by Melissa Tagg
Colin reached over in front of her to close the glove compartment. Never mind all the items that’d spilled out of it when he’d gone digging for his registration and proof of insurance. Sunglasses, old wallet, empty potato chip bag.
That police officer could’ve passed out from exposure in the time it took Colin to come up with the crinkled papers. All the while, Rylan had huddled against the passenger side door, asking herself for the hundredth time since this morning how she’d gotten here.
Here, at the moment, being the eastern edge of Nebraska, over three-fourths the way into the nine-hour drive from Denver to some little town with a name she couldn’t remember in Iowa.
With Colin.
Colin, who’d gone more and more quiet, almost disturbingly pensive ever since they passed North Platte. Who’d gone from driving ten miles over the speed limit to barely crawling.
“So I’m a safe driver. So sue me.”
The cop was back in her squad car running Colin’s license. “A turtle could’ve outrun us.”
“I don’t think turtles run.”
“Colin.” His name came out a hiss.
He only folded his arms, his sunglasses shielding his eyes, making it impossible to tell whether he was even a tiny bit upset at being pulled over.
But something was off. Had been for the last hour, at least. It was as if the closer they got to their destination, the more he dreaded their arrival.
Which made no sense at all. Yesterday when he’d charged into her house and somehow wrung from her an agreement to this zany trip, he’d acted as if traveling to Iowa was the most alluring prospect imaginable. When she’d initially—crazily—begun considering his offer to help on her recipe for Potts, she’d thrown out the possibility of him sticking around Denver a few extra days. Working with her there instead of dragging her to Iowa with him.
“No. I’m going to Iowa,” he’d said with so much resolve it’d taken her aback. “I’m leaving tomorrow. It’s the holidays. It’s important. It’s . . . I just have to go.”
It wasn’t until later—as she packed her suitcase and tried to convince herself this wasn’t the most outlandish decision she’d ever made—that she realized she’d agreed to the trip partially out of curiosity. Who was this man who made a pest of himself in the classroom and had no qualms about showing up at his teacher’s house? Who would invite a virtual stranger to his home for Christmas?
Who spoke of Iowa with an equal mix of yearning and something awfully close to desperation?
“Look, if you’re still irritated that I didn’t turn when the GPS told me to, stop worrying. The back roads are prettier.”
The drive had been pretty for awhile. But the farther they’d ventured into the Nebraska, the drabber the scenery had become. Snow-quilted rolling hills had given way to flat, beige fields, as if winter hadn’t yet breathed over this land. Would Iowa, too, be this . . . brown?
She might feel a little better about this whole thing if she knew anything at all about the man in the seat next to her. What kind of crazy person hopped in a car with a man she barely knew on the off-hand chance that he might mean the difference between achieving her career goal and, well, not? Was she that uneasy? That doubtful of her own abilities?
And did she not remember what’d happened the last time she depended on a man to kindle all her hopes and dreams?
“Well, Mr. Renwycke,” the cop said, suddenly standing at the window again. Her auburn hair gleamed in the sun. “You have a surprisingly good driving record.”
Colin lifted his sunglasses. “That so?”
The officer’s smile was wide and brilliant. No way, had she dabbed on lip-gloss back in her car? Oh, you cannot be serious.
“So is he getting a ticket or what?”
The officer spared Rylan only the briefest of glances before looking back to Colin, embellished consideration written all over her face. You’ve got to be kidding me. She was going to flirt with Colin. For all the cop knew, Rylan might be his girlfriend or his fiancé or his whatever, and she was still going to flirt with him right in front of her.
So this is how ridiculously attractive people went through life.
Yeah, she could admit it. Colin was handsome. But he was also annoying and smug and . . .
And she was officially off her rocker for even being in this car right now.
“Nope, no ticket,” the cop said. “Just a warning and a reminder that sometimes driving too slow can be just as dangerous as driving too quickly.” She had the nerve to wink. She tore a piece of paper off her pad, handed it to Colin.
Seconds later, her car disappeared down the road.
“Kind of a good metaphor for life, yeah?” Colin pocketed the warning slip.
“Colin—”
“What the cop said, I mean.”
There was an unnatural ease in Colin’s voice. Something forced and uncertain. Why were they still sitting on the side of the road?
“She was flirting with you, Renwycke. This is why I’ve always wished for blue eyes. So I could get out of traffic tickets and library fines and all manner of late fees.” Dimples would help too. And something other than untamable brown hair. “I could just flash my baby blues and boom, instant favor.”
Colin turned to her, hands in his lap instead of on the steering wheel. “Your eyes are fine.”
“Gee, thanks.” An approaching dusk teased the edges of the horizon, a few wisps of pink curling into the distance.
“I like hazel eyes. They shift with your mood.”
The car’s heater gave a raspy huff. “Why aren’t you driving?”
He turned away.
“Why are you stalling? Why were you driving like a . . . a . . . ”
A hint of amusement broke through his obvious discomfort. “A what?”
“I don’t know. I already used the turtle comparison before. I’m trying to think of something else.”
“Well, take your time.”
