Love in Transit

by Jana Aston

I couldn’t resist the romance of it all.

  Yeah, that emotional starvation thing from which all Pinkarver’s seem to suffer? It helped me fall hard and fast for the free-spirited archaeologist who’d managed to charm me thoroughly by the end of our first date. I’d snagged my very own Indiana Jones, and I was going to keep him. The fact Tim didn’t appear to be all that impressed with my political family tree was an extra bonus.

  Nobody was more surprised than me when he popped the question nearly a year later. I said yes. We planned a small but elegant wedding in Charleston where I have an extended family on my mom’s side. I bought the dress. All was good and we were happy.

  Except that it wasn’t good, and he wasn’t happy apparently.

  Three weeks before our big day, Tim went on a short work trip to Brazil. He never made his return flight. The morning I was to pick him up at the airport, he sent me an email saying his career was taking him in a new direction and he wasn’t ready to get married. He would be staying in Brazil indefinitely, and I was not to come there to be with him.

  I had been dumped—and I was crushed.

  Tim had completely blindsided me with his explanation for his reasons, the abrupt move to South America, everything.

  My grandparents were remarkably supportive of the whole messy business though, assuring me they would make sure the news of our breakup was tamped down in the media. It was in their best interests really—I got it. They didn’t want the embarrassment attached to them. It was bad enough they had to acknowledge my illegitimacy at all. If there was a way they could’ve turned back time and forced my parents to marry, I know they would have done it. Separating my parents was their one true regret. They couldn’t even forge documents to show a secret marriage had taken place, because my mom married her first husband when she turned eighteen, right before I was born. At the time, I’m sure my grandparents were relieved to have my mother out of the way, and married to someone else who could claim the inconvenient kid.

  Who was just a mere girl anyway.

  They also assumed my father would have years to live, with plenty of time to give them at least a son or two who could carry on the sacred Pinkarver name. The obsession over babies born with penises in my family is a thing. And in case you didn’t already know, Pinkarver penises always trump Pinkarver vaginas. This was the running theme woven throughout all relationships between my grandparents and the rest of us. I also believe that if they could’ve arranged a sex change for me, they would’ve done that too. Instead of Reese I could’ve been Reid. Good thing it’s not so easy to grow a penis on a female.

  It just wouldn’t do, having the news of their illegitimate granddaughter being dumped by her fiancé mere days before the wedding, Tweeted, Facebooked, and Instagrammed all over social media. I remember my grandmother repeating the same sentiment at the time: “Thank God, he didn’t stand you up at the altar. We could never hold our heads up in this town again.”

  Well lucky for you, Grandmother, you don’t live in this town anymore, so you don’t have to worry yourself into a dramatic frenzy over it.

  Two years ago they made the Boston house their permanent year-round residence, so I didn’t see them much unless I was summoned. Whenever a summons did come, I went to Boston to see what they wanted.

  I didn’t question the why’s or the what-for’s anymore. I’d learned my place in the order of things. I was an extension of their political empire, tied by virtue of my bloodline to the one person they had ever truly valued—my father. That’s how the purpose of my life worked in their frame of reference. I understood, but it sure would’ve been nice to be loved just because I was their grandchild, and not because of what I represented.

  Ahh, but these were merely useless thoughts taking up space in my busy brain.

  Just like the notion of having any kind of true freedom to do whatever I wanted in life, was equally useless.

  Which is how I ended up with the bright idea to recycle my cursed wedding dress into a Halloween costume, and wear it on the metro.

  I felt the train slow down as the ticker flashed CAPITOL SOUTH on the digital display in tandem with the recorded announcement.

  Go time, Reese.

  Chapter 2

  Reese

  I made a decision in the time it took for me to exit the metro.

  This life-altering decision also served the additional purpose of preventing me from stressing over the attention (gaping stares) people were giving as I came out of the tunnel in my Galina gown.

