Along Came Trouble: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Ruthie Knox

  Not that she had a sex life.

  “Believe me, I would love to drop it,” Caleb said. “But I don’t think I can.”

  “Try. I’m a grown woman. I have condoms. I think I’ve got this under control.”

  Sean tapped on the passenger-side window and pointed toward the gas tank. Katie popped the fuel door for him, and he swept one open palm in the direction of the gasoline options. “The cheap stuff,” she said, loud enough for him to hear her through the window. He nodded and turned his back on her.

  “I don’t imagine you care,” Caleb said carefully, “but I think your sleeping with Judah is a bad idea.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “It’s unethical.”

  Now that was just unfair. Six months ago, Caleb had asked Katie if she thought it would be unethical for him to get involved with a client. She’d thought about it and told him no—that it depended on the situation, and in the situation he and Ellen had been in, it was fine.

  She’d come to the same conclusion about this Judah job. It would be one thing if Judah were traumatized by fear, quaking in his boots and relying on Katie to keep him safe, but that just wasn’t the case. She was along for the ride. Why not make the ride a little more enjoyable—especially when Judah had made his interest in climbing aboard more than clear?

  Maybe it wouldn’t be the smartest move of her life, or the most romantic, but “romantic” wasn’t what Katie was looking for from Judah. If she had to pick one adjective to describe what she was looking for, it would be “torrid.”

  Or “inadvisable.” She’d never had inadvisable sex before. She’d had Levi, the high school sweetheart who’d given her every single one of her firsts: first kiss, first sex, first orgasm, first wedding, first abandonment, first divorce.

  Considering that Levi had walked out on her almost two years ago—two long, transformative, sexless years—and the ink had finally dried on her divorce papers a few weeks back, “torrid and inadvisable” sounded like just the ticket. Katie wanted to throw herself headlong into new experiences, skate the edge of recklessness, flirt with disaster.

  All while behaving safely and responsibly, of course. No need to get Caleb’s panties in a twist.

  Her brother was silent. He seemed to be waiting for a reply to a question she wasn’t sure she’d heard him ask. She tried out another “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I didn’t even like the guy,” he said.

  “I noticed that.”

  “You can do better.”

  Judah had unruly black curls and huge, dark eyes. He had a low, sexy voice that she loved to listen to when she was tired, lonely, and in need of a glass of wine.

  And maybe it was starry-eyed of her, but she felt as though she already knew him from his music. When he’d said he wanted her on the case, she’d hoped it was because he shared that feeling of familiarity, and their deep, instant connection would lead to awesome conversation and multiple orgasms.

  But really, she’d settle for a less-than-mystical experience if it meant she finally got some action.

  “I don’t think I want to do better,” she said.

  “Fine.” Caleb sounded resigned. “I’ll stay out of it. But I’m going on record as strongly disapproving.”

  “Got it.”

  The gas pump shut off with a hollow mechanical thump, and Sean turned to the machine to wait for a receipt, shoulders hunched against the January chill. The wind ruffled his short blond hair and turned the tips of his ears red. He had to be freezing his ass off out there.

  Katie was hoping Louisville would be warmer than Camelot had been lately. It was only a four-hour drive, but Kentucky was the South, right? Gray skies and freezing rain had been haunting central Ohio for so long, she could hardly remember what the sun looked like.

  All week, she’d been dreaming of Kentucky bluegrass. Totally unrealistic, given the time of year and the fact that she was about to spend the weekend in some dank, beer-piss-smelling nightclub, but she couldn’t turn the daydreaming off. Her mind had a mind of its own.

  “Let me talk to Owens,” Caleb said.

  “What for?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Is it about work or my personal life?”

  “Also none of your business.” His voice had gone all clipped. She wasn’t getting anything else out of him.

  She tried anyway. “C’mon, Caleb. It’s my phone.”

  “Put him on.”

  “Yeah, fine. Okay.” She jimmied the phone out of its cradle and leaned way over to open the passenger-side door a crack. “Caleb wants to talk to you.”

  Sean took the phone, and she closed the door, not wanting any more cold air to get into her toasty car than necessary. He walked ten feet away and lifted the phone to his ear.

  She imagined what he’d sound like if she could hear him. He had an unusual way of shaping words. Every syllable came out perfectly enunciated, as if he had nothing better to do than tumble the sounds around his tongue.

  She liked listening to him talk. Yet another reason it chapped her hide that he wouldn’t speak to her.

  After a minute, he disconnected the call and folded himself into the car. He was too tall for a compact. Too broad, too. He brought the cold air in with him, and she could feel the chill coming off his black leather jacket and soaking into her right shoulder.

  “You good to go?” she asked, putting the car in gear and releasing the emergency brake.

  He nodded, eyes straight ahead.

  “You wanna drive?” They’d already begun rolling toward the exit. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  If he thought she was funny, he didn’t show it. Instead, he waved her on, settled back in his seat, and closed his eyes.

  Sean Owens: World’s Most Boring Copilot.

  One of her favorite Judah songs came up on the stereo, so Katie cranked the volume and started to sing along, bouncing gently up and down in a low-key car dance.

