by Stacy Eaton
“Yeah, I noticed that comment, too.”
“Do you date women like that, women who come on to you and say those kinds of things? Is that the kind of woman you’re interested in?”
I took her hand, bringing it to my lips. “No, you’re the kind of woman I’m interested in, one who speaks her mind honestly and isn’t trying to throw herself at me just because I was a model and have money.”
She frowned for a moment then her lips began to curl and her eyes filled with lust. “How about if I throw myself at you because you are you, and that money you have has given you a really nice vehicle with a really nice back seat?”
Chapter 13
Finley
This man gave me the courage to say what I wanted—or he made me crazy enough to say it. I wasn’t sure which one, but after the words were off my lips, a blush stole over my skin.
Roan curled his hand around my neck and tugged me forward. “Now that is really tempting, but the first time I make love to you, it’s not going to be in my car in my best friend’s driveway.”
“The first time? You plan on there being more than one?” Could I dare to hope?
He kissed me tenderly once and then pulled back. My stomach tensed nervously as I awaited his response. “That’s a loaded question, Finley, and something that we should probably talk about, but not right now,” I started to turn away from him as disappointment spread through my chest, “but, yes, I do want more than once. I also want to make sure we are on the same page before we start anything.”
In other words, he wanted to sleep with me, but didn’t really want to get involved with me. “Okay,” I replied trying to keep my voice strong and not hurt. How could I expect someone like him to want to be involved with me? He was rich and gorgeous, and I was me: a waitress with average looks and barely anything in savings.
“How about we talk after dinner tonight?”
“Sure, that sounds good.” It sounded anything but good. Did I really want to hear him say, “Hey, I really think you’re hot and want to bang you, but you’re not good enough, so don’t get attached”?
No, I didn’t, but again I was a glutton for punishment, so I’d sit there and take it. When had I lost my backbone?“Did you and Robin get everything done that you needed to? I expected to be waiting longer.”
“We got a little bit done, but she was in a lot of pain and had just taken medication, so she was getting groggy when I left. She’d been making a list for me to do, so she emailed it to me. I’ll look over it and start working on it after I get to work tomorrow.”
“You don’t want to look at it now?”
“My cellphone doesn’t have good reception out here, and I don’t have a lot of data time left on my phone.”
“You should speak to Robin about that. Since you’re working for her and doing a lot of the administrative stuff, maybe she can get you a new phone and put it on her business plan.”
“I couldn’t ask Robin to do that. It’s fine. I just need to wait until I can get back on Wi-Fi at the café.”
Roan chuckled. “You know that I have Wi-Fi at my place, right?”
“You do?”
“Yeah, you ask that like you’re not used to having Wi-Fi at home.”
“I’m not. I’ve never had Wi-Fi in my house.”
His eyes popped. “You’ve never had Wi-Fi? How do you use your computer?”
I tried to keep my chin up as I replied. “I don’t own a computer.”
“Wow, just wow. I’m not sure I know anyone that doesn’t have at least one computer.”
“I had one a while ago,” I cleared my throat, “but I sold it.” Of course, I had sold it because we had needed the money to pay the rent. Howie had spent the last of his paycheck at the strip club, and it was either sell my laptop or get kicked to the curb.
“Well, you need to talk to Robin about that. I’m sure Chris can get you a laptop to use for work. In the meantime, I think I have one you can borrow.”
“No, you don’t need to do that.”
“Finley, it’s not a big deal. I probably have two or three in my cabinet that I don’t use.”
Two or three that he doesn’t use? I bet they weren’t four-hundred-dollar cheapo ones either like mine had been when I’d gotten it on a hot sale. “Well, thank you.”
If he didn’t say anything else about it, I wouldn’t either. “Where are we going now?”
“Back to your place so we can get your stuff, and then we’ll go to my house.” He paused. “We probably need to go to the grocery store. I have no idea what is at home.”
“What do you like to eat? I can cook dinner.”
“You don’t have to cook.”
“You are helping me out, the least I can do is cook for you. I love to cook.”
“I happen to enjoy cooking myself. Sherry hated it, so I was usually the one in the kitchen.”
“How did she die? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking,” I quickly tacked on.
“I don’t mind. It doesn’t hurt as much to talk about it as it used to. She had ovarian cancer. She had a hysterectomy, but the cancer had already progressed past her reproductive organs. For a long time, like almost four years, she fought it and went through treatment after treatment, but it just didn’t work.”
“I’m so sorry. How long has she been gone?”
“Almost six years,” he replied softly. “You would have liked Sherry; she is a lot like you. She was brutally honest, and sometimes it pissed me off, but it’s also what I loved most about her.”
I chuckled with him, “My kind of girl.”
“Yeah, mine, too,” he replied. “She was an attorney, used to do pro bono work because she wanted to make sure people who couldn’t afford legal services could have a good attorney anyway.”
The only way I would have known her was if I’d hired her to work for free for me, since I was one of those people who never would have been able to pay for services—or if I’d served her at a party while I was doing a catering gig.
