nod before backing out of the building. “Thanks man.”

Shit.

* * *

Rosie was still in the shower when I got back to the hotel room, and I placed the shirt and shorts on the floor by the bathroom door for her to find when she came out. As I listened to the steady spray of water, I paced back and forth, my jaw clenched tight.

The fucking witness protection program. What had this girl gotten herself into? And if she’d disappeared from this place—certainly to hide from this Scooter asshole ex-husband of hers—why the hell had she come back now? It was Owen, the kid. It had to be. She’d come back here for him.

Of course, that didn’t explain why she hadn’t taken him with her in the first place. I knew a thing or two about the program. Anyone entering it could bring children along. They had to leave behind their whole life and cease contact with everyone from their past, but spouses and children were always a part of the deal.

When Rosie came out of the shower wearing only a towel, her hair wet and slicked back from her flushed face, I had to look away. Something stirred in my heart and in my pants, but there was no time for that. And even if there was, I knew I couldn’t get involved with this girl. And she couldn’t get involved with me. We were the worst possible combination in the world.

“I ran next door and picked up those clothes for you,” I said a a low growl, trying to rid my mind of how she looked in that towel. Her wet skin, her breasts pushing out the top of the cotton, her smooth thighs. “They’re not the best looking things in the world, but they’ll do until your own clothes are dry.”

“Wow,” she said. “You went and got me clothes? Thanks, Franklin. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, my voice still strained. She sounded so sweet and so earnest, it only drove the desire in me up a notch. “Get changed. We have a lot to talk about.”

When she shut the door behind her, I finally let the breath out of my lungs. What the hell was I going to do now?