Color of Loneliness (19 page)

“Oh – God – can’t breathe,” Myra gasps.

“Anyway, I had to rip the cover off of my precious book and trash that sucker. And I swear to God, I’m going to
kill
somebody and I really mean it.”

“Why didn’t you just wipe the booger off?” Myra says, before giggling crazily after saying the word
booger.

“Are you kidding me? Desmond was defiled by booger juice. No way. I would’ve thrown the whole book away, but until I can get to the bookstore to replace it, I’m just too damn obsessed to toss it.”

“You know you’re crazy, right?”

“Yes, I am completely certifiable, I know. Oh, shit. I gotta go. The boys are having a food fight. I’ll call you later,” she says before hanging up.

* * *

“Damn, boy, you busted yourself up good, didn’t ya?” Ray says before bending over and smacking his hand against his knee, laughing. Dylan’s eyes narrow as he glares at Ray. “I can’t believe you fell through the woman’s fucking roof. I wish I could’ve seen that. You look like shit, man.”

“Shut the hell up,” Dylan grumbles angrily under his breath as he shuts the door of his truck. “I didn’t ask for your fucking opinion.”

“You’ve even got a shiner going on there.” Ray points at Dylan’s eye before he grabs his stomach again letting out loud guffaws.

“I’m not in the mood for your mouth this morning. I called you to work on the roof, not to speak, goddamn it,” Dylan hisses sharply before giving Ray a furious glare.

“You’re so warm and cuddly this morning, Sugar Lips.”

Ray gets under Dylan’s skin like nobody’s business, but he’s a dependable worker and a skilled contractor so Dylan puts up with his shitty, never-ending mouth and calls him when he needs another pair of hands. Someone needs to cover the hole in the roof of Myra’s garage today because some snow might be coming in. And Dylan’s in too much damn pain to get up there. “Stay here,” he mumbles before he shoots Ray a nasty look.

Dylan tries not to limp and groans several times as he slowly makes his way up to Myra’s porch. She opens the door before he can even knock.

“Your eye…” she says as she takes a step closer to him, intently inspecting his face. “I can’t believe you have a black eye.”

Dylan stares into her eyes for a moment before his gaze moves to her lips. His forehead scrunches up because he doesn’t know why the fuck his eyes just did that. “It’s nothing,” he says before he slightly shakes his head and clears his throat.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Myra says. “You should be home resting.”

“I’m fine, so drop it.”

Myra’s face falls as she takes a step back. He gets a painful tightening in his chest as he immediately regrets his words and wishes he could take them back.

“Why, hello,” Ray says, stepping rudely in front of Dylan. “Who do we have here?”

Dylan glares at the back of his head.

Ray holds out his hand to Myra. “I’m Ray. And you are?”

“Myra. Hi,” she responds in a shy voice as she reaches her hand out and grasps his.

“My God, this day just keeps getting better and better. It’s certainly a pleasure to meet you,” Ray says. Dylan’s eyes focus on Ray’s hands as he has both of them wrapped around Myra’s. It doesn’t get past him that the fucker hangs onto her hand for way too long.

“You too,” Myra mumbles as she quickly pulls her hand away from his.

“Well, I’m here to save the day,” Ray announces proudly, taking a small bow. “I’m going to cover up the giant hole in your roof that this asshole made.” He nods towards Dylan before giving Myra a wink.

“So, do you have a Band-Aid?” Ray asks in a low voice. Dylan stares at him with his mouth open because why the fuck would he ask for that? The asshole just got here.

Myra crinkles her forehead. “Um, yeah?”

“Good. Because I think I just scraped my knee falling for you,” he says, giving her a grin.

Dylan makes a growling sound as Myra’s face turns red and her gaze drops to the floor of the porch. “We’re not at a fucking club, you asshole,” he says to Ray through gritted teeth.

Dylan turns his attention back to Myra. “The insurance adjuster will be here soon.”

“Okay,” she says with a nod.

Dylan grabs Ray’s arm and starts to drag him off the porch. “Let go,” Ray says as he yanks his arm away from Dylan’s grasp.

