by Beth Andrews
He turned in his seat and started the truck. “How about once we get back to the motel you pack up your stuff. Get that room at the Hampton Inn. You’ll be more comfortable there.”
“You know I can’t do that. Tackett will freak if he thinks I’m jeopardizing our deal...or wasting T&P’s money.” And she needed Tackett’s approval before she could use the company credit card, anyway. Snake infestation aside, she already had a place to stay. These days, every dollar counted.
“That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why the compulsions. You’re in a situation you can’t control. Tackett’s calling the shots.”
“He’s my boss. He usually does.”
“How often does he banish you from civilization for two weeks so you can entice an ex-boyfriend back to the firm?”
No response. They pulled out of the lot behind Audrey, and Joe gestured at the Lincoln. “How about Audrey’s place, then? I know she’s peculiar but her heart’s as big as that aircraft carrier she’s driving.”
“She’d probably make me eat scrapple.”
“And pickled pigs’ feet.” When Allison groaned, Joe didn’t take time to gloat. He was too busy trying to avoid rear-ending Audrey, whose foot spent more time on the brake than the accelerator as she waved at pedestrians—tourists and residents alike—and offered a ride to anyone carrying a shopping bag.
Allison took the opportunity to study the scenery she’d been too wired to notice before. If she’d decided the previous night to venture out on her own to find the diner, she wouldn’t have had any trouble. Downtown Castle Creek consisted of three parallel, tree-shaded streets lined with shops, businesses and wrought iron benches—the perfect venue for a weekend stroll. The WWII-era storefronts were shabby but cheerful, made distinctive by brightly striped awnings that stretched along the street like a parade of half parasols. The sidewalks were uneven brick, the streetlights old and ornate. And each bench was bookended by what looked like fountains of pansy blooms.
Allison wanted to ask Joe to stop and let her out so she could walk the streets herself. Get lost in a world without debts and deadlines, if only for a little while. But her discovery of Mitzi had already cost them most of the day—and she had a bargain to keep.
Funny how a little coffee and camaraderie—not to mention making an ass of herself—could weaken her resolve to pack up and go home.
It looked like someone finally took Audrey up on her offer of a ride and she steered the monster Lincoln into a parking space. Joe sighed his apparent relief and glanced over at Allison—he watched her watching the town.
“What do you think?”
“It’s charming. Eclectic. Quiet. Very quiet. I’m guessing this place doesn’t see a lot of action after ten.”
“You’d be surprised. More than once we’ve had livestock wandering down State Street after hours. Trust me, cleaning up after that is an all-night effort. Most of the town pitches in, though.”
They drove past Cooper’s on the right and Allison chuckled. “Which explains the huge selection of rubber boots for sale at the hardware store.”
“Gil Cooper is a practical man.”
Silence again. The mood in the cab shifted. A sidelong glance showed Joe scowling through the windshield as the shops gave way to houses that looked more Victorian than twentieth century. He angled his head left and then right, stretching his neck.
“I’m sure Tackett warned you to keep close to me,” he said abruptly. “How close?”
“Closer than syrup on a pancake.” She thought she’d done a decent job mimicking Tackett’s exaggerated Southern accent, but Joe wasn’t smiling. She sighed. “Don’t start that again. He didn’t tell me to sleep with you.” Not outright, anyway. “Just because I love my job doesn’t mean I’m willing to sell myself.”
“He know that?”
Heat crept into her face and her fingers tingled with the urge to slug him. She lowered the window, welcoming the fresh, metallic tang of impending rain. “Seems I’ve been worrying for nothing, Joe. You’ll fit right back in at T&P. Tackett and Mahoney will worship you. I’d forgotten how much of a jerk you can be.”
“I’d forgotten how self-righteous you can be.”
She bounced in her seat, maneuvering around to face him. “I take it back. I didn’t forget you’re a jerk because you’ve been one ever since I arrived. But you’ve now officially outjerked yourself.”
He smirked. “You do realize what that sounds like?”
Oh, for God’s sake. “Don’t even try.” But despite her annoyance the image crashed into her consciousness. Joe, naked, head flung back and teeth bared, muscles bunching as he worked a straining erection.
Her lungs went flat. She scrambled to recover the anger she had every right to feel.
The truck slowed as Joe braked for a red light. “Do you really?”
“Really, what?”
“Love your job.”
She answered without thinking. “I used to.”
“What changed?”
“The light,” she said, and pointed. “It’s green.”
