Joyride
Page 15
Today, he decided, was the best outfit yet. Or the worst, depending on how you looked at it. He found it very hard not to look at her, a major risk for a man driving at a high speed on unfamiliar roads.
Had she worn that outfit deliberately to drive him crazy? he wondered, slanting yet another glance her way from behind his sunglasses. Thank God for dark glasses. He was certain his eyes must have about popped out when she sauntered to the parking lot and said good morning. Too bad they didn’t make body glasses, so he could hide all of his body’s revealing responses to her.
Some guys might not find what she was wearing all that alluring, and he supposed on anyone else it might not even strike him that way, either. But as far as he was concerned, with Cat inside it, it beat satin and sequins hands down. For starters, she was wearing a tank top again. It must be some sort of fetish of hers, he decided. This one was white. Over the tank top she was wearing short black denim overalls, and under it she was wearing nothing at all. From his vantage point by her side, he was in a position to know that for a fact, and it was confirmed each time she lifted her arm or they hit a bump in the road. The overalls were short and snug, doing more to emphasize than hide her full breasts and rounded backside.
Overalls, he thought disgustedly. How in the world could overalls be sexy? Kids wore overalls, for Pete’s sake. But then, compared to him, she was a kid, he reminded himself. He had to keep reminding himself. It was one way to keep from thinking about pulling off the road and unsnapping her straps and peeling down the denim bib covering her breasts. He wanted to find out if he could see through her white shirt almost as much as he wanted to slide his hands up inside it and find out if her skin there was as soft as it was everywhere else. He wanted her, damn it.
“You’re frowning.”
“What did you say?” he snapped.
“My goodness, you don’t have to take my head off,” Cat retorted.
“I wasn’t trying to take your shirt... I mean, your head off.” He felt his neck growing warm and muttered something impolite under his breath. “I simply asked what you had said.”
“And I simply said that you were frowning.”
“So?”
“So nothing. It was an observation, that’s all.”
“Fine.” He nodded toward her bag. “As long as you’re in the mood to observe things, maybe you could fish the map out of that grab bag and see if you can observe where the turnoff is for Route 81 south.”
“No problem.”
The map Cat had been given, as well as his own intended route, called for them to follow Route 95 south from Baltimore to Florida. However, they weren’t going to Florida, at least not directly. First they were going to Charlottesville, Virginia, so that Cat could visit some horse-breeding ranch that had been in the same family since before the Civil War. Evidently the great-great-granddaughter of the original owner was an avid book collector and she had agreed to let Cat photograph her library.
After that they were going to Charleston, South Carolina, and then Savannah Georgia, and on to some small town called Dixie Union. Bolt didn’t even want to think about how long all that was going to take, how many hours and days of being cooped up in this car together, his hormones stuck in overdrive like some drooling adolescent. In his current mood, he could only handle one challenge at a time. Right now he was thinking about Charlottesville and how to get there without going through Washington, D.C., at rush hour.
Judging from his quick look at the map that morning, Route 81 was the best choice. Taking it would mean adding a hefty number of extra miles, but at the same time it would virtually eliminate the possibility that he might find himself stuck in traffic for hours, with only a head full of regrets and a woman he couldn’t touch for company. He seemed to recall that the turnoff was coming up sometime soon and he was determined not to miss it. The way he was feeling, every minute counted.
Cat quickly located the turnoff on the map and told him that according to her estimation it was coming up in about three miles. She was right on the button. Yesterday, he would have smiled and told her she was a darn good navigator. Today he just grunted his thanks and kept his eyes on the road ahead.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said once they had safely made the route change.
He nodded without looking at her.
“Do you intend to drive the rest of the way to Florida without talking to me?”
“I talked to you,” he replied. “I asked you to check the map.”
“That’s right, you did. Let me rephrase. Do you intend to drive the rest of the way without talking to me except to ask me to check the map or pass the salt or hand you the money for the next toll? Or, to put it even more directly, do you intend to go on pretending that nothing happened last night?”
He glanced at her briefly. “Nothing did happen,” he reminded her, tossing that hollow technicality at her in the hopes of short-circuiting a discussion he didn’t want to have.
“It sure felt to me like something was happening,” she said softly.
Bolt managed a grim chuckle, but his pulse leapt wildly. “Had a change of heart overnight, have we?”
“No,” she said, her matter-of-factness one more blow to his ego. “My heart still feels the same. It’s the rest of me that’s having a problem dealing with this.”
“Join the club,” he muttered.
“I mean that I’m having a hard time understanding what’s happening between us.”
“Us?” he echoed, shooting her an incredulous look. “You can’t understand what’s happening between us?”
She looked both flustered and annoyed. “I mean I don’t know why it’s happening. Why I feel the way I do.”
“Oh, that. Maybe I can help you figure it out. It’s happening because I’m a man and you’re a woman and that’s the way nature wants it. Any of this ring a bell from Biology 101?”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic. It’s obvious that we—”
He broke in. “Back up. There is no ‘we’ around here. There’s you over there and there’s me over here and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Got it?”
