Nobody's Princess

by Sarah Hegger

  Thomas hopped out of the truck and opened her door.

  She liked that he had manners. When he extended his hand to help her down from the cab, she let him. His hand closed around hers in a warm clasp. A tingle of awareness caught her totally off guard and shot straight up her arm in a bolt of sensation. Her gaze jerked to his.

  His eyes widened as if he got it, too.

  Uh-oh. Being attracted to Thomas Hunter, not on the agenda.

  “This your car?” The tow truck driver strolled toward them. If he drove like he walked, Tiffany got why it had taken him so long to get there.

  “Yes.” Tiffany pulled her hand away from Thomas with a stern lecture to her nerve endings to calm the hell down.

  The driver’s glance took a slow meander from her toes to the top of her head, stopping in between at the interesting parts. His mouth split into a grin as he pushed his ball cap back on his head. “She’s a beauty.”

  Thomas stiffened beside her.

  Men had given her that look since she hit puberty. According to Daddy, it was her gift, the thing that made her special. More importantly, it was the part that made Daddy smile because it reminded him of her mother. So she worked hard to be good at it. Wild Tiffany didn’t give a shit, she ate pizza and went out without brushing her hair or putting on makeup. When she’d been with Luke, Wild Tiffany had been firmly at the wheel. “I think she’s overheated,” Tiffany said.

  “Do you now?” The driver gave her a kindly smile. He might as well have patted her on the head and called her “little lady.” “Well, we’ll just take her someplace where they can have a look at her and see. A sweet, young thing like you doesn’t need to go messing around with cars and stuff.”

  There, that was what people saw when they looked at her. As if she really needed the reminder.

  The trucker grabbed a filthy rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands. “Sure is a hot one today. Cars breaking down up and down the highway.”

  Tiffany threw Thomas a triumphant glance. Other people’s cars broke down, too.

  “Of course, nothing like this little baby.” The driver made as if to pat the hood and then snatched his hand back. “Wouldn’t want to get her all dirty. Would we, baby?” He circled the car on his way to his truck. “You sure are a pretty little lady.”

  It took Tiffany a moment to realize he was talking to the car.

  “I almost feel like I should get territorial,” Thomas said in her ear.

  It made her want to laugh. The warm brush of his breath teased the hair on the back of her neck. She crossed her arms over her tightening nipples.

  Thomas followed the tow guy to lower the hydraulic lift. Chains clanked and she winced as they brought them close to the Miura. She needn’t have worried. The trucker was in love. He wiped his hands before he went anywhere near her girl. The chains had never been so lovingly fitted beneath the front chassis of a car. With a whine the hydraulics pulled her girl up onto the back of the truck.

  Not her girl for much longer. The sadness pressed in, tears pricked behind her lids. She blinked them away and glanced around for a distraction.

  The chain looked strong. How strong? She checked out the hydraulic motor. How much force to lift the Miura? Of course, that would depend on the weight of the car, but would anything else factor into it? All her mental notes fought for space in her brain, beating back the sadness. Later, she’d write them in her book and try to find the right calculation.

  The lift stopped with a metallic kachunk and the trucker clamped the wheels. The Miura perched like an empress on the bed of the truck. Handing her over to Luke would hurt like a bitch. So much time and effort, not to mention money, had gone into restoring her beauty. Tiffany had almost convinced herself the car was hers.

  Thomas handled everything. He filled in forms, handed over registration documents, and signed things. All the while, she couldn’t look away from the car. “Now what?”

  Thomas strode back toward her. “Now we follow him into the nearest town and see what we can do to get her back on the road.”

  “You’re coming with us?” It beat climbing into the tow truck, but still …

  Staring at her as if she’d lost her mind, Thomas said, “I can’t leave you on the side of the road. What sort of guy do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know what sort of guy you are.” Other than a fellow numbers geek and someone who read what seemed like all the time.

