Stone chuckled lightly. “Unsavory people, sure. But I was referring to the snakes.”
I froze, a chill creeping up my spine. He had to be joking. “Snakes?”
“Sure. Rattlesnakes, likely. We have a bunch in Texas. But that’s not the only thing out there.”
I gulped, moving backward slowly, my eyes scanning the ground at my feet. “What else is out there?” I whispered.
“Scorpions,” he stated flatly, and that was it.
I turned, intending to race back to the safety of the patio, but Stone was right there behind me. I slammed into his chest with a thud, instantly surrounded by the warm scent of his cologne. Stone’s arms came up around me, grasping me tight to steady me on my heels. I looked up, meeting his eyes, seeing the question in them. My pulse pounded in my throat, and I thought for sure he could hear it. I didn’t move, my eyes dropping from is heavy lidded ones down to his full lips. Seeing them slightly parted, I could feel his breath as it skated across my face. Stone moved one hand from where it rested against my back, bringing it up and running his knuckles down my cheek, and I felt my skin grow warmer at the contact.
“Penelope,” he said quietly, his eyes searching mine again.
“What?” I breathed, not daring to speak louder and break the spell we seemed to be under. Every moment we spent like this, my muscles tightened, anticipation of what he would do next sending my adrenaline through the roof.
I wanted him to kiss me.
I wanted him to let me go.
Those conflicting desires battled inside me, leaving me frozen in this strange emotional limbo, the feel of his arms around me the only solid thing in my life at that moment.
Stone looked at my lips again, then said, “I have no idea.” With that, he crushed his lips against mine and all my questions vanished.
He was warm. That was the first thing I noticed. His lips seemed to sear mine as they pressed against me. The hand he had been touching my cheek with moved, his fingers sliding into my hair and fisting it tightly at the back of my neck. The sudden pain, mild but shocking, caused me to gasp, and Stone took full advantage of my surprise, sweeping his tongue into my mouth. He tasted of alcohol, warm and smoky, and I melted as the flavor of him seeped into me. Curling my fingers into his shirt, I pulled him tighter against me, not thinking of anything besides getting closer to him. Wanting to feel him pressed against my body, the firm length of his chest as he used his other hand to draw me towards him. I moaned softly when his hand slid down my back and his large, warm palm landed on my ass, giving it a gentle squeeze.
I couldn’t believe that this was happening. Stone was kissing me. And I was kissing him back. Stone Pennington.
Shit.
Stone freaking Pennington!
The realization of what I was doing slammed into me like a bucket of ice water and I pulled my head back. Stone opened his eyes, his gaze clouded as he looked at me. He reached for me again, but I stepped back and again crossed my arms over my chest.
Seeming to come to the same awareness I just had, Stone blinked the lust fog out of his eyes, replacing the soft look on his face with his usual scowl.
And I couldn’t take it anymore. His anger and confusing mood swings were just too much.
“I have to go,” I said quickly, and started for the door.
“Penelope, wait,” Stone said, reaching for my arm as I went. “I just - shit!” He sighed, looking conflicted and defeated, an expression I was unused to seeing on his face. “Can we just talk?” He gestured helplessly to the seating area near the house.
Sighing, I moved past him and sat on one of the loungers, drawing my knees up to my chest as I sat. He watched me for a moment, then sat on the lounger next to mine, his feet on the tiled pool deck, his elbows on his knees as he looked at me intently.
Neither of us spoke for a while, me staring into the sparkling waters of the lit pool, him, staring at me. I was the one who broke the quiet first.
“I just don’t understand, Stone,” I said quietly. “From the beginning, you have been nothing but a jerk.” He hung his head and blew out a breath.
“I know,” he allowed. “It’s kind of my default setting.”
“Yeah, well, it gets a bit tiresome,” I replied, raising my eyebrow at him. He had the decency to look ashamed. I drew off my shoes one by one, setting them on the lounger next to me. I curled my toes in and stretched them out, over and over, working my sore feet. “For the last month, I have been walking on eggshells, trying to avoid your ire, and I don't even know what I did to earn it.”
