Rhythm and Bluegrass (20 page)

Keeping an eye on the road, I pressed my fingers over his carotid and detected a slow but steady pulse. I took a deep breath and tried to focus. I’d been through so much worse. It didn’t make sense to panic now. How had I gotten myself into this? I’d worked so hard to avoid this kind of trouble. I’d kept my head down, stayed low profile. And here I was, driving around in a possibly stolen truck with a possibly dead body slumped over in the passenger seat. If I’d had one operating brain cell in my head, I would have run screaming into the bar the minute I heard the men arguing in the parking lot. But no, I had to help the injured stray, because living with the less-than-civic-minded side of humanity over the past few years had apparently taught me nothing.

I saw a sign ahead for Sharpton. Since he didn’t want to go to the clinic, I’d turned off the main highway and stuck to the older, less-traveled state routes. I tapped the brakes, afraid I would miss some vital piece of information hidden between the words
SHARPTON
and
20 MILES
. As the truck slowed, the big guy slumped forward and snorted as his head smacked against the dashboard.

Good. Dead people do not snort. That was my qualified medical opinion.

“Hey, big guy?” I said loudly, shaking his shoulder. “Mister?”

He snorted again but did not wake up. I laughed, practically crying with relief. I gently shook my . . . passenger? Patient? Hostage? What was I going to do with him? He didn’t want a doctor, he said. But as much as I needed a vehicle, I didn’t have it in me to just leave him on the side of the road somewhere and drive off.

Just over the next rise in the road, I saw a sign for the Last Chance Motel, which seemed both ominous and appropriate. I took a deep breath through my nose and let it slowly expand my lungs. By the time I exhaled, I’d already formed my plan. At the faded pink motel sign, I turned into the lot and parked in front of the squat, dilapidated building. There were two cars in the lot, including the one in front of the office, which seemed to double as the manager’s quarters.

I reached toward the passenger seat and gently shook the big guy’s shoulder. His breathing was deep and even. As carefully as I could, I raised the hem of his bloodied shirt and gasped. The bullet wound, just under his ribs on his left side, seemed too small for such a recent injury. The edges of the wound were a healthy pink. And the bullet seemed to be lodged there in his skin.

I pulled away, scooting across the bench seat. That . . . wasn’t normal.

Calm down,
I ordered myself.
There’s no reason to panic. This is good news.

Maybe some weird act of physics had kept the bullet from penetrating deeply in the first place, I reasoned. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the wound while I was playing action hero in a dark parking lot. In my panic, it must have looked much worse than it was. Either way, the wound looked almost manageable now.

“Just hold on tight,” I told him, placing my hand on his shoulder again. He leaned into my touch, trying to nuzzle his cheek against my fingers. “Uh, I’ll be right back.”

It would appear that I was footing the bill for this little slice of heaven. I couldn’t reach his wallet, as it was in his pocket, firmly situated under his butt. I had just enough cash in my purse (a twenty and a few lonely singles) to cover one night. After that, I was dead in the water. The rest of my cash had been stashed behind a dresser in my motel room near Emerson’s.

I jumped out of the truck and tried to look calm and normal as I walked into the motel’s dingy little office and saw its creepy-as-hell occupant. The hotel seemed to have run a bizarrely specific Internet ad that read, “Wanted: semiskilled applicant with off-putting sex-predator vibe and lax standards in personal hygiene.”

And this guy was no exception. It took no less than three refusals of a “room tour” from the night manager before I was permitted to trade a portion of my precious cash supply for a little plastic tag attached to the oldest freaking room key I had ever seen.

“Two beds, right?” I asked, taking the key.

He shook his head, leering at me. “Single rooms only. We like to stay cozy here.”

“What if a family of four needs a room for the night?”

“It’s never come up.”

“Is there a pharmacy anywhere around here?” I asked.

“In town, about four miles down the road. Opens in the morning, around eight,” he said. “But if you’re feeling poorly, I have something in my room that might perk you up.”

I gave him my patented “dead face,” turned on my heel, and made a mental note to prop a chair against the outside door once I got to the room.

I opened the passenger-side door and saw that the big guy had managed to sit up and had his head resting on the seat back. He was snoring steadily. I spotted a bulky duffel bag in the backseat of the cab and threw it over my shoulder. I unlocked the room door, tossed the bag inside, and steeled myself for the task of hauling his unconscious ass into the room. Careful to keep his bloodied side away from the manager’s window, I hoisted his arm over my shoulder in a sort of ill-advised fireman’s carry and took slow, deliberate steps toward the open door. The movement seemed to reopen the wound, and I could feel blood seeping through my shirt. We made it through the door. I heard a distinct metallic
plink
. I looked down and saw that the bullet had rolled across the filthy carpet and hit the wall.

I meant to set him gently on the bed, but ended up flopping him across the bedspread. The rickety frame squealed in protest as he bounced, but he didn’t bat an eyelash. I huffed, leaning against the yellowed floral wallpaper to catch my breath. “Sorry. You’re heavier than you look.”

I locked the door and wedged the desk chair against the knob. The room was so outdated it was almost in style again but too dirty and neglected to be considered kitschy. The carpet was a dank, greenish-brown color that could only be described as phlegm. The bedspread, threadbare and nearly transparent in places, matched the shade.

I shook off the Norman Bates flashbacks and told myself it was just like any of the other crappy indigent motels I’d stayed at in any number of cities, and I hadn’t been stabbed in the shower yet. There was that one time a crazy lady kicked down my door and accused me of sleeping with her husband, but it turned out she’d meant to break into the room across the hall.

I turned back to the sleeping giant on the bed. The flannel shirt made an unpleasant ripping noise as I peeled it away, the dried blood making the stiff material adhere to his skin. The wound seemed even smaller now, the area around it a perfectly normal, healthy color. I pushed back from him, away from the bed, staring at the minuscule hole in his flesh.

This couldn’t be right.

Taking a step back, I knocked over his duffel and saw a bottle of Bactine spray sticking out of the partially opened zipper. I arched an eyebrow and pulled the bag open. “What the . . . ?”

Never mind having to run to a pharmacy. The bag was filled to the brim with well-used first-aid supplies. And several different types of exotic jerky. But not much in the way of clothes.

I glanced from the shrinking bullet hole to the enormous bag of meat treats with its distinct lack of clothes . . . and back to the bullet hole.

Oh, holy hell, this guy was a werewolf.

Books by Molly Harper

In the Land of Half-Moon Hollow

Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs

Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men

Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever

Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors

Driving Mr. Dead

The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires

A Witch’s Handbook of Kisses and Curses

The Naked Werewolf Series

How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf

The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf

The Bluegrass Series

My Bluegrass Baby

Rhythm and Bluegrass

Also

And One Last Thing . . .

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Molly Harper White

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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition October 2013

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ISBN 978-1-4767-0593-4