Her cell rang and she recognized the ringtone. Tackett. No way she wanted to talk business. Not with Joe right there. She plucked her phone out of her purse and pressed Ignore. She felt Joe look over at her, but she didn’t offer an explanation.
After several long moments, he broke the silence.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out. You’ve never been the greedy type. Nice clothes, nice car, nice apartment, yeah, but for you it was more about image.” He glanced at her decidedly non-designer jeans. “Hell, you’re more careful with Tackett’s money than he is. So what gives? Why so desperate for that promotion?”
“Not desperate. Deserving.”
“Okay, both. So what’s the deal? Someone else need the money? Your mom. Has she been sick?” He jerked his head toward her. “Are you sick?”
She made a deep-throated sound of impatience, but at the same time couldn’t help feeling warmed by his concern. “No one is sick,” she said. “You just need to butt out.”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “Speaking of butts, it’s time we get ours back to work.”
“If that means what I think it means you can forget it. I gave in on the rest of it. But there’s no way I’m tearing down any more paneling.”
“Forget the paneling. I have something more cerebral in mind.”
“That sounds like code for paperwork.”
“You’re in the mood to count. Let’s go with that.”
“Way to use my weakness against me.”
He shot her a look. What, now she wasn’t allowed to sound bitter? “A friend of mine drew up some landscaping proposals,” he said evenly. “I want to take some measurements and lay out some beds, see how much digging we’ll be doing.”
“Who’s we? Got a python in your pocket?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Touchy.”
“Don’t you mean touché?”
“I mean touchy. You always were sensitive.” His voice went gruff as he tossed her a scorching glance. “Unbelievably sensitive.”
Except for one tight little ripple of need she couldn’t suppress, she was proud of herself for not reacting to his words. “Maybe you should keep your eyes on the road,” she said.
“View’s not as good.”
“So suffer.” Time for a subject change. “This friend of yours. She help you with the decorating, too?”
“Parker? God, no. She cares about interior design even less than I care about the spittlebug.”
“The spittlebug.”
“Ever see a little mound of foam on a leaf? That’s a bug, camouflaging itself with its own spittle. Apparently it weakens strawberry plants.”
“Uh-huh.” She poked her tongue against her cheek. “Sounds to me like you do care.”<
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“Only as a friend. Besides. She’s married.”
“No, I meant—” Allison wrinkled her nose. “Never mind.”
“I know exactly what you meant. You forget, I know you.”
She pulled a few breeze-blown wisps of hair out of her eyes and smoothed them behind her ear. “You used to.”
Silence, except for the air rushing in through the half-open window.
Joe scratched his chin. “About those measurements.”
“You do realize it’s going to rain.”
“A little wet never hurt anyone.”
And just like that, he had her back to picturing him naked.
* * *
IT NEVER DID RAIN. The skies had cleared, leaving Joe and Allison the afternoon to measure distances, pound wooden pegs into the ground and string plastic ribbon. It was a lengthy process. Joe might have been the carpenter, but it was Allison who insisted on measuring everything twice. If not for the satisfaction on her face every time they achieved a perfectly straight line, he’d have thought she was deliberately trying his patience.
What he’d accused her of earlier... Well, maybe he had been a little out of line. But she sure as hell didn’t have the market cornered on resentment—though she was better at hiding it.
“See this stake, Joe?” She called to him from twenty feet away, where she hovered over a corner peg. “It’s your head.” She went at it with a hammer like she was saving Castle Creek from Dracula himself.
Ouch. Seemed her resentment had come out of hiding.
He fumbled the spool of ribbon he’d been rewinding and eyed the pulverized peg. “Where the hell did that come from?”
She swiped a wrist across her forehead and tossed him a feral smile. “I’ve been pounding Tackett into the ground all afternoon. I’ve moved on to you, now.”
He set his jaw and sauntered closer, enjoying the trace of alarm pulling her eyes wide. “So. You want to compare scars after all.”
“I want you to stop making asinine accusations. If you think I’m capable of prostituting myself for T&P, then you never really knew me at all.”
“I thought I did. Until I got some nasty surprises.”
She dropped the hammer and lifted her chin. “You mean, like having your ex-boyfriend rat you out when you didn’t do anything other than try to save his reputation?”
“Save my reputation? You and Tackett reassigned every damned client I ever had. You ruined my reputation.” No denying his drinking had been a factor. But she graciously refrained from stating the obvious.
“It can’t be ruined if Mahoney still wants you. And speaking of ruined reputations, I have you and Danielle to thank for mine.”