“Shit, Penelope,” he said, looking at me. “I don’t even know. I just…I always do this. I take my bullshit out on everyone. Even Silas. I don’t know why. I just get so fuckin’ mad. About everything.”
He stood, pacing beside the pool, his agitation clear in the tension in his shoulders and the way he was fisting his hands. “I just, I see you,” he huffed, the words coming quickly now. “All shiny in your designer New York clothes, walking around all perfect, knowing you represent everything I hate about that city.”
I was completely taken aback. “Excuse me? Everything you hate?” He couldn’t be serious. “What, exactly, do you hate about me, Stone?” I said coldly, narrowing my eyes as I watched him pace, looking for all the world like a cornered animal.
“Everything!” He shouted, turning to me and throwing his hands in the air. “Your perfect hair, your ridiculous shoes, your expensive wardrobe, and every other thing your rich daddy likely bought you to make you think he loved you, when he’s really just an asshole who loves his money the most.”
He was panting when he finished, and as I stared at him in the darkness, I realized there was a lot to Stone Pennington he didn’t want people to see. But here, under the cover of night, he was showing me everything. The scars he wore that had never healed. The wounds that bled every time he breathed.
It was no wonder he went by a different last name. Stone Pennington was hurting, and he had been for a long time. Daphne had hinted at this the night we met, but now I could see for myself how Stone had suffered.
And though his assessment of me was way off base, I understood what he was trying to say. He wanted to hurt me because Harold Pennington had hurt him.
He stood there, glaring at me, daring me to say something, to fight back and lash out in return, as I had in all of our previous confrontations. My reactions had fed his inner beast.
But that was not what he was going to get tonight. Instead, I tried a different tactic. Taking a deep breath, I pushed aside the walls I usually kept in place to protect me, and I showed him my own pain.
“The day the planes struck the towers in New York, I was seven years old,” I started quietly. I could see the confusion in his eyes. He was expecting my rage. I was giving him something else. “My father had been a member of the NYPD my entire life, and when the call went out, the whole department responded. His precinct was the 108th, in Queens, where we lived, and there was never a question. Every member of the NYPD, the NYFD, even the Port Authority, they all ran to Ground Zero.”
Stone slowly resumed his seat, his own anger forgotten as he stared at me open-mouthed. I couldn’t look at him, so I watched my toes clenching and un-clenching as I recited the story I hated to tell.
“The first days were terrible. The following months were worse. The recovery effort was beyond comprehension. Those men and women, they worked in the rubble and debris, day and night, looking for survivors at first, then bodies at the end.” I squeezed my eyes closed, picturing my fathers face, the lines of sorrow that got deeper every time he returned to the house. “At first, everyone was so focused on the folks who didn’t survive, the ones who were lost in an instant, that no one stopped to consider the toll things were taking on those who were left behind.”
I swallowed thickly. “They called it Toxic Dust, but that’s a really bland name for something that contained over two thousand contaminants. Jet fuel, concrete, glass, rubber. You name it, they br
eathed it. For days, months on end. Every volunteer, every first responder, every office worker that made their way back downtown as the world tried to carry on. They all spent their days in a poisonous cesspool.”
I chanced a glance at Stone, finding him watching me, his eyes wide and his face blank. I couldn’t read anything in his expression, so I turned my gaze back to my toes, finding it easier to talk now that I had started.
“When I was nine, my father started showing symptoms. My mom is a nurse, so she was pretty on the ball about these things. She had him in a doctors office quickly, but even then, it was close.” I could feel the tears threatening, but I made no move to hide them. My father deserved my tears. He deserved my pain. It was how I knew I had loved him.