  “Why don’t I tell you while we follow the truck?”

  It sounded fair enough to her. The tow truck eased back onto the highway, carrying her girl on the back.

  “I should never have driven her,” Tiffany said as he opened his truck door for her.

  “Yeah, but who could resist?” His smile took any sting out of his agreement. He shut her door and strode around to the driver’s side. He moved like he meant business. It was more than the size of him, he had a way of looking like he knew where he was going and nobody would stop him from getting there. Getting back into the truck he said, “Ready?”

  Dakota fidgeted in the backseat. “Thank fuck.”

  “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Thomas glared at him.

  “Sure.” Dakota’s face went hard as flint. “It wouldn’t bug you if you’d met Debbie.”

  Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Debbie?”

  “Lola’s real name.” Lola, aka Debbie, had her own set of rules. “Lola does things her way.” Meaning, she did things for herself and only for herself. Tiffany’s heart hurt a little for Dakota.

  “Damn,” Thomas said so softly only she could hear him. “Luke told me about her.” Thomas eased the truck onto the road. Dakota’s Beats buzzed, but he kept his voice low. “I thought he was exaggerating.”

  “No.” Tiffany shook her head. Luke and Thomas must have gotten into some deep stuff. Luke reserved his Lola stories for people he really liked. “Luke seems to have told you lots of things.”

  “We were friends.” Thomas grimaced a bit. “Right before he screwed me over.”

  Welcome to the world of Luke Holt. Been there, done that. “How did you meet him?”

  “He was mountain biking across Africa, tangled with the wrong mosquito and ended up with malaria. We found him and made sure he was taken care of.”

  “Wow.” Classic Luke, screw the world and everyone else in it. “How did he screw you over?”

  Thomas glanced at her and then back at the road. “Look.” A muscle twitched in the side of his jaw. “It seems we’re stuck together for a while. We might want to share a bit of information.”

  “How much information?” He was likeable, but trust? She wasn’t sure about that.

  “Why don’t we tell each other why we need Luke so much?”

  “You first.”

  His mouth split into a wide grin. “You’re tough.”

  “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

  “Fair enough.” Thomas chuckled. “Like I said, I met Luke when he was biking through Africa. He got really sick. Some local villagers near the site brought him to us. We had the meds he needed and we kept him there until we could arrange a way to get him to South Africa and the hospitals there. It took a few days, and Luke and I got to talking. We hit it off.” Pausing, he took a deep breath. “We talked about a lot of shit. You, his dad.” Thomas jerked his chin toward Dakota. “Him. And we argued about what my company was doing there.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  He quirked a brow at her. “Let’s stick to Luke for now. Anyway, when he left, Luke was so opposed to our project he stole my survey results. I need them back.” The quiet way he said that prickled along her nape. Thomas Hunter was a man on a mission. “Your turn.”

  “That was a total dick move,” she said, playing for time while she sorted how much to say. “Even for Luke.”

  “To be fair, he thinks he’s saving Africa from some big first-world corporate rape,” he said.

  “Is he?”

  “Nope.” Thomas shook h
is head. “It’s only a matter of time before that resource is found, and at least with my company, we’ll try to make sure we get to it as responsibly as we can.” He took a breath. “The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.”

  “Huh?”

  He threw her a smile. “It’s a quote from a British economist back in the sixties.”

  Economist. Crunching the numbers on how the world went around. She’d always been fascinated by the idea. Talking to Thomas was nice. He didn’t talk down to her or lecture her. “Going to tell me what this mysterious resource is? In our newfound spirit of trust.”

  He gave a bark of laughter. The lines around his eyes crinkled when he laughed. It was awesome and she looked away quickly. “Gonna tell me what you need Luke for?”

  Her turn had rolled around. “I need him to divorce me. If he comes back to Illinois with me, we can get it done fast.”

  “The divorce your father doesn’t know about?”

  As he knew that much already, she nodded.