  I supposed it would be pushing it to grab a coffee from one of the cart stands, but I considered it. My caffeine levels for the day were dangerously low. I reminded myself to take care of that little problem as soon as I got to the party.

  But back to my big decision: Tonight this whole wedding disaster with Tim was out of my life for good. This dress would not be returning to my closet. It was well past the time for me to move on. Tim was gone and he wasn’t coming back. I was still alive and kicking, and honestly, no longer emotionally devastated over his departure, either. It was more a feeling of indirection I felt at the moment. Where was I going? What was my final destination supposed to be? Who would be there with me? I had some vague ideas about my future, but it involved another person whose motivations were not completely clear to me just yet. I needed more from him, but just wasn’t totally sure what more meant on my end.

  I suppose, wearing my once-beloved wedding dress to a fun party tonight was a symbolic gesture I was ready to let the past go and move forward.

  Relationships, men, weddings—were off the menu as well. Despite one particular person’s opinions on the matter, I needed a break from the whole shebang. There were other more important things for me to focus on at the moment.

  As I walked the short block down New Jersey Avenue to the address where the party was being held, I got the most unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach—as if I was standing on the precipice of some great shift about to happen in my life.

  That same feeling returned just a few minutes later when I lifted the heavy Victorian knocker on the door to Lance Oakley’s house, letting it fall three times in quick succession. Lance is a friend I met when I started working at SIA. He’s also the son of our sitting Vice President, so we totally “get” each other. He feels just as trapped by his father’s role in government, as I do within the confines of my family. For an Army veteran who lost his left leg below the knee in Afghanistan, Lance is remarkably positive in his outlook on life. If you don’t count all those tats he has. He is literally covered from the neck down. I think he gets them as a form of therapy for the PTSD, but tattoos are better than drugs if it’s your addiction.

  The front door to Lance’s house opened before me with a creaking groan, the tired iron hinges in perfect step with the Halloween decorations lining the stone steps and scattered across the landing. I could hear music blaring and people shouting from inside, but I couldn’t see who was greeting me.

  I tilted my head to peek around the door, but then pulled back quickly, anticipating a horrifying monster face to punch out and scare the crap out of me.

  No freaky Halloween gag-greeting exploded from behind the door.

  But there was something.

  Actually, it was someone.

  And not the host of the party, either.

  “Hello, Pink. I’ve been waiting for you.” He smiled, his eyes registering my costume before widening his mouth into an even bigger grin. “That’s a very pretty dress, but I think the sign you’ve pinned to your skirt needs to go, baby. No more running away.”

  “Gr-aay?” I stuttered, momentarily shocked to see him. Grayson Lash looked as delicious as usual, this time in bespoke gray pinstripe from head to toe. In keeping with the Halloween theme, a nametag in the shape of a crayon with GRAY written on it, in gray magic-marker of course, was stuck to his jacket. “What are you doing here?”

  “Lance invited me, but I’m really just here for you, Pink,” he answered in his sexy drawl, “and
you already know why.”

  “What do you want, Gray?” I regretted my question the instant the words left my mouth, because he was correct—I did know.

  He laughed and shook his head slowly as he stared me down. “You’re gonna make me say it again, even though you know exactly what I want.” He gave me another thorough perusal, his lingering look in the vicinity of my cleavage making my body heat spike in places that hadn’t seen any action in nearly two months. The same amount of time since I’d seen Gray. “Hell, you’re even dressed for it,” he added on for clarification.

  “Why are you really here?”

  “Because I want you to marry me,” he said clearly.

  Gray’s tall frame filling Lance’s doorway went a little blurry before my eyes as my vision clouded up. Suddenly there didn’t seem to be enough air left for me to breathe—in all of North America.

  I was going down…and it was probably going to hurt.

  ***

  THERE ARE MOMENTS in life when time moves so fast you can’t possibly process what’s really happening to you.

  This was definitely one of those moments.