“There are over fifty-five thousand people listed on the Word Trade Center Health Registry. They try to help, they do. But there is just not enough money to go around. And cancer treatment?” I scoffed humorlessly. “That shit’s expensive. Like, twelve thousand dollars a month, expensive. Add to that the wages my mom lost because she was taking care of dad, and it makes for a pretty bleak picture.”
I paused when I felt Stone’s hand on my shoulder. Turning my head to look at him, I rested my temple on my knees. I hated to see pity in people’s eyes when I told them about my father, but I didn’t see pity from Stone. I saw sadness and pain. He felt what I was feeling, and he shared my sorrow. I took strength from his touch and told him the rest.
“I was eleven the day we buried my dad. The cemetery was packed with his brothers and sisters from the department, all standing side by side in their uniforms. I remember thinking how nice they all looked, their white gloves so bright against their dark blue clothes.” I could still see it, the rows of uniformed officers, all there to say goodbye to my dad. I could feel my mom, squeezing my hand for all she was worth. “It really was a beautiful ceremony.”
“Penelope, I-”
“There is a lot more to me than just being from New York, Stone. I got my first job at thirteen, because between the bills and the medical debt, mom’s paycheck was tapped out, and it was up to me to make the grocery money. By fifteen, I was working two jobs to try and cover the utilities as well.” I could see the blood draining from his face, but I pressed on. “I can’t drive a car, Stone, because we never owned one. I got my license in drivers ed when I was in high school and that’s the last time I was behind the wheel. I earned a scholarship to NYU and started at the bottom at Pennington Hotels because the company holds a special place in my heart. I have struggled, sweat, and cried my way through life. I have worked for every thing that I have, and I am still fighting for everything I want.
“So, when you see me, Stone, try not to just see the things you think you want to see simply because of your own experiences.” I stood, looking down at him as he stared at me blankly. Gathering my shoes in my arms, I was moving toward the door when he called me again.
“Penelope.” I paused, then slowly looked over my shoulder to see him, standing, his arms hanging limply by his side. “I’m sorry, Penelope. Truly.”
I looked at him, his handsome face seeming so sad in the dark, and I sighed. “So am I, Stone. So am I.”
Carrying my shoes, I entered the house, hoping that a hot shower would help put this entire night behind me. Padding barefoot up the stairs, I paused when I reached the upstairs landing. My room was to the left, in the north wing and I started in that direction when a noise to the right drew my attention. I knew Stone and Silas were occupying the south wing, so it was no surprise when the door to Silas’ room opened.
What was a surprise was seeing Daphne slinking out of his room. Still wearing the club dress from earlier, Daphne turned and froze when she saw me, her eyes going wide and her mouth falling open.
“Uh, hey,” she said awkwardly.
“Hey, yourself,” I replied, raising my eyebrows, hoping she’d divulge a bit of information.
“So, if you could just, um, not mention this to Stone…”
“Got it,” I smirked. Daphne let out a relived breath, then gave a crooked little smile and a shrug and darted past me, headed to the room that was actually hers.
Looked like I wasn’t the only one with complications in my life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Stone
Shit.
How could I have been so wrong?
I felt like a complete asshole, which was saying something, because people generally thought that about me.
But this was bigger. I had taken one look at that woman and decided I knew everything about her just because of where she lived. And I hadn’t even gotten that part right. I judged her unfairly and treated her poorly because of it.
Which was ironic, because I hated when people judged me by my father’s last name. I hated when people heard that I was a Pennington and felt that they knew everything about my life because of it.
What an asshole.
I ran my hands down my face and blew out a big breath.
I couldn’t believe the story she had just told me. I mean, everyone knew about the attacks on September 11th, but down in Texas, we knew them in an abstract way. The way you knew about the First World War, or the Mount Saint Helen’s eruption. These were things that happened and, yes, they were tragic, but they hadn’t directly impacted my life in a real way. Sure, we had stricter security measures at the airport, but by now, it just felt like that was how it had always been.