  “So, why now? Why not before?”

  “What’s the mineral?”

  Shaking his head, he chuckled. “Okay, the mineral is called rare earth.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry, Barbie, you can’t wear it around your neck.” Dakota’s venom oozed over from the backseat. So much for hearing nothing through that noise coming from his Beats. She really, really hated that name.

  Thomas stared at Dakota through the rearview mirror. “You’ve got to stop that, dude.” He spoke quietly, but his tone radiated the sort of authority Tiffany would never even attempt. “You don’t speak to anyone like that and especially not a lady.”

  “She’s not—”

  “Think carefully before you finish that sentence.” Thomas’s jaw locked tight.

  Dakota dropped his gaze first and thumbed up the volume on his music.

  He didn’t have to defend her, but he’d done it anyway. A little more of the tension inside her uncoiled.

  Thomas jerked his head at the backseat. “He doesn’t like you much.”

  “He blames me because of what happened with Luke. Luke left to get away from us … me.” And Dakota had some right to his anger. After their last fight, Luke had left and not been back to Willow Park since.

  “Now you?” Thomas said.

  As much as she wriggled inside, he’d kind of earned a bit of her trust. “I’m sort of engaged.” She said it quickly before she changed her mind. “But I can’t get engaged until I get a divorce.”

  The look of surprise on his face almost had her regretting her moment of honesty. “How can you be sort of engaged?”

  The question caught her off guard. She’d had him going in a different direction entirely. “Ryan and my father think I am still holding on to the past. They want me to get rid of the car to prove I’m not. So I’m taking the car to Luke and getting him to agree to the divorce at the same time.”

  “Ryan?” He pursed his lips. “The guy who got you the books. Is that your sort of fiancé? Does he know you’re still married?”

  Tiffany studied his face carefully for signs of mockery. “All you need to know is that I need to find Luke and get my divorce.”

  “I gave you more than that,” he said.

  “You followed me across three states.” It was a deflection and the look on his face said he knew it, too. Tiffany hissed a long breath of relief as he nodded and went back to driving. Being treated as a person and not a pretty face warmed her inside. It wouldn’t last long, and the story of how she got there would only hurry along its death. For some reason, which she didn’t want to examine, she needed to hold on to the way Thomas treated her.

  The town nestled between a range of low hills, obscured by the ridges of rock from the road.

  Dakota leaned forward and braced his arms on the back of her seat. “Jesus.”

  Jesus had nothing to do with this town. And town was a rather optimistic description. A motley collection of buildings lined the street, barely holding their own against the steady incursion of red earth.

  “I imagine it was a lot busier. At some point in its history. Maybe.” Thomas peered through the windshield as he drove. “They have a diner.”

  And a garage.

  They followed the tow truck into the dusty parking area of a small auto repair shop. Through the open doors, the dim hulks of cars sat suspended on two lifts. A man lumbered out of the sun dappled interior and over to the tow truck.

  Thomas parked and Tiffany climbed out of the car with him.

  Dakota put his head back again and closed his eyes. Probably for the best. One look at Dakota and this town would break out the pitchforks.

  The mechanic’s coveralls were pushed down around his waist to rest under the curve of his rotund belly. He stuck his fists on his hips and stared at the Miura. “That yours?” he asked Thomas.

  Thomas looked at her quickly and Tiffany shrugged. Ryan never asked her opinion before he took charge. Then again, she always sat back and let Ryan take charge.

  “Yes,” Thomas said. “She overheated.”

  The mechanic took a step closer to the tow truck and peered at the car. “She’s a fancy piece, all right.” Grunting, he jerked his head. “Bring her in and I’ll put her up on the rack and take a look.”

  Tiffany eyed the repair bay with misgiving. An older-than-dirt pickup shared the space with an even older VW bus. Tools and oil littered the ground beneath the cars. A transistor radio sat on a workbench playing a classic rock ballad. The aerial was taped to the window with a peeling piece of duct tape. She had trouble imagining the Miura in there. “Do you think he knows what he’s doing?” she whispered to Thomas.