  “Welcome back.” The words fell from soft lips hovering right above mine, the unmistakable sound of relief in his tone. “I wasn’t sure if you were breathing there for a minute. I was about to start CPR on you. Don’t fuckin’ do that again, Pink. You scared the hell out of me.” Gray’s words were harsh, but delivered gently as his fingers stroked across my temple.

  “What happened? What did I—” I tried to sit up from what appeared to be a…bed? “Why am I in Lance’s bed?” I asked, confused and disoriented.

  He frowned and increased his hold on me. “How do you know this is Lance’s bed? Have you been in it before?”

  “Yes.” My mind was spinning from the unreality of Grayson Lash literally on top of me in a bed.

  The warm chocolate brown of his eyes turned dark and his frown deepened. “You have? When? I’ma hafta kill him now.”

  “Stop it. I’ve been in his bedroom before, not his bed.” I had to admit the possessiveness Gray was displaying didn’t offend me. It should have annoyed me greatly, but I found it kind of sweet. It showed he cared about me on some level, the extent to which he cared was still something I was trying to figure out.

  “Why in the hell have you been in Oakley’s bedroom?”

  I pushed against him again in an attempt to get him off. It was like trying to move a brick fence. “This is cute, it really is, Gray, but I don’t care for your tone or your implications. Lance is a friend and that’s all he is. You know this very well, so stop being a stupid ass.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you’ve been in this bedroom before,” he shot back.

  “For the record, I don’t owe you explanations about any of the reasons I go into other people’s bedrooms, but if you must know I brought him dinner a few times when he was laid up after his car accident…as any good friend would do.” Gray’s chocolaty eyes blinked down at me, processing the truth of my explanation.

  “Oh yeah, his accident,” he mumbled a little less possessively.

  “Enough with this big, dumb ape routine you’ve got going.” I shoved with both hands to his chest while twisting my lower body as hard as I could, in an attempt to get him to budge. “Will you get off me, Grayson Lash!”

  His response was to give me another one of his signature lazy grins before moving off to his side. The second his body separated from mine, I felt the loss of his warm weight almost painfully. I’d also felt an erection when I’d bucked my hips to get him off me.

  This was not good.

  Grayson Lash was the one person who held the power to turn my life upside down, and I could see he was still determined to try. The premonition I’d felt so strongly while walking up the steps to Lance’s front door? That feeling I was teetering on the precipice of a shifting change?

  Yeah, that’s the one.

  Well, Gray had just confirmed precisely what “shift” was going to mean for me—and it meant I was in big, big trouble.

  My mind started whirling with facts and details of what I already knew. Conversations that we’d had. Comments made here and there by my grandparents, and even my mother over the years. My mother’s strange message about my inheritance coming due made a lot more sense to me now. She misspoke on the phone. It wasn’t an inheritance, but rather it was an inheritance debt that was coming due with my twenty-fifth birthday.

  Fuck.

  “Why are we up here in Lance’s bed anyway? What happened to me?” I managed to ask as my chest started in with the familiar, but unwelcome tightening.

  “You went sideways on me in the doorway, so I had to catch you. Lance said to put you in here.”

  “You carried me up all those stairs?” I asked incredulously.

  He cracked a smug grin. “I did.” He flexed a bicep into a pose for me. “The extra workouts I’ve been putting in have really paid off.”

  “No wonder you had to lie down.”

  “Nah, I’m kidding. You’re a feather, Pink. It was more of a chance to feel you up while I checked your vitals. I mean, I think it’s time to really get to know each other on a more intimate level before we sign off on this marriage, don’t you agree?” Gray loved to tease and flirt with me, and he always had, but this version of him felt very different. He was dead serious.

  Instinctively, I started patting my hand around the bed to locate my purse. I needed a puff off my inhaler before having this conversation with him.

  My asthma episodes had a way of showing up at the worst times.

  Kind of like Grayson Thaddeus Lash III.