But Penelope had lived through that horror. She had watched her father, his friends and coworkers, people she had known and interacted with her whole life, suffer the physical and emotional after effects of the disaster. I tried to put myself in her place, a seven-year-old child, waiting at home every day hoping that her father would return. Listening to the news and seeing the images and knowing that he was down there, digging through the damage, and wondering if he was going to make it back to them.
And then to have him survive all of that only to succumb to a related illness a short while later? That was a different kind of tragic.
But even after all that, she had overcome.
She worked hard, she persevered and came out the other side stronger.
And I gave her shit for it.
Pushing myself off the lounge chair, I made to follow Penelope into the house. I had to talk to her, to see if the kiss was as good for her as it had been for me, and if we could try to start over.
I had wanted her before she told me her story. True, that had been in a mostly physical way, because she was beautiful, there was no doubt about that. But knowing how much strength went with the fire in her eyes? I was addicted to her now.
Just as I reached the open door into the kitchen, my phone rang. I slipped it out of my pocket, prepared to send whoever it was to voice mail, but I hesitated when I saw it was Harold, who, as he liked to remind me, was both my father and my boss. I would have sent him, regardless, but having listened to Penelope’s story, I was feeling like an extra big heel at the moment. Perhaps I could give my father the benefit of the doubt, just this once.
Cursing, I drug my thumb over the screen and accepted the call.
“Yeah,” I growled. Hey, baby steps.
“Stone,” my father greeted me jovially. I looked at my watch, wondering why he was so chipper considering the time in New York. “How are you, son?”
“Fine,” I said cautiously, wondering what the deal was. I wandered to into the house, staring at the stairs and wanting nothing more than to end this conversation and go after Penelope. I was tired of watching her walk away.
“Good, good,” Harold replied. “Listen, I’m hoping we can catch up. I’d like to see the progress on the hotel, you know, walk around and really get a feel for the place.” I froze, not quite sure what to do with that information. “I feel like I should show my face around a bit, you know, for morale.”
“Sure thing,” I said vaguely, hoping to wrap the conversation up. “Let me know when you plan to be around and I’ll make arrangements.”
“Actually,” Harold hedged, dragging the word out awkwardly. “I’m in town, now, as it happens.”
I froze. “You are? Where are you?”
I was given my answer when the doorbell rang. Moving robotically, I walked from the stairs to the front door, opening it slowly.
There on the front step, was Harold Pennington.
“Stone!” Harold threw his arms wide, his brittle smile telling me he wasn’t sure if this was going to be a good surprise or not. “Good to see you, son.”
“Harold.” It was all I could think to say, and I could tell it was the wrong thing when his face fell a bit. But he recovered quickly,
“Sorry for the late arrival, but we thought it would be good to surprise you.”
“We?” I questioned as he bustled past me into the foyer. My brain was struggling to keep up. “Who is we?”
But I had barely finished the question when my half-sister Constance strode through the door after him, her nose in the air as she looked at me with disdain.
“Yes,” Harold said, oblivious to the tension in the room. “Connie and I thought we would take the weekend, come out and see you, check out the progress. A little family reunion, if you will. I know Daphne is here right now. It will be lovely. You’ll see.”
“Yes,” Constance blurted, crossing her arms over her narrow chest. Everything about her was narrow, including her mind. “Toddrick would have come as well, but he’s so very busy. The Atlantic City project is going so well, but they couldn’t possibly have spared him for the weekend. He’s vital to the project’s success.” She looked at Harold, waiting for him to validate all her claims, but Harold merely blinked at her, smiling banally. I’m sure Toddrick was vital, alright. Vital to keeping his dealer’s pockets flushed with cash.
The awkward silence dragged on until another person appeared at the front door; a man in a suit, carrying the luggage.
“Oh, Frederick,” Harold said, rushing over to the man, who I now knew was Frederick. “Thank you, my man. Just inside here will do nicely.” He gestured to the side of the foyer, and Frederick placed the bags there.
The Cowboy and the Bombshell Page 12