by S. K Munt
Bruce shrugged, looking away as though admiring the view out the window. ‘Yes well, I’m sorry, really…’ his voice was dull, his eyes sharp as they landed on Ryan’s bag. ‘I’d like to take you at your word, but seeing as how neither you or Mr Weaver were honest enough to check him in last night, I cannot.’
Leigh wailed and walked back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. The picture tilted at a sharper angle.
Ryan’s fists curled into angry balls. ‘And would you have charged her if extra if you’d be the one occupying space in Leigh’s room overnight?’
Bruce moved to adjust the photograph, hiding most of his face but not the profile view of his smirk. ‘Of course.’
‘At mummy and daddy’s discounted rate and expense, no doubt….’ Ryan muttered, turning around to retrieve his bag. He glanced over his shoulder as he snatched it up. ‘Luckily for them, you were never in danger of being an overnight guest in Leigh’s bed. And that’s your problem, isn’t it?’
Bruce’s face spasmed with anger. ‘You son of a-’
‘Ryan stop, please,’ Leigh sniffled as she walked back out of the bathroom wearing her robe. ‘It’s three hundred dollars a night here- I won’t be paying that and breaking up a brawl seeing as how neither of you should be in my room to begin with!’
‘You won’t be paying a cent of it.’ Ryan dug into the front pocket of his bag and pulled out a wad of fifties, throwing it at Bruce like confetti. ‘There’s last night’s rate, and don’t worry yourself about me sneaking in again, because I won’t be returning.’
Bruce scowled at him, making no move to pick up the money as it floated to the ground around his polished shoes. ‘That’s a wise decision that’ll benefit Miss Dallas-Hone. Still, I will have to have someone monitor-’
‘Fuck you and your monitors. Leigh’s not retuning either.’
Bruce raised a brow. ‘Oh?’
‘OH?’ Leigh put her hands on her hips and glared at Ryan. ‘Gee, thanks for taking a firm stance on my behalf, Ryan, but there are maybe four available rooms in this city right now and they’re either out of my price range or so disgusting-’
‘You’re coming to stay with me,’ Ryan said firmly, reaching down and grabbing her suitcase off the floor before tossing it onto her bed. ‘For free. Pack quickly, and we’ll be out of here before check out time, and save you today’s rate as well.’
Leigh and Bruce stared at him, incredulous, but when neither moved, Ryan shrugged and began picking up her things.
Fourteen
Leigh
Leigh watched Ryan pack her stuff, her emotions diving themselves evenly between shock and horror. Was he serious? If so, he was mad!
‘Don’t be an idiot, Ryan. She’s not going to go stay with some random sleazebag in a strange country,’ Bruce said quickly, reaching to collect the money from the floor. ‘She can stay here, and I’ll make sure that she’s not charged-’
‘Save your legs- back-peddling’s not going to get you off the asshole road you’ve taken now,’ Ryan said, surprising Leigh further by actually folding her jeans before reaching for her windbreaker. ‘She’s coming with me, and if she says no, I’ll put her up at the best damn suite in the city. Either way, she’s getting out from under your thumb before you single-handedly wreck Niagara’s upstanding tourism reputation for good.’
Leigh stepped forward, taking her windbreaker from Ryan’s hand. ‘Stop! Ryan that’s a lovely offer but-’
‘I’m not backing down here Leigh,’ Ryan said, lifting his blue eyes to hers and nailing her with the spark of determination alighting them from within. ‘I know you don’t like being coddled, but this isn’t what that is, okay? Bruce is being an asshole and you don’t have to stand for it. And let’s face it, I owe you a few favours and if you don’t let me settle the score, then you’re just as much of a stubborn asshole as he is.’ He yanked the windbreaker out of her hands and laid it on top of her jeans, then turned to pick up the stack of books she’d put next to the television, adding it to her suitcase. ‘And unless you want me to handle what I imagine to be your very adorable delicates, you’ll start packing too.’
