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He was wearing the same thing he always did when he wasn’t in uniform, except he had a black cowboy hat on his head and there was something about him that just seemed... more.

He looked at her, his blue eyes flicking over her. “That’s nice.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“You want to bring a jacket?”

She sniffed. “I’m not going to get cold.”

He took a black jacket off the peg by the door. “Suit yourself.”

The truth was, she didn’t have a jacket. She hadn’t thought about that. All she had was her ratty old coat and a couple of hoodies. And she wasn’t going to put those over her cute dress. She would just have to stick close to the bonfire that he had told her existed at this thing that they were going to.

Just stick close to him.

She ignored the little voice inside of her that said that. She didn’t need to stay close to Daughtry King. Because even though she was parked here for a little while and enjoying some of their hospitality, she took care of herself. Nightstands and matching sheets weren’t going to change that.

Chapter Nine

He could hardly recognize the woman riding shotgun in his truck right now, versus the woman he had first found in the woods a month ago. This version of Bix was softer. At least in appearance. Her face had rounded after weeks of eating well, and she seemed less edgy. Most of the time. Every so often something would get her hackles up and she would go right back to the feral creature he’d first encountered, but it was less and less often.

Living with her was easy enough. She was like a roommate.

Or a cat.

Yes. Having Bix live with him was a lot like getting a cat. She came out of her room when she wanted food, and otherwise didn’t have a lot to do with him.

But right now, wearing that floral dress, sitting next to him in the truck, he felt something shift inside of him.

Like he was seeing a new dimension in her. Even knowing that she was twenty-three, it was hard for him to see her as anything other than a scrappy kid. She was wise in the ways of the world, mostly. But then there would be moments and things that made her seem like a teenager.

But one thing he couldn’t forget was the way that she had told him all the things she might’ve done if she’d had a normal family. The way her eyes had gone bright when she’d talked about going to dances. Going to college. She could deny that she had dreams, but he knew that she did.

And it made him feel... an intense desire to fix it for her.

He’d found a place. He’d found a way to begin to atone for his own sins, for the way that he was raised, and the way that he had participated in the life his father had constructed out of lies and a lack of basic human empathy. She was only twenty-three. She could still start again.

He also knew if he said that she would bite his hand off.

“It’s up the road a spell, but this is where Landry and Fia live.”

“I figured that,” she said.

“It’s pretty.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that the place Fia lives is pretty.”

“Have you gotten to know her very well?”

Bix shifted beside him. “I don’t really know how to talk to women.”

“You don’t?”

“I just... I never had any friends. Not really. And I’m afraid I’m going to say something insensitive or mean. Because women care about that more.”

“You don’t care about that more.”

“I think that’s a bug and not a feature.”