The Bourbon Kings
Page 109

Reality had now been clearly established, however: He had just put up a billboard in her proverbial town square. Set her straight with no room for misinterpretation.
She might be pathetic.
But she was not stupid.
THIRTY-NINE
Punched in the head.
As Lizzie slumped to the side in the crushed cabin of her Yaris, she felt like she’d been punched in the head.
By a combination of Wolverine, The Rock, and maybe Ahnold from back in the day.
And as a result, nothing was processing well, not her having run into the back of Lane’s car, not the fact that there was water in her face, not the loud noise—
“Lizzie!”
The sound of her name cleared some of the cobwebs away, and she looked around, trying to figure out why God suddenly sounded a lot like Lane.
“Lane?” she said, blinking hard.
Why was he coming through her windshield? Was this a dream?
“—hurt anywhere?” he was saying. “I need to know before I move you.”
“I’m sorry … about your car—”
“Lizzie, y’all gotta tell me if you’re hurt!”
Boy, when he got anxious that Southern accent came back thick, didn’t it. Then she frowned. Hurt? Why would she be—
And that was when she saw all the greenery.
In her car.
Okay, this had to be a bad dream—and she might as well go along with it: Testing her arms, her legs, taking a deep breath, moving her head … everything checked out.
“I’m all right,” she mumbled. “What happened?”
“I’m going to pull you forward—help me if you can, ’kay?”
“Sure. I’ll—”
Wow. Ow!
But she was determined to particpate in the effort. Even as things got stretched out of place and threatened to pop from sockets, she shoved her feet against anything she came in contact with, pushing as Lane pulled, twisting to keep going forward.
Rain on her face, in her hair, on her clothes. Scratches. Wind blinding her.
But he got her out.
And then she was in his arms, up against his chest, feeling him tremble.
“Oh, God,” he said hoarsely. “Oh, praise God, you’re alive …”
Lizzie held on to him, still not understanding why they were sitting up in a tree. How had the cars gotten up in her—
The lightning bolt streaked out of the sky and landed so close to them, her ears exploded in pain.
“We have to get inside,” Lane barked. “Come on.”
Sometime in the process of tripping and falling to the ground, her brain came back online—and what she saw nearly paralyzed her.
Half of the beautiful tree that grew beside her house had crushed her car.
She hadn’t hit his Porsche, after all.
The crunching had been her tiny sedan taking the brunt of all that tremendous weight.
“Lane … my car—”
That was all she got out before he took her up into his arms and ran for her house. As he jumped onto the porch, she pushed herself from his hold and refused to go any farther. Lifting her hand to her mouth at the sight of her car, she—
Blood. There was blood … all over her.
A sudden lightheadedness washed over her, making her sway as she looked down at herself. “Lane … am I hurt?”
“Inside,” he demanded, moving her bodily to the door.
As he shoved her into her house and put his whole strength against the panels to reshut them, her heart began to pound as she got a good look at her savior: He was a bloody, wet mess, too.
But what did it matter?
The two of them embraced in such a rush that their dripping clothes slapped together, their bodies reconnecting, sharing warmth, holding on hard.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said into her ear. “Oh, Christ, I thought I’d—”
“You saved me, you saved me—”
They were both talking a mile a minute, tripping over words, buzzing from the near miss. And then he was kissing her and she was kissing him back.
Except she stopped all that, pulling away. “I think you’re the one who’s bleeding.”
“Just scratches—”
“Oh, God, look at your arms—your hands!”
He was totally torn up, his exposed skin streaked with cuts from his having fought through the branches to get to her—and there were further contusions on his face and his neck.
“I don’t care,” he said. “You’re all I’m worried about.”
“Do you need a doctor?”
“Oh, please. The tree fell on you, remember?”
And that was when the lights went out.
Lizzie stilled for a moment … and then she started to laugh so hard that her eyes burned. It was just too much emotion about too many things for her to hold in—and before she knew it, Lane was laughing, too, the pair of them holding each other and letting out the ridiculous afterburn of everything from the problems with his family to the stress of the brunch … to that freak accident with her tree.
“Shower?” she said.
“I thought you would never ask.”
Ordinarily, she’d have fussed over the wet footprints across her living room and up the planks of the stairs, but not now: The memory of that weight landing on her car was a prioritizer and a half.
“I swear, I thought I hit your car,” she said as they came up to the second floor.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if you had.”