  The mechanic and tow truck driver were busy unloading her girl and couldn’t hear her over the whine of the hydraulics.

  “Sure as hell hope so,” he said out the corner of his mouth. “How soon can you let us know the problem?” he called to the mechanic.

  The man glanced up. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the two relics up on his maintenance lifts. “Got an oil change and a busted clutch in there.” He jammed his fists on his hips again and dropped his head to stare at the ground. “Let me think.”

  Tiffany stared at him. Thomas stared at him. Even the tow truck driver stilled and stared at him. In the stretched silence, a pair of magpies yakked at each other in a nearby mesquite bush. Tiffany thought she might even be able to hear the grass growing.

  “Morning.” He spoke so suddenly she jumped.

  Her heart sank. She couldn’t stay in this horrible little town overnight. She was sure they didn’t have a hotel.

  “Can’t you put her up now and have a look?” Thomas asked.

  The mechanic stuck his stubbly chin out. “In the morning.”

  Tiffany opened her mouth to argue.

  A gentle squeeze of the arm from Thomas stopped her. “Is there anyplace we can stay overnight?”

  Jesus, take me now.

  “Sure.” The tow truck driver grinned at them cheerfully. “There’s the A1 motel just the other side of town.” Misgiving slid across his blunt features as he peered at Tiffany. “Of course, it isn’t fancy or anything, but it’s clean and Val will serve you breakfast if you ask her nicely.”

  “Then we’ll be sure to ask her nicely.” Thomas smiled.

  “You’re staying?” Tiffany was almost afraid to ask the question. Of course she’d be fine without him, but it would be nice if he stayed.

  “If you ask me nicely.” He grinned at her. She liked his smile. It reached inside and dragged an answering one out of her. He strolled back to the truck and opened the passenger door. “Only a total dick would leave you here, alone, to deal with this. Lucky for you, I’m a nice guy.”

  Chapter Ten

  Tiffany followed Thomas and Dakota into a cheerful-looking diner in the center of town. As one, the occupants turned to stare as the three of them wove through the crowd to an empty
table. Tiffany raised her chin. She’d never let them see her fidget.

  Thomas called a greeting to the room.

  A few muttered replies and people got back to their conversations.

  Near the back of the restaurant, Thomas found them a booth. The Formica tabletop gleamed, clean and scrubbed. Signs of wear showed on the bench but, thankfully, no food stains or leftover grime.

  Dakota took his headphones off. “I’ll have a burger with everything.”

  “That’s one thousand seven hundred and seventy calories in one meal, before you order a drink,” Tiffany said.

  Dakota and Thomas blinked at her.

  “Who cares?” Dakota’s face twisted into a sneer as he put his headphones back on.

  “You just worked that out?” Thomas raised a brow.

  “Yes.” Tiffany hesitated, and rechecked her addition. Five hundred and forty calories for a large order of fries, four hundred and ninety for the onion rings with the double cheeseburger topping it off at seven hundred and forty, give or take a few calories.

  Thomas went back to his menu. “I don’t see the calories written on the menu.”

  “They’re not.” Tiffany’s mouth watered at the picture of the burger. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten one. “What are you having?” She’d lay money on something sinful and delicious.

  Thomas had a strange look on his face. “You keep all those numbers in your head?”

  “Yes,” Tiffany said. “You need to know what you’re eating.”

  “But you’ve never been here before.”

  “I know that.” The number thing had slipped out and now she was stuck with the explanation. She kept all sorts of numbers in her head, and thanks to their conversation in the car, she had pi in there now, too. “But most burgers work out at around about the same, so I averaged them.”

  Thomas lifted his brow. “You averaged them?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, by implication, you have a running tally of the calorie count of most burgers in your head.”