  No. I didn’t want to believe this was real. Gray could not possibly be here calling in a promise nobody had ever really taken seriously. But you know they really do take it seriously.

  Maybe this wasn’t asthma at all, but that I’d hit my head when I went down in the doorway. My headache was back to maximum pounding, so yeah, it very well could be the effects of a head-injury combined with being trapped inside of a bizarre dream.

  The same dream (nightmare) I was most surely having at this very moment.

  The one where Gray was telling me we were getting married.

  “No, is the wrong answer, sweetheart, and you are definitely not dreaming.”

  Dear God, did I just say that out loud?

  “Yes you did. And yes is the only answer I want to hear out of your pretty mouth. I’ll accept a yes from you, and then you can give me the date you want for the wedding.”

  “What wedding?” It came out sounding more like “wha-weh-ing” but Gray totally understood me.

  “Our wedding, darling, and don’t forget that time is working against us with your birthday only two months away.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  “Oh we will, Pink, we most definitely will, don’t you worry,” he said with that sexy Carolina drawl of his that rolled off his tongue, as smoothly as his promise of some hot and dirty sex.

  Would the sex be hot and dirty with Gray?

  I already knew the answer to that pointless question, aaaand now I was officially out of oxygen.

  “Purse—inhaler,” I gasped, before I was unable to do even that.

  Chapter 3

  Gray

  “I would really appreciate it if you could be done with this whole no-breathing thing. I don’t like it.” I held her inhaler up to her mouth. “Big breath in for me, baby,” I coached before propping her to a sitting position against the headboard. “Slow and easy now…let the medicine go to work.”

  Her greeny-gold eyes held mine for just a moment, before she rested her head down on her knees in exhaustion. “Graaay—”

  “Shush now. Don’t try to talk. You’ve officially scared the ever lovin’ shit out of me, Pink. Breathe…steady and slow. Do you need another hit? Just nod if you do.”

  She nodded and lifted her head for the inhaler, proving she was able to comprehend my panicked babbling. My hand visibly shaking as I help
ed her take another puff was my wake-up call that my feelings for Reese ran so much deeper than I’d ever let myself believe.

  Jesus Christ, this was terrifying.

  I also felt like the biggest shitheel on the planet for being the cause of the goddamn asthma attack in the first place. I fucked up with her tonight and there was no denying it.

  “The paramedics are on their way, baby. You’re doin’ great.”

  “No—please—I don’t want to—” she protested.

  “Yes, you are going to the ER,” I interrupted, speaking as calmly as I could manage. “You need to be checked out by a doctor.” I left off the part about never sleeping again, if she didn’t get examined by a medical doctor at a fuckin’ hospital tonight. It was a miracle I didn’t need a change of shorts right now. When she started wheezing and sucking in a whole lot of nothing? My heart—just, stopped.

  A few tears rolled down her splotchy cheeks, flushed red from the rush of oxygen she was finally taking in as the rescue inhaler did its job. Thank holy fuck. “I’ll be with you every second,” I said while rubbing circles over her back with my palm.

  She leaned her forehead against my chest and I felt her relax as her breathing steadied, the panic in both of us easing away. The best damn feeling in the world.

  I would hold her like this forever if I had to. I couldn’t stop touching her now that I’d started. She was mine to take care of. She’d always been mine. This was the woman I was going to marry and make babies with—even if she didn’t believe it quite yet.

  She would.

  I’d been waiting for months to make my move. I’d almost lost her once before to that idiot archaeology professor, and I wouldn’t be letting that shit happen again. After he left her, I’d given her some time to get over him. Even if I’d wanted to go slower with Reese, time was a luxury I just didn’t have anymore. Neither of us did. The sand in our hourglass was just about gone for fulfilling the terms of her grandfather’s will. Only the two of us could make those very beneficial terms a reality by first, getting married before she turned twenty-five, and then second, by having a son whose surname would legally change to Pinkarver-Lash in order to carry on the Pinkarver name in the bloodlines.