“She loved what she did, hated to cook, wasn’t crafty in the slightest bit, and ran. It was the only exercise that she ever did. Some days, if she had a case that really weighed heavily on her mind, she’d run eight, ten miles. I’d even found her running on her treadmill in her work clothes because she was trying to work through something and the movement helped her process things a certain way.”
The love and sorrow emanated from his face as he spoke of his late wife. “You really loved her a lot, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” he nodded slowly as he drove, “she was the love of my life.”
“Sadie, one of the waitresses I work with, said she was your high school sweetheart.”
“She was. We dated in high school but broke up for about two years while I was traveling and modeling. She said she didn’t want to hold me back and wanted me to enjoy everything I could while I was traveling. When I came back to town to visit a few years later, I went straight to her house and told her I still loved her and wanted her to marry me. She did.”
“And she didn’t care about your modeling with all those gorgeous women?”
“Oh, no way. She laughed at it most of the time. She knew that I loved her and that there was no way I would stray.” He looked my way. “When I fall in love, I’m all in.”
Good to know, I thought, although I’d never see that kind of devotion in my lifetime. I was pretty sure that my love life was going to be one loser after another.
We were quiet for the rest of the trip, and I assumed that he was lost in thoughts of his wife. What must it have been like to have been loved by a man like Roan? To have his all-in attitude and never have to worry about him having wandering hands or coming home with some sexually transmitted disease that would get past a condom because, yeah, I never had sex without one—ever—even though I was on the pill. I just didn’t trust my partners enough to take that chance.
What did that say about them? Me?
Howie was right, I was white trash, so what was I doing he
re in this luxurious car with this gorgeous man?
When we pulled up in front of the house, I hesitated before I got out, “Are you sure you want me to stay at your place? I doubt he’s going to be coming back or cause any more problems.” Although I doubted myself on that. I wouldn’t put it past Howie to show up on my doorstep high or drunk.
Roan studied me for a second and then glanced toward the front door. “What the hell?” He quickly turned the car off and got out. “Stay here.”
I stared after him with my mouth open and watched him disappear on my front stoop—which wasn’t possible unless he went inside my house. I quickly exited the vehicle and ran to the front door. The wood was splintered around the handle, and there was a big footprint to the right of it.
I rushed inside and came to a halt as if I’d slammed into a wall. The place was trashed. The pillows on the couch were torn open, and the foam and stuffing yanked out and scattered around the room. The two coffee tables were overturned, and one was broken all together. The mirror on the opposite side of the room was smashed, and my reflection looked broken and uneven in the fractured glass.
I jumped when a hand touched my arm and I spun to find Roan. “Still think he won’t come back? Let’s get your stuff and get out of here.”
I nodded and brushed past him on shaky legs to head to my bedroom. I blinked back the tears as I went and wondered how the hell I was going to be able to afford to have all this stuff fixed. The furnishings had come with the house, and Mr. Baker was not going to be happy to find them all ruined.
As if Roan knew where my mind was, he asked, “Do you have renters’ insurance?”
I shook my head, “I was planning on getting it next month. I get a raise then, so I’ll be able to afford to pay it.”
I came to an abrupt halt at the door to my bedroom. “Oh, shit.” My bed had been sliced open from end to end and was peeled back like a banana. “Oh, my god, no!” I rushed forward to gather up the shreds of the afghan my grandmother had made me. It had been small, made for swaddling a baby and so ratty from my years of keeping it close that it barely held together. Now it was destroyed.
The blanket had been torn into three pieces, and my gaze began to waver as tears clouded my vision. “That son of a bitch! How could he do this?”
Roan put his hands on my shoulders and rubbed up and down. “Let’s get your things and get out of here. Take what you need, and we will get this cleaned up later.”
I twisted away from him and rushed to the open closet door, dropping to my knees and digging through my pile of shoes. “No, no, no, no!” I chanted as I yanked the boot out of the pile and quickly stuck my hand inside. The shoe was empty, and my body rounded forward as I began to rock back and forth.
“No—no—no—no—”
“Finley—sweetheart, what’s going on?”
“I had a key in here, and it’s gone.”
“A key? What was it to? We can call a locksmith and get it replaced.”
“No,” I threw the boot into the closet and stood, “I can’t. It was a key that was stitched into that baby blanket. I found it years ago when the material began to degrade, but I didn’t know what it was for, and neither did my parents, but I kept it because it had to mean something.”
“Why would he take it?”
“Because he’s an ass and he knew that was my prized possession,” I wiped the tears off my face and then slammed my hands on my hips, “and he knew if he took that, it would either destroy me or get me to come back to him.”
He pulled me into his arms, “You’re not going back to him, that’s for sure. We’ll get it back, Finley. I promise you, we’ll get it back.”
I doubted that, but it was nice to hear someone be optimistic as I began to cry in earnest against his chest.
Chapter 14
Roan
It was easier talking to Finley about Sherry than I thought it would be—but what kept my mind occupied on the ride to her house wasn’t Sherry, not really. It was the beautiful woman sitting beside me. I was serious about being all in when I loved someone, and not that I was in love with Finley Parker, but I could honestly see myself falling in love with her.