“I’m serious, Colin. You seemed almost giddy with excitement when we started out this morning and then all of a sudden you’re driving like a sloth—”
“Ooh, good one.”
“You’re quiet, almost broody. You’re kind of freaking me out, and I’m over here wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake.”
He rubbed his palms over his jeans, then finally, surprisingly, pulled away from the shoulder and started forward. “My hometown is only a forty-five minute drive from Des Moines. There’s an airport there. You can fly back to Denver anytime.”
“Comforting to know you’re not planning to hold me hostage.” She sighed, leaning her head against the headrest. “I don’t usually do impulsive things like this. I don’t know you. I don’t know your family. I don’t know who I’m going to meet when we get there or if they know I’m coming or . . . ”
She couldn’t have imagined it, his pointed inhale, that almost-wince.
“They know we’re coming, right?”
Silence. Other than the sputtering heater. The racket in the engine. She’d eyed the small car with more than a little skepticism this morning when he’d shown up at her house the second day in a row. Wasn’t the age of the car that’d thrown her, but instead the question of how a man who had to be a couple inches past six feet could possibly fold himself into the cramped driver’s seat.
“Colin, tell me your family is expecting you.” The churning in her stomach quickened.
Nothing.
“You’re planning to show up at your brother’s house, guest in tow, and he doesn’t even know? We’re just going to barge in? The way you barged into my place yesterday?”
“I didn’t barge in.”
“Right. You used my spare key and let yourself in. So you must know where your brother keeps his.”
“Underneath a porch step. And his name’s Drew.” His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
“Does Drew live alone?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“My sis
ter and niece used to live with him, but they moved into their own place right after Christmas last year. And my . . . ” He took a breath. “My parents retired to Arizona years ago.”
“But they’ll come for Christmas?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I believe so.”
He hoped so. It was written all over his face.
Or did she only imagine she could read his expression? Like she used to be able to read Brent’s?
She couldn’t stop a shudder.
Colin flicked the heater up another notch.
“Colin?”
She waited until he glanced away from the road long enough to look at her. A car passed, its headlights spotlighting the tight set to Colin’s jaw, the swirl of restrained emotion in his stormy eyes.
No, she wasn’t imagining it. There was something going on here. She just didn’t know what. “Why did you really ask me to come with you?”
For a fleeting moment, she thought he might actually answer.
Instead, with a lurch that made her grab the door’s armrest, he steered the car onto a side road, tires throwing up snow and gravel, and then pitched to a sudden stop. “What are you doing?”
He was out of the car before the words had left her mouth. She snatched her gloves from the dash and followed him out. “Are you insane?”
“I just needed a break from your twenty questions.”
“They aren’t unreasonable questions, Colin. The only unreasonable thing is that I didn’t ask them before jetting off to the middle of nowhere with you.” She knew she was flinging her arms about. She didn’t care. “I don’t even know you.” She’d already said it once. Again, she didn’t care. “I don’t know your background or your age or—”
“Thirty-one.”
So he was three, nearly four years younger than her. Not that it should matter. “Most of the time I can’t even stand you.”
At his look of exaggerated offense, she gave an even more exaggerated nod.
“That’s right. I said I can’t stand you, Colin Renwycke. Because you are one hundred percent the most confounding person I’ve ever met.”
He met her at the front of the car. “You done?”
She heaved a breath. “I’m done. Except if you brought me out here to this remote road to kill me, do it quickly, okay?”
His baritone laugh peeled into the air. “Thank you, Rylan. I needed that.”
“Why did you need it? Why have you gone so unnervingly quiet on this drive? Why won’t you answer any of my questions?”
He placed his palms on her shoulders. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m perfectly safe to be around. Until you give me a mini torch and then all bets are off.” He bent his knees to look into her eyes, his laughter settling. “And I’m just nervous to go home, okay? That’s all that’s going on here. Maybe you don’t know what that’s like since apparently you don’t have family to be spending the holidays with but—”
“I never said that. I never said I didn’t have family.” And if he had any idea how much she could understand being nervous about visiting family . . .
“Misassumption on my part, then.” The wind riffled through his hair as he studied her for a thin moment. Wasn’t he cold without a coat? “It’s just important to me that I make a good impression on my family.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. “As for my ulterior motive—honestly?—I think you can help me make that good impression.”
She felt her jaw drop as realization set in. Oh no. No, no, no. Nooo. “Oh my goodness, you want me to be your fake girlfriend, don’t you? Or your fiancé. It better not be your wife. I am not sharing a bedroom with you, Colin, even if it is just pretend. I am not—”
He was laughing again. All out guffawing. That was a word, right? This was a guffaw if there ever was one. “Rylan Jefferson, you are something else.” He actually doubled-over.
“I don’t see what’s funny here.”
“What’s funny here is I did not take you for the Hallmark movie type.”
“So you don’t—”
“Want you to be my fake girlfriend?” He straightened, still laughing. “No. I do not. What do you take me for?”
“But . . . you said . . . you want me to help make a good impression.”