Ray turns back to Myra. “I hope we can talk more soon, Myra. I really enjoyed meeting you,
ma cherie
Myra,” Ray says in a God-awful French accent as he flirts shamelessly, smiling and waving at her. Dylan has the strong urge to rip his arm off and beat him with it.

Myra closes the door and Dylan stomps towards his truck with Ray trailing behind.

“Damn, she’s fucking beautiful. Are you tapping that? Because if not, I want to make a play for that babe. That’s one fine piece of pussy right there,” Ray says as he wiggles his eyebrows and flicks his tongue out.

Dylan lunges at Ray and slams him up against his truck, pushing his forearm hard against his neck. “Don’t you ever talk about her like that again or I’ll rip your balls off with my bare hands and hang them off my bumper. You got it?” Dylan growls in a low, menacing voice.

Ray laughs and throws his hands up. Dylan looks daggers at him before reluctantly letting him go. “Damn, what did you eat for breakfast, dude? Somebody jack-off in your corn flakes or something? Look, you’re obviously interested in her so I’ll back…”

“I’m not fucking interested in her. At all,” Dylan shouts. “I just don’t want to hear your nasty ass mouth saying shit about her.”

Dylan leans over into the bed of his truck to retrieve a tarp. Turning, he shoves the tarp into Ray’s chest, hard. “Now get your ass up there and cover that hole.”

Ray smirks as he does a military salute and shouts, “Yes, sir.”

Dylan groans in pain as he climbs back into his truck. He hurts all over especially his damn back, but knows he has shit to get done today so he’ll deal with it. As he watches Ray clamber up the ladder, he mulls over their conversation. For some reason, Ray’s words about Myra made him want to tear him from limb to limb. Ray shouldn’t be saying shit like that about her. His thoughts are interrupted when he sees a car pull in front of the house.

Carefully, he climbs back out of his truck and stands by his door as he spies a short, fat bald man approaching. He shakes hands with the claims adjuster and points towards the garage.

“You can head on in,” Dylan tells him. “I’ll go get the owner.”

“Great,” the adjuster says with a smile and a nod as he begins walking towards the garage.

Dylan limps back up to Myra’s door again and knocks. She opens it, chewing on her thumbnail. “The claims adjuster is here. Can you come outside for a minute?”

She nods. “Sure. Let me grab my coat.”

Dylan shoves his hands in his pockets as he waits on the porch for her. When she steps up to the door again, he quickly opens it for her, and she gives him a small smile.

“He’s in the garage. He’ll probably need you to fill out some paperwork,” he tells her.

“Okay. Thanks,” Myra says softly as she makes her way carefully through the wet gravel to the garage.

Dylan gets back in his truck just as his phone vibrates in his pocket. Pulling it out, he takes one look, rolls his eyes and throws the phone on the seat beside him. Leaning his head back against the headrest, he closes his eyes and rubs his temples. After a few minutes, he looks up to see Ray coming back down the ladder.

He gets out of his truck again for what seems to be the umpteenth time today. “We’ll start on her roof on Monday. Eight sharp. Don’t be late.”

“Gotcha, boss. You better be in a better fucking mood or I’m gonna have to kick off in your ass, you hear me?” Ray says with a laugh before he gets in his truck.

Dylan ignores him and begins to stow away the ladder in the bed of his truck as Ray backs out of the driveway. Just as he starts to sit on his tailgate, he hears Myra’s voice. Turning, he sees Myra and the claims adjuster walking towards him.

“I got everything I needed,” the adjuster says to him. “We’ll get Ms. Sommers’ car fixed and issue her a check for the damages to the roof.”

He nods at him. “Good.”

The adjuster mumbles a goodbye and gets in his car.

Dylan turns to Myra and watches as the wind whips her hair around her face. “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna go ahead and go and…”

“Please do,” Myra says, interrupting him. “I know you have to be hurting.”

