sense to buy a car since I would need one to get around.
To run.
I leaned forward, and asked Jacob, “Hey, Jacob, is there a car lot in this town? I need a car.”
I watched his shoulders hunch as if he were dreading ruining my day further by telling me there wasn’t. “No, Miss Fallon,” he answered, confirming my assumption.
“Do you know if there are any more buses coming through town tonight?” I needed to get out of Brant, that much I knew.
I watched the back of his head shake back and forth. “No, there aren’t,” he replied. “But I can drive you wherever you need to go.” It was a sweet offer, and I respected how he wasn’t prying, but I couldn’t ask this man to drive me hours out of town. I wouldn’t repay his kindness like that.
“Is there a cheap hotel or something in town?” I really didn’t care about the price, but the seedier I could find, the more likely I could get by without showing any identification. However, Brant didn’t strike me as the type of town that had seedy motels. The town really was picturesque.
“We have one bed and breakfast that Milly Sue runs, but we do have a motel on the edge of town that runs the highway for travelers,” he replied.
No way in hell I was going to stay at Milly Sue’s. “Can you take me to the motel on the highway, Jacob?”
“Of course, Miss Fallon,” he whispered, and proceeded to drive me to the roadside motel.
As we pulled into the motel’s car lot, I noticed a mini-convenient store on the right side of the shared commercial lot, and an understated tavern on the other side. It was actually a great place to stop for a rest if you were traveling. You could stockpile your road trip supplies and have a drink to decompress from a long drive.
Jacob pulled into an empty parking space right in front of the motel’s office, but before I could get out, he turned around in his seat to face me. “Stay here,” he instructed. “I’ll go see if they have a room available, okay?”
I stared into Jacob’s kind brown eyes and actually felt wrecked that the world wasn’t filled with more people like Jacob. I barely knew the man, but I had a feeling that Jacob always did the right thing because he didn’t know how not to. He was kind, compassionate, and real. The world could do with a shitload more Jacobs, and a lot less Xanders.
I also realized just how close I was to having an exhausted emotional breakdown. Jacob’s kindness was proving to be too much, so I just gave him a small smile and nodded my head.
After a few minutes, Jacob exited the motel’s office with a key in hand, and I was stunned when he got back into the cab and drove us further into the motel’s structure. He parked in the empty space in front of a room that had 1045 on its door, and I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Jacob?”
He turned around in his seat again to face me. “I’m not sure what is going on,” he started, “but that…argument at Miss Karla’s…well, I imagine you would probably welcome some privacy.”
“But…I don’t want to cause any issues,” I stuttered. Jacob had a shiny gold band on his ring finger, and the last thing I wanted was for his wife to find out he had rented a motel room in his name for a complete stranger. Small towns were the horrible way of unfounded rumors.
Jacob smiled. “Miss Fallon, even if my wife didn’t trust me completely, I called her when I was in the office and told her there’d be a charge on our credit card for Roadies’ Motel.” Wow. “She said okay and requested that I be careful. Now, let’s get you situated, yeah?” He didn’t give me a chance to respond as he got out of the car and headed towards the back of the cab to grab my bags. I finally opened the cab’s door with shaky hands to help him.
We stood side-by-side with the trunk open when he handed me the keys to the motel room and said, “Go on and check the room out while I get these. I want to make sure you’re happy with it before I leave you to it, Miss Fallon.”
There was no way to stave off the emotional breakdown.
The tears started streaming down my face, and this sweet, sweet man