Who knew what the future would hold. Did Finley even like me? I knew she was attracted to me, but like me? Would Finley be open to having a child? She was thirty-three, and I was only thirty-eight, so we had a little bit of time. Chris had a baby at thirty-eight, so why couldn’t I?
When we pulled up in front of her house, I saw her trying to find an excuse to get out of coming to my place. Did she think that I’d spent the last fifteen minutes thinking about my deceased wife? I wasn’t sure what to tell her, but anything I might have come up with was cut short when I saw her front door had been kicked in.
I rushed to the doorway and pulled out a gun that I kept in the small of my back. I had obtained a carry permit several years ago and never went anywhere without my 9mm Smith & Wesson Shield.
I checked the rooms quickly, thinking that I should look inside closets to make sure someone wasn’t hiding in there, but every door was wide open, the contents spilling out. Now, I seriously hated his guy.
Finley entered the house, and I had just checked her bedroom and found no one. I slipped the gun back into my waistband holder and found her staring, open–mouthed, at the damage in the living room.
It didn’t take much talking to convince her to pack, and the ravaged sound of her voice when she lifted the blanket from the floor tore at my heart. When she dropped to her knees at her closet and began to dig frantically through her shoes, I wanted to join her. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but her urgency was so visible that it screamed for me to help. There was nothing for me to do but to hold her after she’d told me why she was so upset.
I let her cry for a few minutes and then held her away from me as I looked down into her face. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face blotchy, and yet, she was more beautiful than ever. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get your things and get out of here.”
She found a duffle bag and shoved some clothes from the floor into it. She didn’t waste any time, and I was thankful for that. I’d been keeping one eye on her and an ear out for any sounds in the house. While she packed her toiletries, I went to the front door to see if I could secure it. Luckily, there was a deadbolt that hadn’t been engaged. Finley could lock that, and the door would at least be closed for the night.
“Finley, we should call the police,” I told her as she came down the hall, “and at least file a report.”
“Yeah, what are they going to do about it? Nothing. They never do anything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“But we can’t prove it was him, and they would never believe me, anyway.”
I cupped the side of her face. “Finley, have a little faith. I have some friends that I’m going to reach out to, and we’ll see if there is anything we can do.”
She pulled away. “You’re wasting your time, but if you want to, I’m not going to stop you.”
She set her duffle in the hallway and went back to her room again. I carried the bag out to my vehicle and made sure to look around. Was that ass out here watching us? I had a feeling he was, and I was going to have to be really careful driving home so we weren’t followed.
A couple of minutes later, Finley exited, and I helped her lock her front door. Once we got to my place, I’d call the police and report it, maybe set up an appointment for them to come see the damage tomorrow morning.
Finley was quiet in the passenger seat, but that was alright. I was paying close attention to my rearview and side mirrors, and at first, I thought I saw a truck behind us, but after a few sidetracks through neighborhoods and backtracking, I lost the truck and felt confident that I could head home.
My driveway was about a quarter-mile long and wound back from the roadway, uphill. I’d built the place fifteen years ago and still loved it. The enormous wooden home sat atop a hill and looked over the valley. Chris Landry’s
house was about a mile west as the crow flies, but if you took the road, it was a twenty-minute drive around this section of the mountain.
“Holy crap!” Finley said as I slowed and hit the button for the garage.
I laughed, “Yeah, it is kind of impressive, isn’t it?”
“Ya think? Seriously, you live here with just your son?”
“Yep, I do. When Sherry and I built it, we’d hoped to have at least three or four kids, but well, you already know that story.”
“What’s under the car cover?”
“Corvette,” I replied.
Her eyes sparkled. “No way, what year?”
“Last year’s.”
“Oh, my god! I want to see it.”
“I’ll let you drive it, but not tonight.” I turned the car off and hit the garage door button again once I’d parked it inside. “Let’s get you settled and figure out what I have in the house for dinner.”
She nodded, and I recovered her bag from the rear compartment as she gathered a few smaller bags that had been at her feet.
I knew that if she was impressed with the view from the front, she was going to be blown away by the view from the back.
I flipped on a few lights in the hallway as we entered, and when we reached the end of the hallway and stepped into the family room, she sucked in a shocked breath. “Holy crap, that is gorgeous.” She dropped the bags she’d brought in and went straight for the rear wall.
The entire wall was glass and looked out over the valley below. The sun was setting on the other side, and the sky glowed in ambers and oranges.
I stayed back as she approached the glass. “This is absolutely stunning, Roan.”
“It is a pretty spectacular view.” I wasn’t looking at the view outside the glass, I was staring at her. Her hair was still piled on her head, but tendrils had fallen around her neck. Her profile relaxed as she took in the sunset, and I approached her.
“It is spectacular. No wonder you put up a glass wall.” She glanced up and took in the height of the window. “This is amazing, and with the sunset, it’s—”