  Caleb couldn’t spoil this for her, and neither could Sean. Nervousness be damned—she was on a mission. She had sixty miles left to drive, a job to do, a future to claim.

  Plus, if everything went according to plan, she was going to get laid this weekend.

  This trip was the single most exciting thing to happen to her in a long time.

  Read on for an excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s

  About Last Night

  Chapter One

  The Pigeon Man was usually here by now. Tuning out her companion’s self-serving story for a moment, Cath double-checked the LED display suspended over the station platform. Ten minutes until the train. In this woman’s company, it would feel like a lifetime.

  Resigned to her fate, Cath crossed her legs and relaxed back against the bench. At least she could enjoy the unseasonably cool morning—the first break all week from the miserable July weather that had been tormenting London.

  “… and they told me it was the most brilliant way to add a tactile element to protest action they’d ever heard of. I happened to mention you wanted to put the piece in your exhibit, but they didn’t know who you are,” Amanda said, her prep-school English accent turning the statement into an accusation.

  Cath perked up. “I’m with the V and A. They know the V and A, right?” She was a small cog, but she worked for a big machine. Surely even Amanda’s hard-core activist cronies had heard of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s world-renowned collection, even if they hadn’t heard of the upcoming exhibit on the history of hand knitting that Cath had been hired to assist with.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Amanda said dismissively, and Cath spotted the sun gleaming off the bald pate of the Pigeon Man as he made his way up the steps. He took his place in front of the map kiosk and fixed his eyes on the ground. Calm today, then. When he didn’t talk, the Pigeon Man could pass for normal. It was when he launched into agitated conversation with a stranger that he began thrusting his head forward in a bird-like manner and his beady eyes and beaky nose took on greater prominence.

/>   He pulled a candy bar out of his pocket, and she remembered it was Friday. He was often late on Fridays, no doubt because he stopped at the newsstand to buy himself some end-of-the-week chocolate.

  The thought caught her up short. Shit, did she really know the habits of the train station regulars that well? She did a quick survey of the sparsely populated platform. Emo Boy was wearing his favorite pair of skinny jeans this morning, and Princess had gotten her roots touched up.

  Sadly, yes, she did.

  “The next person who comes up the steps will be an older lady carrying a purse the size of a bus and a bakery bag with a croissant in it,” Cath said.

  “What?”

  “It’s a prediction.”

  “You’re clairvoyant now?” Amanda asked, her pert nose in the air.

  “Sure.” Cath was beginning to see how her pathetic store of knowledge might come in handy. “I know who’s coming up the stairs next, and I know you’re going to do the right thing and give me that straitjacket for the exhibit.”

  Thinking of the exhibit reminded her that she and her boss, Judith, would be pawing through sweaters from storage this morning. Cath rummaged through her bag for her antihistamines, freed two from their hermetic blisters, and swallowed them with a sip of water. Curatorial work could be sneezy. She’d learned to arrive prepared.

  As she slipped her water bottle back into her bag, Bus Purse came into view, right on schedule.

  Amanda frowned and straightened up, trying to get a better view of the steps. “You can see down to the high street. That’s how you knew she was coming.”

  “You’re closer than I am. Can you see down there?”

  The frown deepened. “Well, you must be using a mirror or something. It’s not as if you’re capable of magic.”

  “Wanna bet?” Cath answered, warming to the challenge.

  Magic had never been her specialty, but she wanted that straitjacket. It had been featured in a widely covered protest demonstration Amanda and her buddies had staged outside the prime minister’s residence a few years ago, and it would look fabulous on display, the perfect visual complement to the story the museum’s exhibit would tell.

  Unfortunately, Amanda had a stranglehold on the thing, and Cath had known her long enough to understand she got a kick out of stringing people along.

  On the other hand, she was also competitive and narcissistic, which made her the sort of woman who rarely turned down a bet.

  “How about this?” Cath asked. “If I correctly predict the next two people up those steps, you give me the jacket.” It was possible. Just. Greenwich was way out in Zone Four on the London transport map, far enough from the city center to avoid being a true commuter suburb. The station platform never got too crowded, even during rush hour. Most of the regulars for this particular train had already arrived. The question was, Who was missing?

  Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “What do I get if you’re wrong?”

  “I’ll stop bugging you about the straitjacket.”

  This was a lie, but no lapsed Catholic from Chicago’s South Side was above lying for a good cause, and Cath considered her career a good cause.

  Amanda leaned forward, all excitement now, and said, “Make it three and you’re on.”

  The first one was easy. Cath heard the musical clang of the ticket machine dispensing change down at street level and knew it had to be the dog guy from the park, because he always took the 7:09 from Greenwich to Bank on Fridays, and he bought his single ticket from the vending machine with cash.

  “Old guy in a fedora,” she said.

  He came up the steps and made his way to the empty bench next to them.

  Amanda inclined her head, acknowledging one down.

  Next up was tricky. Normally, it would be the girl with the two-tone hair, but it was late summer, and people took vacations. The girl had been missing all week. Cath imagined her on a beach in Spain, soaking up the sun in a red bikini. What if she was back, though?