“Yes, by not telling my family that forty-eight hours ago I was about to be kicked out of culinary school. By assuring them that I’m actually a little bit okay—good even—at the whole baking thing. That’s it.” He twirled his ring of car keys around his finger. “And, you know, if you want to forego mentioning the fact that you can’t stand me, that’d be okay, too. Think you can manage that?”
She nodded mutely. She was an idiot.
“Now would you mind getting back in the car?”
She was an embarrassed idiot. “I’m not the one who pulled over and stormed out.”
Colin’s grin would’ve made that police officer swoon.
She was an embarrassed idiot who had no idea what she’d gotten herself into.
An eerie quiet and telling cold lingered in every corner of the farmhouse. Where could Drew possibly be?
Colin stared into the empty master bedroom on the second floor, the one where Grandpa and Grandma used to sleep. The one where he’d expected to find his brother after trekking through the rest of the home, Rylan’s soft steps behind him.
But no. Just as unoccupied as every other room. Silver moonlight bowed through the window, landing on the quilt he could still remember Grandma sewing. He could almost see her rocking in the chair in the corner, the pattern of squares spread over her lap.
“Colin?”
He didn’t turn. Didn’t want Rylan to see the plummeting disappointment sure to be making its way across his face. Mom had told him a hundred times if she’d told him once that he wore his every emotion on his sleeve. Probably why acting had never panned out for him.
“Maybe he’s at your sister’s. You said she lives in town, right?” The old hardwood floorboards of the dim hallway creaked at Rylan’s movement.
He managed a nod. “I guess he could be.” Didn’t account for why the house felt like an icebox, though.
“And didn’t you say he’s done several home renovations? Maybe he’s on the job in a different town somewhere. Or he could be at a Christmas party.”
He mustered the closest thing he had to a grin as he turned. “I get the sense you’re trying to make me feel better, Ms. Jefferson.” Which meant he must not have done a good enough job hiding the distress that’d been growing steadily ever since they’d covered the last stretch of the gravel lane leading to the farm and he’d spotted not a single light in the house.
Be honest. You’ve been on edge for longer than that. His nerves had started clattering right around the time they passed the Nebraska Panhandle early this afternoon. He should’ve called. He should’ve made certain he was welcome. Or if nothing else, ensured someone would be here when he arrived.
He glanced over his shoulder into the bedroom once more. It didn’t look entirely abandoned. An old jacket was draped over the rocking chair in the corner. An open book rested facedown on the bed. Wherever Drew was, he was coming back eventually.
Was it at all odd for Drew, sleeping in their grandparents’ bedroom? After Grandpa had passed on—a sudden heart attack when Colin was in high school—Grandma had offered the space to Mom and Dad, but they’d never moved from their own room at the end of the hallway. Not until leaving for Arizona.
It struck him now, the oddity of so many people crammed into one house. His grandparents, his parents, Drew and Leigh and himself. But for most of his growing up years, it hadn’t seemed crowded. Or if it did, he’d always sort of liked it that way.
“Colin?”
Rylan again. He kept forgetting her. It was this house, these memories. He hadn’t realized coming home would feel so very . . . poignant.
He swallowed, pasting on what he hoped was an easygoing smirk. “It appears we’re quite without a chaperone,
Ms. Jefferson.”
Rylan still wore her maroon coat, its belt knotted at her waist. A white knit beret did nothing to tame the tangles of hair reaching past her shoulders. She’d taken off her boots when they entered the house, though, revealing pink and white striped socks below her leggings. “No chaperone? Good thing we’re not in Edwardian England, then.”
“And that I’m not a rogue.”
“And that ‘damsel in distress’ has never been my style.” Her teeth chattered on the last word.
It might be the most amicable conversation they’d ever had. “You’re freezing. I’ll go turn up the thermostat.”
Their footsteps echoed through the house as they descended to the first floor. He spent the next ten minutes bringing their bags in from the car, turning on lights in every room he passed through, taking in all the changes since he’d been here last. The new leather furniture in the living room, fresh paint on the walls. Exposed cedar beams traveled the length of the ceiling and matched the trim around the windows and doorways. Drew’s doing, of course. He’d probably built that new dining room table, too.
The sound of cupboard doors opening and pans clanging drew him to the kitchen.
He found Rylan standing on a granite countertop, peering in a high cupboard. Gone were her coat and hat. Instead, she’d wrapped a navy blue afghan kimono-style around her torso and it dangled past her feet. She glanced over her shoulder as he approached. “Doesn’t your brother have any muffin tins?”
This time he didn’t have to force the grin. “I have no idea. But don’t fall, okay? I haven’t taken a first aid course in years.”
“How am I supposed to make muffins without muffin tins?”
“It’s ten o’clock at night, Rylan.”
She crouched down on the counter until she was sitting and then slid off, adjusting the blanket tucked under her arms as she straightened. “Late at night is my favorite time to bake. And this kitchen is amazing. And I’m starving.”
Gone were the hard edges of Rylan’s profile, the tight set of her mouth, even the ever-slanting of her eyebrows. Instead, between the wavy hair fluttering around her face and the near playful curve of her lips, the dancing amber of her eyes and the afghan slipping loose around her—she almost looked . . .