by Kim Boykin
I’d been in charge of the wine for our girls’ night, Antwan had been in charge of the music, and had put together a blistering mix of diva tunes. The kind of music that makes you want to say enough of this shit, makes you want to claim your man. I was pretty drunk when I’d said it, but sober enough to remember my declaration the next morning. “I’m going to Montana.”
And why not? Antwan offered to keep Buster, who missed his daddy so much. Hell, I missed his daddy. I had a little money saved and didn’t have to look for another job right away. It just seemed like the right thing to do, but why didn’t I call Adam and clue him in? Maybe I was afraid he’d say don’t come or he’d use the V word again. I was so tired of being a visitor, and there was nothing to keep me in Columbia. So I headed toward the sunset the next day and hoped Adam would think this was a good surprise.
The further down the highway I got, the more apprehensive I was. I’d never done anything like this before. When the trip began it seemed romantic and exciting. But the closer I got to Missoula, the closer I was to answering the question I’d been afraid to ask—how much does Adam Harper really love me? I wanted to turn back, and a couple of times I did head back toward South Carolina, only to turn around. I’d already driven more than halfway across the country, I was either going to find out that I really was Adam’s home team or that I was a just perpetual visitor in his life. There was no good reason to stop now.
The sun was just coming up over the middle of nowhere when I passed the sign that said Missoula was three hundred miles away. That was a while back before my Civic died, or maybe like me, realized it was finally in Montana and chickened out of going all the way. With no cell service, I got out of my car and looked around. The middle of nowhere went on forever, but there were mountains in the distance. I stood on the hood of the car and then the roof to see if I could see anything nearby and tried to remember the last town I’d gone through. The only problem was, after I got as far as Kentucky all the towns looked the same.
With no food or water and no cell signal, the best thing was to sit and hope someone would come along.
I’ve never been a paranoid person, but then I’d never felt so isolated before. I’d also watched way too many crime shows not to see the scenario as anything but bad. For starters, I was Marilyn Monroe blonde, easy pickings for a serial killer truck driver, and everybody knows they always go for the blondes first, then the brunettes. God, why did I let Antwan talk me out of going Lindsay Lohan red six months ago?
Two and a half hours later, I saw a semi in the distance. Should I flag him down and hope he’s a good Samaritan instead of Ted Bundy? The truck grew closer, not slowing. In my mind, I could see Special Agent Derrick Morgan on Criminal Minds pinning my picture on a board with a row of other blondes, shaking his head, trying to figure out the common thread in our murders. But other than our cars stalling on the same Montana highway and our hair color, he was stumped.
I scooched way down in the seat and was glad the truck was soon out of sight. This was horrible. It was getting hotter than Columbia in July and that’s close to hellfire hot. I was tired and thirsty and needed to pee. I raised up just enough to see a big white pickup truck in my rear-view mirror. I could get out and flag the driver down or let him pass and hope a nice little old lady would come along in her nice little old lady car and help me. But two cars in almost three hours didn’t make me feel good about that choice. Fate would be the deciding factor. I waited until the truck whizzed past and then punched the hazard lights. They started blinking, but maybe not in time for the truck to see me. Shit.
I sat up and watched the brake lights flash and truck came to stop like the driver was deciding whether or not I was worth saving. It turned around and drove slowly toward me. I got out, praying it wasn’t Ted Bundy’s little brother and put on my best hey y’all South Carolina smile.
I hadn’t been in Montana long enough to see what the people looked like, but if all the women looked as good as the cowboy who’d just rolled down his window, I was screwed.
“Car trouble?” He tipped his hat back and raised his aviators. Wicked green eyes raked over me, and my breath caught a little.
Granted I was on my way to see my boyfriend, but I wasn’t dead. The cowboy’s face was rugged and stubbled, and the air conditioner on full blast blew his long dark hair about, the kind of hair that’s so luscious, it makes a stylist’s fingers twitch.
“Thanks for stopping. I don’t know what happened. I was just fixing to find a radio station when the car just up and quit, and—.” He put his shades back down and the devil’s smile crossed his lips. “What?”
“You’re not likely to find a radio station out here, ma’am.” He pushed his cowboy hat back a bit so I could get the full effect. God he was hot. “So just what are you fixing to do now?”
My sweet southern bell façade was melting fast in the prairie heat. “Are you making fun of me?”
That smile again. “Maybe.”
“Look, I’ve got no cell service, so I’m guessing you don’t either.”
“Out here that’d be a good guess.”
“I’m hot as hell, starving, and I have to pee. Could you just give me a lift to the next town so I can send a tow truck for my car?”
“Sure. But it’ll take us a while to get to the next town, Marietta. Better pee here.”
“Just how far is it?”
“’Bout an hour.”
“And where do you suggest I go?”
“In the sand box.” He pointed to the roadside. “Go ahead, I’m not real big on watching women pee.” If serial killers started off by flirting with their blonde victims, I was dead.
“Fine,” I said and stalked off toward a stand of bushes.
“Hey. What’s your name,” he shouted after me.
I didn’t know this guy and the last thing I wanted to do was give him was my real name. “Carolina. Brown,” I hollered over my shoulder.