Dylan frowns. He doesn’t want her feeling sorry for him because of a couple of damn scratches. And he especially doesn’t like being interrupted. He glares at her. “I was going to say I’m gonna pick up the roofing materials. We’ll start the roof on Monday.”

He gets distracted by her hair which blows out of control in the wind. Myra tries to hold it in a ponytail out of her face. “Oh. Okay.”

Dylan nods at her.

Pulling himself into his truck again, he sits for a minute, his body aching all over. His phone vibrates again. Picking it up and catching sight of the caller ID he yells, “Damn it,” as he waits for it to go to voicemail. As soon as it beeps indicating a new message, he flips it open and punches the button to listen to it. The recording says, “Your inbox is full.” Sighing, he begins listening to the messages, deleting many of them after hearing only the first few words. He has a few calls from that Rhonda woman. He listens to the first one to make sure she doesn’t have an issue with the disposal and deletes the rest before he hears a word she says.

He looks up to see if Myra’s gone inside of the house yet and yells, “Oh, shit,” before dropping his phone and leaping out of his truck. Ignoring his pain, he runs straight towards Myra.

CHAPTER 11

FUSCHIA, LONGING

“Jesus Christ. Are you all right?” Dylan shouts as he pushes the box Myra was carrying to the side and hunches down beside her. Her blank wide eyes stare back up at him from her prone position on the driveway.

“Huh?” she mumbles. Reaching up and touching the back of her head, she mutters, “Ouch,” before she brings her hand back in front of her, her eyes focusing on the bright red color staining her fingertips.

“Why am I bleeding?” she asks, as she continues staring at her hand.

“Damn it,” Dylan grumbles. “Let me see.” He helps her into a sitting position and softly pushes her long, dark hair back to reveal a small, gaping wound on the back of her head.

“Fuck,” he mutters, barely audible. “You’re gonna need stitches. Don’t move.” Dylan whips out his pocket knife and cuts a strip from the bottom of his flannel shirt. Folding it, he carefully presses it to the back of her head. He lifts her left hand and places it gently over the material. “Hold this,” he says as he picks up her right hand and wipes the blood off of her fingertips onto his flannel shirt.

“Don’t let that go. Keep pressure on it.” Leaning down, he carefully picks her up. His back hurts like hell, but thankfully the woman weighs practically nothing. He swiftly makes his way to his truck. Squeezing her up close to him, he leans in and opens the door before he sets her gently on the seat and grabs the seatbelt, buckling her in.

“I can do that,” she mumbles, still holding the piece of his shirt to the back of her head. He ignores her and shuts the door.

“Where are we going?” she asks as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “The hospital.”

“I’ll need my ID, and I should probably lock the house.”

He’d forgotten about all that shit. Sighing loudly, he asks in an aggravated voice, “Where’s it at?”

She moves her hand towards the seatbelt. “I can get it.”

“Where’s it at?” he repeats, his voice louder and angrier.

“On the dining room table.”

“Are your keys in it?”

“No, they’re in my pocket.”

“Stay here.”

Once inside, Dylan locks the back door. His lip curls into a snarl when he picks up her purse off of the dining room table like it has a disease, holding it out to his side with just his fingertips. Making his way back to the truck, he quickly deposits it on the floorboard next to her feet.

“Why the hell were you carrying a box like that and trying to walk on that slick driveway? That was damn stupid.”

She looks at him with a wounded expression on her face. “I, I boxed up some of my Grampie’s tools earlier. I was going to store them in the garage.”

“And you couldn’t wait to do that until after the ice melts? Or ask someone to carry it for you?” he asks with a sneer.

Getting no response, Dylan glances over at her and immediately feels like a shit for opening his damn mouth. He hopes like hell she doesn’t start crying because he doesn’t know if he can handle that shit. He blames his loss of control over his mouth on his mood. He didn’t sleep at all last night, he aches all over, and Ray’s mouth pissed him off to no end. And to top it off, he sure as hell doesn’t want to be taking this woman to the damn hospital right now.

Pulling up to the emergency room, he mumbles, “Don’t move.” Walking around to her side, he opens the door and leans in to pick her up off of the seat.