Leigh made an exasperated sound as Bruce laughed derisively. Were all the men in Niagara suffering from some sort of brain damage? It would explain the five thousand bodies that had been fished out of the gorge over the years! ‘Ryan I cannot stay at a stranger’s-’
‘Then the Marriot it is.’ Ryan turned and as promised, opened her top drawer and began to gather up handfuls of underwear. She shrieked and grabbed them from him, and he laughed, bending to pick up the lacy white thong she’d knocked to the floor. ‘Hey… nice…’ he glanced at her hands. ‘Wow, no grandma knickers to speak of! That just kicked the naughty librarian fantasy up-’
‘Ryan!’ Leigh was mortified and breathless. She dumped her underwear in the suitcase. ‘I’m not going to let you blow your money-’
‘My millions of dollars? Why not?’ Ryan winked up at Bruce. ‘Her company’s a sound investment, wouldn’t you say?’
‘You’re a piece of shit.’ Bruce barked. ‘It’s obvious that she’s not interested-’
‘In either of us! I’ve accepted that and have moved on but you, on the other hand, are a slimy sack of shit for constantly guilting her into spending time with you. At least I’ve got the balls to admit that I’m manipulating her.’ Ryan tossed Leigh’s thong into the pocket of the suitcase and then began to stuff the delicates she’d dumped carelessly into the same zippered section. ‘Leigh, start getting your toiletries, okay? I’ll check all the drawers…’
‘She’s not going with you!’
‘She’s not asking for your help! Bruce I told you last night that the chemistry just wasn’t there for me and I’m sorry but...’ Leigh turned back to her kidnapper and tugged on the sleeve of his shirt, causing him to drop her balls of clean socks everywhere. ‘As for you- I can’t. I can’t take your money-’
‘Then take the spare bedroom in my house, it’s your choice where you stay- but it’s my money or my hospitality, Leigh.’ He looked up at her, abandoning the socks and taking her forearms in his hands. ‘Listen to me, all right? I know you’re feeling off balance right now, but believe me when I say that I can easily afford to get you out of this mess. In all honesty, I’d rather you stay with me because I want to spend as much time with you as possible, and if you’re worried that I’m going to cross some line please, give me the benefit of the doubt, okay? I mean, if I didn’t kiss you this morning when I woke up to find an angel in a Hooters shirt on the floor beside me, then you’re virtue is safe- because you looked hell-kissable.’ He rubbed his thumbs in small circles on her suddenly heated skin. ‘And besides, you’re a romantic, right? Big reader?’ He smiled, and it was warmer than his touch. ‘Then why stay in some hostile hotel suite when you could stay in a real Victorian manor, hmm?’
Leigh knew that she must have had some outer reaction to that, because Ryan’s eyes sparkled in tune to her sudden excitement. ‘It’s a Victorian?’ she asked, as visions of fictional homes began to take form in the air between them. ‘Really?’
Ryan nodded. ‘With a porch swing, pitched ceilings, a small library… an attic…’
Leigh began to feel light-headed. ‘Oh?’
Library? Attic? For REAL?!
Ryan’s smile may as well have had feline fangs and canary feathers sticking out of it, for all of its smugness. ‘A Jacuzzi on the back porch with a jukebox…’
‘Jukebox?’ Leigh’s mind was swimming in deliciously frantic circles around some imagined diner.
‘An antique one,’ his voice had never been sexier. ‘Just like the four post bed in the guest room, the claw-footed bath tub and, oh- are you ready for the very best part…?’ Ryan paused, beaming, and Leigh couldn’t breathe for the suspense.
‘What?’ she whispered, almost afraid to know.
Ryan wet his lips. ‘It has a fireplace.’
Leigh’s knees went weak as her brain shut down and
ceased to fire commands to her nerve endings. She stared back into Ryan’s eyes, wondering if she was just as crazy as him- because she was going to say yes.
‘You’ve never wanted me more, have you?’ he teased, those eyes- those EYES- dancing like the flickering flames of the fireplace she would be reading by later. ‘Need a cigarette now, honey?’
Leigh turned away from him and began to gather up her belongings that she’d strewn around the room. ‘Stop wasting my time by folding things! Get that suitcase packed!’
I’m going to stay in a REAL Victorian mansion oh my god! My parents are going to KILL me but OH MY GOD!
Ryan chuckled and Bruce made a spluttering noise. ‘You’re not really considering staying at his house, are you Leigh? You’re supposed to be a smart girl!’