She folded her arms, staring at him as if he was lint on her favorite sweater, and said nothing.
“Think of us as strangers,” he continued, “which is actually pretty much what we are. Strangers thrown together on a tour bus or as sole survivors of a plane crash or—”
“Trapped together in an elevator?” she interjected.
He glanced at her sharply, then grinned. “Whatever turns you on...sweetheart,” he drawled with distinct sarcasm. “The key thing is to remember that we’re strangers. Strangers who got a little carried away one night and almost made a big mistake. That’s not going to happen again, and one way for us to make sure of that is not to rehash our feelings about it ad nauseam. Got it?”
“Yes. And for the record, in the future you can skip asking me if I’ve got it every other minute. When I don’t get something I’ll let you know. Got it?”
“Perfectly.”
It was going to be a long ride to Charlottesville, Cat decided as she opened her book and pretended to read. Long and silent. She wasn’t sure she could ride for hours without talking. Especially not when the turmoil of her thoughts was making her crazy. Ever since last night she’d been plagued by regrets and second thoughts, half the time wishing she had never goaded Bolt into kissing her in the elevator and the other half wishing she had never made him stop.
All her life she’d wanted one thing above all else, to meet and fall in love with the man who was destined to be her soul mate, the one man she would love forever. Now she found herself wanting something totally at odds with that dream. As shocking as it was, she had to acknowledge the fact that she wanted to make love to Bolt, a man who, when you came right down to it, was more nemesis than soul mate. As inner conflict went, it wasn’t a simple one to reconcile.
It might be a little easier, she seethed to herself, if she could talk over the matter with someone. Un
fortunately the only someone available for the foreseeable future made it clear he had no intention of discussing the subject of their thwarted dalliance, or anything else, for that matter.
Her hunch proved right. The drive to Charlottesville seemed endless. The roundabout route Bolt insisted on taking made it longer still, but she thought it wise not to point that out to him. At least he proved to be gentleman enough to stop periodically without being prompted. Although, given a choice, Cat might have preferred a chance to remind him. At least then she’d have an excuse to speak and would know for sure that her vocal cords hadn’t atrophied during the day.
They arrived in Charlottesville in the early evening, and though Cat wouldn’t have thought it possible, the night that followed was even longer and more miserable than the ride there. Bolt pulled into a motel in the historic district without asking her opinion. They registered and he handed her one of the room keys. He didn’t follow his usual pattern of suggesting dinner plans, and Cat was reluctant to risk asking and being told to her face that he preferred not to break bread with strangers.
Strangers, she fumed, as she stood by and waited for him to pronounce her room safe. In spite of the fact that he had nothing to say to her, he still insisted on checking it out before leaving her alone. All part of the macho-butthead syndrome common to the military species, she told herself with acrid amusement. The male counterpart to PMS. This time as she waited for him to run through his paces she found herself wishing something scary would jump out from behind the shower curtain and grab him. It was actually the latest in a string of nasty things she’d wished on him throughout the day and, she told herself, only a fraction of what the man deserved.
Naturally no monster appeared to grab him and he started to leave.
As he reached the door she suddenly ran out of self-control. “So what do you plan to do now?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant rather than desperate.
He turned to her. “What do I plan to do? Let’s see, I think I’ll order something from room service, eat, then try to convince myself that I really can be trusted alone with you before I have to call your uncle and give him a progress report on that subject.”
Surprise flickered in Cat’s eyes. “I didn’t know you called to check in with Uncle Hank.”
He shrugged. “He worries about you.”
“I know. He shouldn’t.”
Bolt’s smirk revealed his opinion on that issue, but he said nothing. “Anything you want me to tell him for you?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Tell him I’m still furious with him for butting in and I’m not talking to him...at least not until I get home.”
That was pure bravado. Actually, at that moment she was ready to talk to the wallpaper just to hear the sound of her own voice.
“I think I’ll just tell him you send your love and let him figure the rest out on his own,” he said dryly, turning to leave.
“Bolt, wait,” she called after him.
He paused, his hand on the doorknob.
“For what it’s worth,” she told him, “I trust you.”
He gave her a pained look. “Thanks, that’s just what I wanted to hear. Stay put, all right?”
He slammed the door behind him.
Cat tossed her bags in the corner of her room and collapsed on the bed.
Well, she’d tried to make amends. It wasn’t her fault he was as approachable as a porcupine. What a stiff, she thought irritably. An automaton, just as she surmised from the very start. If not for his gorgeous smile and intriguing golden eyes and incredibly sexy body, the man would have absolutely nothing going for him. Except, perhaps, she amended silently, the way he had of making her feel warm all over with just a look. And his way of listening when she talked, as if what she had to say was the most important thing going on in his life at that moment.
So he was a good listener. What good did it do her if he refused to let her talk to him?