  The booming laugh of Bill at the ticket window carried up the stairs. The Merry Widow, then. Bill was a friendly guy, but he pulled out all the stops for the Widow.

  “Redhead with three inches of cleavage,” Cath said.

  The Merry Widow rose into view, proud bosom bobbing.

  Amanda gave a low whistle of appreciation.

  Cath glanced at the station’s clock and repressed a smile. She only needed one more to complete the hat trick, and you could set your watch by the next guy.

  “Tall blond man in an expensive suit, Financial Times under his arm,” she said, then added, “Possibly a cyborg.”

  Thirty seconds ticked by, and City rose into view, punctual as ever and way too good looking to be human.

  Cath had a soft spot for City. From the moment she’d spotted him waiting for the train to Bank last winter, he’d intrigued her. She’d given him the nickname as a nod to his profession, because everything about him announced he worked in the City of London, the square-mile financial district at the center of the metropolis: the dignified wool overcoat and scarf he’d worn all winter, the shined shoes, the ever-present newspaper. Aristocratically remote, he was Prince Charming in a suit.

  Amanda applauded, whether for her or for City, Cath couldn’t tell. She suppressed a triumphant grin and allowed herself a moment to watch him pass. He gave her his usual stiff nod, the greeting they’d long since settled on for their semi-regular encounters.

  She’d never heard City talk or seen him crack a smile. He didn’t even fidget, just stood stoically in place until the train pulled up, then stared straight ahead once seated in the car. Cool as a cucumber and veddy, veddy English. At least, that’s how she imagined him when she wrote about him in her journal. She’d bet her next paltry paycheck he had a posh accent, an expensive education, and a boring job moving piles of money around. He was her polar opposite.

  Still, she always kept an eye out for him. She saw City two or three mornings a week, either here or at Greenwich Park, where both of them liked to run. In motion, he was a beautiful thing, a Scandinavian god with flushed cheeks. She loved that flash of pink on his face—such an endearing crack in his cool perfection. It made her want to muss his hair and tie his shoelaces together when he wasn’t looking, just to see what would happen.

  And now he’d helped her win access to the piece she so badly wanted for the exhibit. You really had to love him.

  “When can I pick that jacket up?” she asked Amanda, turning back to face her.

  “Hmm?” Amanda was still staring at City. “Oh, right.” Her mouth tightened, her eyes growing cagey. “That was a good trick. How long have you been practicing?”

  “First time,” she answered honestly. Far from impressive, her ability to predict who’d arrive next on the train platform was evidence of how sad her life had become. She was a people-watcher by nature, and now that she’d cleaned up her act, she had nothing better to do than make up stories about the strangers who shared her morning commute.

  The saddest part was, she didn’t always take this train. If she’d run into Amanda while waiting for the 6:43 or the 7:43 instead of the 7:09, Cath still would have stood a good chance of pulling off the trick, predicting the arrival of an entirely different set of familiar strangers.

  She didn’t have to tell Amanda that, though.

  “You really want that jacket,” Amanda said. “It’s important to you.”

  Cath stared at City’s broad shoulders beneath his suit coat and shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she didn’t feel.

  Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever is.

  “We’re friends, right?” Amanda asked, throwing an arm across the back of the bench.

  They weren’t friends. They’d had a handful of mutual acquaintances a few years ago. These days, Cath pantomimed familiarity when they ran into each other around Greenwich so that she could legitimately harass Amanda for the straitjacket.

  Cath didn’t have any friends. She had a roommate who didn’t
like her, a socially awkward boss who did, and an empty life that revolved around her job.

  “Sure,” she said, because it was what she was supposed to say.

  “And you need a favor.”

  Just smile and nod, Talarico.

  She tamped down her temper, refrained from pointing out that she’d just won her favor fair and square, and did as her good sense instructed.

  “We’ll do a trade.” Amanda grinned, a smile that announced, This is the best idea anyone’s ever had. “Eric and I are going to a concert tonight at a club with his cousin. He’s in town from Newcastle for the weekend. We could really use a fourth.”

  A garbled announcement of the train’s approach came over the loudspeaker, and Cath kept her expression neutral as she stood and shouldered her bag.

  Christ on a crutch. She’d walked into a blind date.

  For any normal woman, this wouldn’t be a problem. No one wanted to be set up with some random warm body from Newcastle, of course, but spending an evening being hit on, ignored, or bored out of her skull ought to have been a fair exchange for getting her way.

  For Cath, though, Amanda’s proposal was worse than a problem. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

  She hadn’t been on a date in two years. No concerts, no bars, no men. These were the rules that set New Cath apart from her irresponsible predecessor—the restrictions that kept her from making the kind of mistakes that had necessitated the creation of New Cath in the first place.

  Cath didn’t want to break the rules. She needed the rules.

  But she needed that straitjacket more. It would be a coup for the exhibit, which meant it would win Judith’s gratitude, and Judith’s gratitude was Cath’s ticket into a permanent curatorial position.

  She had to do it.

  “Sounds like fun,” she said, her cheerful tone the first of many frauds the evening would no doubt entail.

  Surely she could spend one night with a guy in a club without doing anything she’d regret.