‘Because I wear glasses?’ Leigh grabbed her iPad and shoved it in her handbag and then started collecting other important things, like the room key, her travel wallet and her chargers, throwing them all in after it before darting back to the suitcase and pulling out her prettiest day dress and a pale blue cardigan. If she was going to a house with a porch swing, she needed her very best Stepford clothes! Her excitement was toe-curlingly ferocious and mindless to the presence of the two odd men; she began to hum along to ‘Lipstick On Your Collar,’ as it began on her iPhone in the bathroom, once Stupid Cupid had faded out. ‘Nah. They fog up a lot and blind me to a lot of things that others see coming…like the dangers of taking keys from strangers...’
‘It is dangerous! You don’t know him Leigh, or how he ended up in Niagara gorge-’
But Leigh did know. ‘Ah well. If Ryan was a serial killer before his accident, hopefully that fact continues to evade him- at least until I get safely to the airport next week, yeah?’
‘Leigh-’
‘Bruce, stop it.’ She whirled on him, holding her clothes in her arms and his stare with an unrelenting grip, hating the fact that he was forcing her to behave in such a standoffish manner. ‘You shouldn’t come to my room as often as you had- and you shouldn’t have been at my door this morning either!’
Looking hurt, Bruce pointed to the tray. ‘I brought you-’
‘I don’t want any more free stuff!’ Leigh snapped. ‘And I need five minutes to myself every now and then. You’re going to smother me to death or charge me through the nose for making friends if I stay, so I’m going with Ryan, all right? At least that way, if he chops me up and buries me in the backyard, it’ll be in the yard of a Victorian and hey…’ she began to walk towards the bathroom, smiling dreamily. ‘That’s as romantic death as a bookworm can hope for- short of plunging a sword into my chest because my husband just poisoned himself…’ Ryan laughed and Leigh shut the door on it then turned the iPod off, smiling proudly at her starry-eyed reflection in the mirror.
A Victorian! For free! Think of all the spare cash I’ll have, after saving five day’s worth of accommodation expenses! Wow… Ryan is so sweet... sweet, handsome, rich… shit.
‘You’re a calculating son of a bitch, you know that?’ Bruce hissed at Ryan on the other side of the door, and Leigh wondered if he knew that she could still hear them. She shrugged and dropped her towel before lifting her dress and pulling it over her head, abandoning the jeans and green sweater she’d been opting for before.
Porch swing! Fireplace! Oh my god! I need my kitten heels! I can’t believe he’s opening his home for me, even though he knows he’s not going to get any! Is this all about the book, or does he maybe, truly- like me, for me?
‘I didn’t have to do any math to know that obsessive reader plus fireplace prospect equals a literal orgasm,’ Ryan joked, sounding unconcerned by Bruce’s wrath, and Leigh cracked a smile as she tugged her dress into place, zipping up the bodice and fluffing up the full, floral and pastel skirt.
Witty, talented… oh boy. I wonder how tight this dream girl’s grip is of him, really? Maybe one day, he’ll come to Australia and...
‘And that’s the only way I plan on getting her off, understood?’ Ryan went on, cutting off whatever Bruce had been about to say. ‘She’s helping me with something and so we’re friends and I flirt with her because she blushes like police lights- but you and I both know that sweet girls who wear glasses and polka-dot dresses and don’t put out aren’t my type, man, so why don’t you just lay off the both of us?’ He chuckled. ‘You want to know my type? Check out Marietta with the dark curls and long legs in seven- oh-four. She brought me back here last night, not Leigh.’
Ryan’s words hit her right in the heart, and Leigh stiffened as she thought of the polka-dot swing dress she’d been wearing when she arrived, and how she’d hoped that dressing in a girlie manner would attract the notice of a guy like Ryan- a handsome hero. Had he hated it? She’d felt so romantic in it, just like she did in this one!
Leigh stared at her reflection while biting her lip, running her hands down the soft, floating skirt, and recalling how she’d bought it because it reminded her of the dresses in Dirty Dancing, just like she’d bought the polka dot one because it reminded her of jukeboxes and Cadillacs. That was the kind of woman she wanted to be- feminine, sassy and sexy without having to plaster on Lycra and spandex. It wasn’t the only kind of woman she wanted to be either- she wanted to be all of them! She dressed differently every single day, hoping that one day she’d find something just right, even though she feared that she was too mediocre to belong in anything but sweats.