Sighing, she rolled to her side and reached for the room service menu. She stared at it disdainfully without even opening it to look inside. And exactly where did he get off telling her to stay put, anyway? Just because he wanted to hole up in his room for the night was no reason she had to follow suit. Sure she was tired, and longing for nothing more than a hot shower and a soft bed, but she wasn’t his clone any more than she was his responsibility. No matter what delusions he held to the contrary.
She could look after herself, and if she wanted to go out for the evening, she would. She had no qualms about dining alone. If she had made the trip by herself as she’d intended, she wouldn’t have had anyone along to keep her company over dinner. She wouldn’t have hesitated to go to a restaurant by herself then and she wouldn’t now. If she felt like it. Afterward she might even go shopping or to a movie if she was in the mood for one.
But she wasn’t making the trip alone, she conceded, her spirits sinking a little lower. Through no choice of her own, she was making the trip with Bolt, and much to her chagrin, she’d grown accustomed to having the big oaf around. After years of struggling for her independence and the freedom to do what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it, she suddenly had absolutely no desire to see a movie by herself. Resigned to the inevitable, she turned on the lamp and flipped open the menu.
* * *
Everything looked a little brighter in the morning, for her at least. A good night’s sleep left her feeling invigorated and ready to make a fresh start. One look at Bolt, however, convinced her that he didn’t come close to sharing her improved mood. He met her in the lobby at noon as planned, looking like an escapee from a film noir, a man in desperate need of a friend and a shave, not necessarily in that order.
“Growing a beard, I see?” she observed brightly.
He scowled and rubbed his jaw as if to find out what the heck had given her that crazy idea.
“No,” he replied. “I just never shave on the road.” His smile bordered on being a sneer. “I figure it’s my reward for being here.”
Cat deemed it best not to give him an opening to tell her why he felt he deserved a reward for it. Instead she smiled sweetly and handed him the directions to the DelMar Horse Ranch, which Barbara Delmartin had told her was located a short distance west of the historic city. She had suggested that Cat come around one in the afternoon, and from talking with her beforehand, Cat expected to spend about three hours touring the ranch and getting the shots she needed. She explained all that to Bolt as they walked to the car.
“How about if I come back for you at four, then?” he asked as he opened the door for her.
“Come back for me?” Her startled gaze followed him as he circled to the driver’s side. “Aren’t you going to stay and help?”
“Not this time,” he told her. “I have some things of my own to take care of.” He glanced at her with a bland expression that didn’t fool Cat for a second. “You keep reminding me that you can take care of yourself, so I’m sure you can handle this on your own.”
“You bet your...” She paused and gathered her composure. “Yes, of course I can.”
She could handle it by herself, all right. After all, she’d been using a camera long before Mr. Bolton Hunter came barging into her life, unannounced and unwanted. If she’d sounded upset it was simply because, just as she’d grown accustomed to having him around all the time, she’d also gotten used to having him there while she was working. It wasn’t so much the help switching cameras and moving things around she would miss, although she’d already come to count on it. It was more the luxury of having him there to bounce ideas off and to help entertain the subject while she went about getting the right shots. While technically she didn’t need him there, she couldn’t help wondering how she would she have fared with James Buchanan if she hadn’t had Bolt by her side.
His decision not to come along caught her off guard. Cat was surprised and hurt by it. Her basic sense of fairness told her that she was probably no more surprised or hurt than Bolt had been when she called a sudden halt th
e other night in the elevator. She might have felt resentful, as well, if she had any sense that he was refusing to come along to the ranch simply out of retaliation. She was sure that wasn’t his motive. Not that she bought for a second his excuse about having other things to take care of. What other things could he possibly have to do in Charlottesville? No, she understood that he was simply trying to avoid being around her as much as possible.
His retreat, both emotionally and physically, was best for both of them. She understood that, but as the day wore on she decided that she didn’t like it much. The Delmartin clan was friendly and made her feel instantly at ease, but she still missed Bolt. She missed his smile. She missed his sometimes dumb, sometimes brilliant suggestions about lighting and placement and she missed his teasing comments.
From time to time during the long afternoon, she was struck by a sudden memory of lying in her bed the night before and the night before that and missing him even more ardently than she did now, in the bright light of day. Alone in her bed she had missed the way he smelled and the way his skin tasted when she touched him with the tip of her tongue and the way he made her feel when he touched her.
What did that mean? She wrestled with that question and the obvious answer to it even as she exclaimed over the Delmartins’ new foal and scanned the library shelves to select books to pile on the coffee table in the foreground of a shot of Barbara. It meant that she wanted to make love with Bolt, of course. She wasn’t so naive she didn’t know that, no matter how he had chosen to misunderstand her confusion in the car yesterday.
It could be simply a case of lust. It had to be that, she told herself firmly, and nothing more. Unfortunately, the powers of reason kept throwing up arguments against that theory. She’d dated lots of appealing men, guys she liked and enjoyed being with. A few to whom she had been very, very attracted at the time. But she’d never felt this...this craving that seemed to build from within and crowd out everything she thought she knew and wanted and needed in life.