“I’d stop right there if I were you, Carolina Brown. You’re liable to get on a rattle snake.”
“Yeah right,” I shouted, and then I heard it, or them, because it sounded like a whole nest of snakes. While watching the ground for vipers, I ran back toward my car as fast as one can on four-inch wedges while Ted Bundy’s little brother laughed his ass off.
“Just go beside your car, Carolina. No one’s gonna see.”
Desperate, I hid myself behind my car, hiked my short denim skirt up and have never been so terrified or so relieved to pee in my life. I felt the warm breeze on my bare ass and watched the stream snake around my new shoes, completely humiliated by my introduction to Montana. When I was done, I readjusted my clothes, grabbed my purse, and started for the stranger’s truck. I was so hot and miserable, I almost wished this guy would put me out of my misery.
“It’ll be several hours before the tow truck gets out this way. Better get the rest of your bags and lock up your car.”
A southern gentleman would have already jumped out to help by now, but this guy just watched me struggle with all three suitcases. When I’d packed, I’d run out of suitcases and used a cardboard box to take my makeup kit and all of my hair stuff just in case Adam wanted me to stay. Forever. Then the bottom fell out of the box. Clips and curlers, combs and brushes went everywhere, and there I was squatting again to pick them up. The cowboy serial killer stopped laughing long enough to get out of the truck to help me collect my precious things. By the time we were almost done, I was in tears.
“Hey, don’t cry.”
“It’s just that nothing has gone right. Nothing has gone the way I thought it would.” And it didn’t have anything to do with the contents of a pasteboard box strewn over the side of the road. Adam should be the guy here with me now. But I wasn’t even sure how he would react when I showed up on his doorstep with all three suitcases and a box of tools, hair tools. If he’d wanted me to come to Montana, he would have asked, but he didn’t. It had been months since I’d last seen him. And over the last four years
I’d spent more time without him than I had with him.
“Easy, Carolina.” Over my blubbering, his voice sounded like he was talking to a wounded animal. “Get in the truck, I’ll get this.” He took a box out of the back seat of his cab and picked up the rest of my things, stopping to inspect my razor closely. He looked over his shades at me before he tossed it into the box. Maybe he thought I was the serial killer.
Back in the truck, he whipped off his sunglasses, threw them on the console and looked at me. “I’m sorry I was a dick. I should have helped you.”
Since I gave my heart to Adam, one of the things I never do with my male clients is maintain eye contact for very long. It’s too intimate, especially when you’re leaned over the shampoo bowl with your boobs in their face. But I couldn’t look away from this guy.
“You’re scared?” I nodded. On so many levels, Yes. “Don’t be. We’re gonna do this right, okay? I’m Beck Hartnett. I own a restaurant near Marietta.”
“That’s nice.” I tried to sound uninterested, but I was starving.
“One of my freezers went out last night. I was on my way back from picking up a part and there you were.”
I dabbed under my eyes with a tissue and was sure I had raccoon eyes. “Lucky me.” He looked like he wanted to snipe at me but thought the better of it.
“When we get to my place, you can either call a tow truck or as soon as I fix the freezer, I’ll take you into town and drop you at a friend’s garage. Dillon is a good dude, he’ll get your car and fix it fast. Either way Carolina, you’re safe, everything’s going to be fine.”
Beck was an asshole. She’d almost killed herself with those bags, and he’d let her, just so he could watch her sweet butt sway back and forth from the car to the truck. With every trip, she’d gotten a little madder, her movements more pronounced. Chest heaving, perfect breasts thrust forward, straining against that skinny little tank top. And God, her face, especially when he pulled up and she’d smiled with everything she had in her, even with those sky blue eyes that weren’t smiling now.
And what in the hell was she doing out here alone in the badlands anyway? If she belonged to him—well, she didn’t, and she hadn’t said a word to him for forty-five minutes. She just checked her phone constantly for a signal. It annoyed him that she kept glancing at that damn thing over and over again, like she’d rather talk to anybody but him. Like there was someone special she was waiting to hear from, and it was real obvious Beck didn’t fall into that camp. Her silence was digging at him, making him feel even more guilty by the minute for pushing her buttons. Beck couldn’t take it anymore.
“So, where are you headed?” he asked.
“Missoula.” She said the word like that was the last place she wanted to be.
“We don’t see many South Carolina plates around these parts. You have family there?”
“My boyfriend just took a job there coaching baseball.” Girl like her? Of course she had a boyfriend.
“You must have been on the road for days, I bet he’s worried sick.”
She shrugged. “I’m surprising him.”
Beck couldn’t think of a better surprise than opening his door and finding Carolina Brown on his doorstep. Although, he was quite taken with the fantasy of her opening his front door, heading straight for his bed. “So, you’re just going to show up?”
“Something like that.”
“How long has he been out here?”
“Three months.”
“That must be hard. Does he commute?” She looked puzzled. “You know, fly out to see you?”
She gave him a look and seemed to be getting a little of her sass back. “I know what commute means.” The word asshole was implied. Beck raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. “No. He’s played minor league ball for four years, this is his first coaching gig. I’ve missed him, and I—.” Then she stopped.