The mirror almost always confirmed that she looked as good as she’d hoped to, but what if she was kidding herself? Right then, she felt like she looked a mess; pale, blotchy, damp… too short, too wide-eyed and childlike with her petticoat and pout… who was going to notice the cleavage or appreciate how tiny her waist looked, if they were wondering if she was a grown woman playing dress ups? Or worse, an eccentric sixteen-year old?
Maybe I should just put on the sweater and pants…?
But then Leigh imagined the French brunette with long legs that Ryan had taken home the night before and she exhaled, deflated, and began to scrape her hair up into a bun. No matter what she wore, she was never going to look like that, and if dressing the way she did pleased her imagination, why change for a guy who had none?
He flirts with me because he’s a flirt. He wanted me last night because I was wearing something provocative that probably made me look less like jail-bait than usual, and if I’m going to lose his interest today by wearing something sweet and feminine that makes me feel good, then so be it. I’m never going to be his type and let’s face it; I’m never going to want to be backstage at a rock concert when I could be at home reading, so why sweat it? At least it’s honest this way.
A door slammed on the other side of hers, and Leigh knew that was Bruce- the one guy who actually liked her- leaving.
Fifteen
Ryan
Ryan had encountered a hell of a lot of tourists since he’d begun spending time in the Niagara Falls region, and when he’d tagged along with Leigh on the Maid Of The Mist the day before, he’d been impressed with how nonchalant she’d been about everything- moved, but not Kodak-crazy.
And then she got into his car, and became the tourist from every townie’s worst nightmare.
‘This place is so beautiful!’ Leigh was hanging so far out of his car window that Ryan was tempted to roll it up a little, just to hold her in place. ‘Just LOOK at that cute little shop! Oh! There’s that bridge… wow! It’s so huge! Isn’t it crazy that there’s another country right there?’
‘Really…? There’s a country over there? What’s it called? ’ Ryan joked, as he went for the automatic button and froze, hovering over a polished handle, the old-fashioned, rotary kind.
This is the only car I remember driving… ever! So why did I practically feel the plastic button in my hand, and how do I know what kind of noise they make?
‘You’re so funny…’ Leigh was probably aiming for a sarcastic delivery, but she giggled anyway. ‘But just in case you’ve had more damage done to y
our noggin’ than you think- that’s The United States. Right THERE! Seriously! How cool would it be to be able to just wave to another country out the window?’
Ryan glanced over at her, temporarily caught somewhere between surprise over his sense memories, and delight in her adorable, snub nose. ‘I don’t know if it’s as cool as it is problematic… historically speaking, anyway.’
‘Touché...’ Leigh leaned a little further out the window and squealed as someone walking a sharpei trotted past. ‘Whoa! Look at that dog! I’ve only ever seen those in movies before!’
But Ryan wasn’t looking at the dog- he was riveted by the sight of her upper thigh as she twisted toward and out the window, flashing him a glimpse of a stay-up stocking hugging her taut, golden leg. Her dress had ridden up a little, and though there was no garter and the stocking itself was beige with a plain lace band- hardly dominatrix wear- there was something mouth-wateringly sensual about the sight of it against her petticoat. The urge to lean over and smooth her skirt down, just so that maybe he had a chance of feeling the silken leg against his fingertips, had him so side-lined that he only realised that he was driving towards one o’clock instead of twelve, five metres before the dodge would have gone over someone’s letterbox.
‘Shit!’ he straightened the wheel and overdosed on a backwash of adrenalin for a few seconds. ‘Can you not draw so much attention to us?’ He glanced in his rear-vision mirror, checking for police cars. ‘I don’t actually have a license, and if you keep pointing out every piece of cool trash or ugly dog and making me look too, I won’t have a car soon either.’
Leigh squeaked and retracted from the window, landing on the leather seat, her full skirt generating a gentle wind, annoying him. It was so cold outside that Ryan wished he were wearing a jumper UNDER his leather jacket- so where did she get off, flaunting her sexy little legs in a summery dress and almost getting them killed?