Katie struggled with her seatbelt. I reached over and clipped it in for her. She gave me a grateful smile. “I can get you one for free from the hotel.”
“What?”
She nodded earnestly. “We have plenty. Honest. My boss gives them away to people all the time. Let me pull some strings and see what I can do.” Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
I glanced over at her as I came to a stop at the exit of the parking lot. “What is it?”
“I don’t feel so good.”
“I can pull over.”
Katie clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Maybe you should just—” I started, but I never had a chance to finish the sentence.
Katie popped her seatbelt off while simultaneously opening the passenger door. She stumbled out, practically tripping over her own feet, and made it a grand total of four steps before she leaned over and hurled aggressively into the patch of grass separating Skip’s parking lot from the hair salon next door.
“Oh God,” she groaned.
I didn’t have anything to offer her. No water. No napkins. No gum. Nothing.
“Shit,” I breathed as I got out of the truck and walked around to meet her. “Are you okay?”
Katie held up a hand to keep me at bay. “Please don’t come closer. I don’t want you to see me. Or smell the tequila. Holy hell. It’s in my nose.” She gagged, her back arched, and she promptly vomited again into the grass.
I rubbed the back of my neck and looked around. At least she had some privacy on this side of my truck. “Can I do anything?”
She shook her head and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “No. But I feel better already. I’m sorry. This is so embarrassing.”
“We’ve all had nights where we drink a little too much.” I folded my arms over my chest and smirked at the memory of my worst hangover. “I went out on the fourth of July with some buddies when I was twenty-two and drank twenty-four beers and a dozen shots in a matter of three hours.”
Katie winced and clutched at her stomach. “That’s horrific. Please don’t say the word shots.”
“It was horrific. But temporary. Come on. Let’s get you back in the truck. If we have to pull over again, so be it. But at least we’ll be getting you closer to bed. Sound good?”
Katie straightened, swayed, and reached out for me. I steadied her and helped her up into the truck, and we carried on back to my cabin.
We only had to pull over one other time but Katie wasn’t sick again. I doubted the truck and the dirt roads full of potholes were helping her nausea much, so I did my best to try to minimize the jostling.
At the cabin, I helped her out and walked her up the front steps. She commented on how cute the place was and how good it smelled here. I wholeheartedly agreed. We pushed inside, and I flicked on some lamps, and Katie stood in the middle of the small space and turned in a slow circle.
“It’s small,” she said.
“Very,” I agreed, “but it’s all I need. Bedroom is through that door there. Bathroom on the right. If you need anything, help yourself. Coffee, tea, it’s all in the cupboard there above the fridge.”
Katie nodded and rubbed her arms. “Thank you, Peter.”
I tipped my head down the hall to the bedroom. “Let’s get you something else to wear, hmm? Something a little more comfortable?”
She followed me into the bedroom and accepted one of my T-shirts. It had a scoop neck, was navy blue, and bore a logo of pine trees surrounded by pop-up canvas tents. She took it into the bathroom where she stayed for a good ten minutes. I waited until she returned in my shirt with no pants on.
It was an enormous effort not to check her out as she padded barefoot across my floor to the bed. I’d already pulled the blankets down for her.
She stood over it and frowned at me. “I can take the sofa, Peter.”
“Nonsense.”
“But—”
“Nonsense,” I said again, more firmly this time.
She smiled. “Thank you.”
I nodded at the aspirin and a glass of water I’d left on the nightstand for her to take if she wanted. “Do you need anything else?”
She shook her head. “This is perfect. You’re a lifesaver.”
I woke early. Birds chirped outside the living-room window as if mocking me as I struggled to sit up with a sharp pain in my lower back and an