Page 52 of Duty Preserved

The new woman at the desk typed. Frowned. Typed again.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. There seems to have been an error. A tour group arrived this evening, and the system double-booked one of your rooms. We only have one available.”

My stomach dropped.

“One room?”

“Yes, just the one. I’m very sorry. The town is fully booked tonight because of the tour. I can offer a discount on the remaining room.”

“But I booked two rooms. A few hours ago. I paid for both of them.”

“Yes, ma’am. The error was on our side. We will refund the second room. Again, I’m very sorry.”

My phone buzzed in my bag. Alyson’s voice was so loud in my head I couldn’t separate it from the woman behind the desk. One room. One room and the texts and Donovan six feet behind me hearing every word.

I could sleep in the truck. The truck was fine. People slept in trucks all the time.

“Sarah.” Donovan’s voice was close. He’d come up beside me.

“I didn’t plan this.” It came out high and tight. “I swear to God, Donovan, I booked two rooms. I was standing right here and I booked two rooms and paid for both of them, and this is not what it looks like.”

“I believe you.”

“I’ll sleep in the truck. You take the room.”

“We’ll take the room,” he said—to the woman behind the desk, not to me. Calm and level, the answer so obvious to him that my panic made no sense from where he stood.

I needed to calm down. I was being ridiculous, and I knew it.

He asked for an overnight kit. She handed him a small bag with basic hygiene items. He took the keycard from the counter and put his hand on my back, brief, just enough to steer me the right direction.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s fine.”

I went. My phone buzzed the whole way up the stairs.

The room was small and clean. One bed. A double, white cover, two pillows, a bedside lamp casting warm light across walls that suddenly felt very close together.

Donovan set the overnight kit on the dresser. He put the supply bag by the door. I stood by the closed door with my arms folded over my chest.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he said. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You’re not sleeping on the floor.”

“I’ve slept on worse.”

“That’s not the point.” My hands were shaking. I gripped my own elbows to keep them still, but the whole day was crashing in on me.

The pharmacy. The room. The texts. The bed.

Four feet from Donovan Hughes in a hotel room with one bed. The last time we’d been alone together, I’d kissed him in the dark and run.

He didn’t bring that up. He stood there, steady and untroubled, and the distance between where he was and where I was might as well have been a canyon.

My phone buzzed again. I pulled it out of my bag to turn it off, and the screen lit up with Alyson’s latest text, the notification banner bright against the lock screen. Donovan’s eyes dropped to it before I could flip it over.

I saw what he saw. Alyson’s name at the top. Below it:

Ride that man until neither of you can walk straight. You DESERVE this.