She didn’t want to tell him anything else and after the way he’d treated her, Beck couldn’t blame her. Just looking at her, her could see the steam rising off her, cute nose turned out slightly, head tilted back, jaw clinched like she could be dangerous if she wanted. He couldn’t undo what he did to her, but he could at least try to make it up to her. She’d said she was hungry. He’d make her the best damn meal she’d ever had, and then he’d send her on her way to man she loved.
From the look on her face when he pulled into his driveway, she was expecting a dive. “This is beautiful,” she whispered.
“This my house. To your left are the gardens. Our food’s all about fresh, local, we grow everything we can. On the other side of those willows is the backside of the restaurant. “
“Those look different from the willows back home.”
“They’re a hybrid, they grow into a screen. Great for privacy.” God he sounded like he was trying to sell her the place. She started toward the willows. “This way, Carolina, the restaurant’s closed on Mondays, but I can make you anything you want in my kitchen.”
CHAPTER THREE
I hated that he was hot and he was trying to be nice to me to make up for being such an ass. He pulled into his driveway like it wasn’t palatial and overlooking a gorgeous lake, it was just home to him. The courtyard between the willows and his home was overflowing with flowers I didn’t recognize, and a bench was in the center looking out over the mountains and the lake.
His house was made out of stone and stained logs, a cross between French country and rustic. He pushed the front door open and I followed. Dark wooden beams crisscrossed the vaulted ceilings, a beautiful contrast to the cream-colored walls. The view from floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the lake was breathtaking, and when I turned around to tell him so, he was watching me. He looked like I’d caught him peeking at me in the shower and hung his hat on a wooden peg by the door.
“You look surprised.” He really had to stop with the killer smile.
“I thought you were kidding about the restaurant. I thought you were a cowboy.”
His smile faded. Was that a bad thing? In Montana?
“Must be the hat,” he said, trying to lighten things up again.
I followed him into the kitchen. He punched something into a laptop on the counter and flipped the screen around for me to see the menu for Beck’s Place. “I can make you anything you want, on or off the menu.”
I closed the laptop. “I don’t want to be any trouble. Something easy. Eggs, grilled cheese.”
“You didn’t even look at the menu.” He was still smiling but looked a little wounded. “You’re really going to make me grovel to cook you something decent, aren’t you?”
“Of course not. I’m easy.”
“Something tells me there nothing easy about you, Carolina Brown.” He pulled back his silky dark hair in a ponytail, rolled up the sleeves of his well-worn denim shirt and opened the refrigerator. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water’s fine.”
He filled a pretty thick glass goblet with water and put it in front of me. “So, I’ve met a bunch Carolines and a few Carolyns, don’t think I’ve ever met a Carolina. That a common name where you come from?”
“Yeah, both states, North and South, are just filled with Carolinas. It’s like Jessica or Heather and not uncommon at all. Now Beck, that’s an unusual name.
“Beckett was my mother’s maiden name. She’s the only person who calls me that, to everyone else, I’m just Beck.” He slung a kitchen towel over his shoulder. “You a picky girl?”
“Depends on what we’re talking about,” I shot back.
“You said you were hungry, no, starved. So?”
“No, I’m not picky.”
“Vegetarian?”
“No.” Hell no, I was so hungry I’d eat his boot leather sautéed if he put it in front of me.
He nodded and went to work, laying out an uncut loaf of bread that had been sitting on a cooling rack. My God, he bakes? He took some bacon and a small block of cheddar-looking cheese out of the fridge and c
ut a half dozen slices, and then set about slicing some cherry red peppers paper-thin. He threw six pieces of thick bacon outlined in black pepper on the hot griddle. “Be back in a sec.”
A couple of minutes later, he came back from the garden with some basil and chives. He was definitely going above and beyond, but then he had bought and paid for that privilege when he decided to be an ass. Yes, this was going to be some grilled cheese sandwich.
He took a container out of the fridge, opened it so I could see the pasta salad. Yes, please. I nodded.
“You must be starving. Since you walked through the door, you haven’t checked that phone of yours once or called the tow truck,” he said, “Or your boyfriend.”
“I told you, I’m surprising him, and if you give me the number of your friend with the tow truck, I’ll call now.”
“Relax, Carolina, your car’s not going anywhere. Eat your lunch. You can call Dillon later.”
I tried really hard to disguise how amazing the sandwich was, but the smirk on his face said he knew. “Thank you, Beck, this is really good.”
“Really good?” he looked like I’d tried to slap the smirk off of his face. But I wasn’t about to tell him how amazing it was, how the bacon and the cheese and the herbs came together. How every bite was like grilled cheese sex, making me want to sigh and beg for more. “Yes, and the salad’s good too.”
“Must be. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl eat so fast. Slow down, you’re on Montana time.” My heart raced when he put another dollop of salad on my plate and started putting together another sandwich. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“Yesterday, lunch.”
He looked disgusted for a split second and then put my second sandwich on the griddle. The sound of the butter sizzling made my mouth water. “Why so long?”
“The kitchen was closed in the little place I stayed at in South Dakota, so I snacked on some Nabs.”