Of course, what she’d do after that was another worry entirely. One she’d deal with after she’d dealt with Justin.
‘Let’s go check in,’ she said, breathing easily for the first time since they’d left White King behind. ‘I’ve been dreaming of a bed to myself for the last hundred miles.’
Which, she decided later, was probably what had jinxed the whole thing.
* * *
‘Yes, I am absolutely sure that I booked two rooms.’ Cooper scraped a hand through his hair and glared at the teenager behind the motel desk who apparently had flunked maths every year since the first grade. ‘Two. Not one. It’s a fairly simple concept.’
‘Yeah, but see, the thing is—’ the boy started.
‘The thing is I need two rooms!’ Cooper roared, making the boy behind the desk jump. He’d feel guilty, except he was too exhausted to feel anything except tired. And maybe annoyed.
Dawn’s hand on his arm caught his attention, and he turned to look at her.
‘Let me?’ she asked softly.
Cooper sighed and stepped back. ‘By all means.’
‘Hi!’ Dawn beamed at the receptionist, looking perky and pleasant and nowhere near as tired as Cooper knew she had to be after driving all afternoon. ‘So, my friend here booked us two rooms for tonight. Can we have them, please?’
‘That’s the thing! He didn’t.’ The boy leant over the desk, obviously relieved to be dealing with someone who would actually let him finish a sentence. Something that Cooper was fairly sure was a mistake, as the end of the sentence was usually, ‘No,’ in his experience.
‘He absolutely did,’ Dawn said. ‘On your chain’s booking app.’
The boy pulled a face. ‘Oh, man, we’ve been having all sorts of problems with that thing. See, what he booked was one room for two adults.’ He turned the computer screen so Dawn could see it, and Cooper watched her face fall. ‘And that’s the only room we have left.’
‘Of course it is,’ Dawn muttered, so low that Cooper had to strain to hear her. ‘Because my life is apparently cursed.’
‘So, uh, do you want the room?’ The boy looked between the two of them, room key in his shaky hand.
This was ridiculous. Cooper reached across and plucked it from his hand. ‘Which room?’
‘Two-oh-two,’ the boy replied, smiling with obvious relief.
Cooper grabbed his bag and motioned to Dawn. ‘Come on.’
‘So...we’re sharing a room?’ Dawn asked as they headed to room two hundred and two.
‘Apparently so,’ Cooper bit out.
‘Right.’ She did a quick double-step to catch him up, and Cooper realised he might be walking a little fast.
He was just so damned annoyed with himself. Or at least with the stupid booking app.
Spotting the number on a door, he halted suddenly, Dawn skidding a little beside him as she did the same.
Please let there be two beds. Please.
It was a long shot, he knew, given the quality of the motel, but Cooper had spent a long day in the car, and the few days before that hadn’t been exactly relaxed, plus he’d hardly slept the night before. All he wanted to do was crawl into a soft bed and sleep for twelve solid hours. Was that so much to ask?
Apparently so.
The door swung open to reveal one bed that could charitably be called a small double and an even smaller, lumpy-looking couch under the window.
Perfect.
Sighing, Cooper stepped in and flung his bag onto the floor by the couch. ‘You take the bed,’ he said, because he might be grumpy and exhausted but he was still a gentleman. ‘I’ll crash on the sofa.’
He was about to sit down on it and loosen his shoes when Dawn said, ‘No.’
‘No?’ He looked up. Her expression was pure stubbornness, and he was just too tired for this.
‘I’ll take the sofa. I’m shorter—I’ll fit better. You take the bed.’ She folded her arms across her chest as if she was waiting for him to argue.
He should argue. That was the gentlemanly thing to do.
But he really wanted that bed...
No. ‘Don’t be silly. I’ll take the couch.’
‘I am not being silly.’ Dawn’s eyes grew harder, and he realised he might have chosen his words poorly. ‘I’m being practical. The sofa is too short for you to sleep on, and it’s your turn to drive first in the morning, so you need the rest more than me. I can sleep in the car tomorrow before I have to drive.’
When she put it like that, it did kind of make sense.
‘Fine, if you insist.’ Cooper gave her a tired smile. ‘Thank you.’
Dawn nodded sharply. ‘But I’m using the bathroom first,’ she said, and flashed him a grin.
Maybe tonight wouldn’t be too unbearable after all.
* * *
This was unbearable.
&nbs
p; Dawn shifted between the lumps in the sofa’s cushions, tugging the extra blanket they’d found in the wardrobe a little tighter around her. Just feet away, she could hear Cooper’s slow, even breaths. At least one of them was getting some sleep. The bed, she thought rationally, probably wasn’t all that comfortable either, given the general quality of the motel. But it had to be less awful than the sofa from hell.
Maybe she shouldn’t have made such a fuss about giving him the bed. If she’d just let him play the gentleman, she could be curled up there asleep right now. Except then he’d have been grumpier than ever in the morning, and she didn’t want to subject Claudia to his aggressive driving. Or herself to his glowering looks and sharp comments, come to that.
Sighing, Dawn turned over again, praying she’d find a comfortable position. She was being unfair to Cooper, she knew. So he wasn’t thrilled to be spending his holiday on a road trip with a woman he barely knew. That was understandable. And actually, over the last day or so, he’d started to lighten up. They’d even had a beer each with their pancakes when they’d stopped and, although they’d been too tired to talk much, there had at least been a weary comradeship building between them, she thought.
Until the whole room debacle, anyway.
There was, she realised now, a third option for sleeping arrangements—one that neither of them even seemed to have considered. It had only occurred to Dawn once she was settled on the sofa with a spring stuck in her back.
They could have shared the bed.
For one brief, blissful moment, Dawn let herself consider how it might feel to lie on an actual mattress, with enough space to stretch her legs out the whole way. With a real duvet, instead of this scratchy, itchy wool blanket. With Cooper’s arms wrapped warm around her and...
Wait. No.
Where the hell had that come from?
A place of sleep deprivation, Dawn decided, as she turned her back on the bed and stared, wide-eyed, at the cushions of the sofa.
She was not thinking about Justin’s brother that way. And, actually, she really wasn’t. What she was imagining was warmth, comfort and another person beside her who wasn’t just there because...