rang from his tone.
“Yeah.”
He fixed his gaze back onto the road. “But she’s not there.”
“So? I used to live there.” I shrugged a shoulder as I lowered my hand to my lap. “Besides, I’m really not going to spend the money on a hotel when I can stay some place free.” Even if it was truly the last place I wanted to stay.
Jax didn’t say anything for a long moment and then, “Have you had anything to eat?”
Shaking my head, I pressed my lips together. I hadn’t eaten since that morning, and even then it was only a Rice Krispies treat. I’d been too nervous to eat anything else. My stomach grumbled, apparently pissed off that I was just now paying attention to it.
“Me neither,” he commented.
We made a pit stop at a fast-food joint, and because I was hungry, I ordered a hamburger and a sweet tea, but when I dug around in my purse for the limited cash I had on me, Jax had already handed over money at the drive-through.
“I have money.” I grabbed my wallet.
He slid me a bland look as he rested one arm on his window. “You ordered a hamburger and a sweet tea. I think I got it covered.”
“But I have money,” I insisted.
He arched a brow. “But I don’t need it.”
I shook my head as I started to open my wallet. “How much does it—hey!” I snapped as he took my wallet and my purse from my hands. “What the hell?”
“Like I said, honey, I got it covered.” Closing up my wallet, he dropped it in my purse and then shoved it behind his seat.
My eyes narrowed on him. “That’s so not cool.”
“A thank-you would be cool, though.”
“I didn’t ask you to pay for it.”
“So?”
I blinked at him.
Jax winked.
I drew back a little. He winked, and my lady parts were like whoa, way on board with that, which was probably a good indication I needed to pay more attention to said parts, because they were getting desperate.
And I was feeling a wee bit boy crazy, but who’d blame me?
A minute later we were back on the road and I had a huge bag of food in my lap and two sweet teas jostling around in a holder. I hadn’t really paid attention to what he’d ordered, but by the weight of the warm and wonderful-smelling bag, it was half the menu.
“You look nothing like your mother,” he said unexpectedly.
That much was true. Mom dyed her hair a sunny blond, or at least she used to. I wasn’t sure since I hadn’t seen her in a while, but the last time I’d been around her, the day I’d left Plymouth Meeting to attend Shepherd, she’d been looking . . . rough.
“Her life . . . it’s been hard. She used to be really pretty,” I heard myself saying as I stared out the window, watching the strip mall of fast-food joints disappear.
“I imagine so, if she looked anything like you.”
My gaze swung to him sharply, but he wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t grinning or smiling. Nothing about him would’ve led me to believe that hadn’t been a genuine statement, but I wasn’t pretty, and that belief had nothing to do with a low self-esteem. I had a scar cutting across my left cheek. That tended to universally ruin features.
I didn’t know what Jax was up to and I didn’t want to find out. I had bigger and more important things to focus on and worry over.
But when I saw that Jax was turning off the main roadway, hitting a back road—a shortcut—I was staring at him again. “You know where the house is?”
He grunted out what I assumed was a yes.
“You’ve been there before?”
His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “A few times.”
A horrible thought formed in my head. “Why have you been to her house?”
“Don’t you mean our house since you used to live there?”
“Uh, no. I might’ve lived there while I was in high school, but it was never my home.”
He glanced at me, and then fixed his gaze on the road. A moment passed. “The first time I had to come out to your mom’s house was with Clyde. Mona . . . she went on a bender. Got so shitfaced that we thought we were going to have to take her to the hospital.”
I winced.
“Then a couple of times when she didn’t show up for a few days and we were worried about her.” His hand had loosened on the steering wheel and now he was tapping his fingers on it. “Every other day, Clyde or Pearl would check on her just to make sure she’s doing okay.”
“And you? You would check on her, too?”
He nodded.
Biting down on my lip, I ignored the wave of muddy guilt that threatened to rise up my throat. These people, with the exception of Clyde, were virtual strangers, and here I was, family, and I wasn’t making daily, or even yearly, trips to make sure if she was alive or to find out if she’d finally overdosed. After all, I knew that was what “checking in” on her meant.
I tried to check the guilt and failed. “I’m not close with Mom. We have—”
“Calla, I figured you two weren’t close. I get it,” he cut in, tossing a reckless grin my way. And it was reckless because he had to know how powerful that half curve of his lips was and he just threw it out there, all willy-nilly. “You don’t need to explain anything to me.”
“Thanks,” I whispered before I thought about it, and then I felt stupid. All he did was nod in response.
The rest of the ride out to Mom’s house was silent, and I was surprised when he parked his truck in the driveway and followed me to the door, carrying the two sweet teas.
As I unlocked the door, I glanced up at him. “You don’t have to come in.”
“I know.” He grinned. “But I’d prefer not to eat in my truck while driving. You cool with that?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, but my head had a mind of its own. I nodded as I pushed the door open.
“Great.” Jax dipped past me and entered the house before me.
“Make yourself at home,” I murmured.
He didn’t hear me because he was moving through the house stealthily, finding the switches on the wall to the lights and flipping them on. He scanned the house with an intense, wry eye, like he expected a troll to jump out from underneath the shabby couch. When he headed for the