So they were back to that. “Neither one of us made you sleep with me.” Her eyes went wide and she swelled up like a black cat on Halloween. Next she’d start spitting. “Fine,” Joe growled. “I’ll tell you what happened.”
“Don’t bother.”
“That’s great. That’s terrific. You know what you need to do? You need to stop pretending what you did was for my own good. With you, it’s always been about the agency. Took me a while, but I finally figured out I’d always come in second.”
“You think I don’t know how that feels?” She marched away and scooped up the stakes they hadn’t used and marched back. “You said your job was all you had left after your brother died. Well, guess what? The Joe I knew died right along with his brother. My job was all I had left and you nearly took it from me, out of spite. Which means I have just as much reason to resent you as you have to resent me.”
“No, slick, you don’t. You left me high and dry.”
“You’re the one who moved away. And at the time you may have been high, but you certainly weren’t dry.”
Joe was only surprised that it had taken her so long to bring it up. “You’re a real ball-buster, aren’t you?” he said softly. Damn, she was cold. His gaze fell to the stakes she cradled in her arms like a child. He looked away.
He didn’t know what the hell he’d expected her to say. He wasn’t sure there was anything she could say to fix things. Then again, there was nothing left to fix, was there?
“This is getting us nowhere. How about we call another cease-fire?” He squatted, and stuffed the spools of ribbon into his workbag. Shifted around so she couldn’t see his hands were shaking. “I need to get cleaned up and get over to Snoozy’s.”
“Me, too.”
Oh, hell, no. “Just because you were invited doesn’t mean you have to go.”
“We’re the guests of honor. It would be rude not to.”
He straightened, and dusted off his palms. “Let me put it another way. I don’t want you there.”
“Guess I’m lucky you’re not in charge of the guest list.”
“It’ll be chaotic,” he warned. “Like today at the diner.”
“Afraid I’ll end up counting ice cubes, or sorting people by the color shirt they’re wearing? Or maybe you’re afraid everyone will think we’re an item?”
“They already do.”
“So why don’t you want me to go?” A gust of wind pressed her shirt to her breasts, and stirred the tendrils of damp hair clinging to her cheeks. He had a sudden urge to push her down among the dandelions and kiss her until desire replaced the gleam of challenge in her eyes.
Damn, he needed a drink.
“Be honest,” he said. “Hanging out with the locals, eating cheese and crackers and faking an interest in lake fishing? That’s not your idea of a good time.”
“You want me to be honest? Like you were honest at the diner when you talked about your drinking problem and used the past tense?”
“Fine. I don’t want you there because I won’t be able to relax with you glaring at me every damn time I take a sip of beer, and on top of that, having to pretend we’re friends. As far as drinking goes, I don’t have a problem. I control it when I need to, let go when I want to. So you can stop with the lectures. And do not come to the party just because you think I’ll need a designated driver.”
The sudden mist in her eyes told him he’d hurt her. He should probably feel worse about it, but damn it, he didn’t want to remember how it used to be between them. Before and after those months when whiskey had become his world.
“You don’t have to pretend anything,” she said tightly. “And I’m coming to the party because it’s the right thing to do.”
“And you always do the right thing.” She frowned and he fisted both hands around the stiff leather of his tool belt. “So why weren’t you there?”
The moment he asked the question, he could have kicked his own ass. Already he could feel grief putting a chokehold on his voice. But it was too late to take it back.
“What do you mean? Why wasn’t I where?”
He swallowed. “My brother’s funeral. Why didn’t you come?”
Judas Priest, he couldn’t believe he was putting himself through this. He already knew she simply hadn’t cared enough to come. Did he really need to hear her say it?
She stared at him, a dawning horror pushing the color from her face. “But...you told me not to.”
“I what?”
“I had every intention of going. In fact, I planned to drive you. But you called and said—” She swallowed, and looked away.
“What did I say?”
She crouched, and dropped the stakes into a pile next to the canvas bag. Slowly she straightened, and slid her hands into her front pockets. “You told me there was no sense in both of us missing work that day. That since I’d never met your brother I shouldn’t bother...pretending to mourn.”
Son of a bitch. “I said that? I don’t remember.”
“There was a lot you weren’t remembering, then. That’s why we reassigned your clients.”
“All this time, I thought...” He bent again over the bag, took his time rearranging the contents. When he stood upright again, Allison’s eyes were brimming with the remorse he’d once hoped to see—and now knew he didn’t deserve.
She pulled her hands free, reached out to him but didn’t make contact. “It’s just as much my fault. I should have gone, anyway. I knew you didn’t mean it. Knew it was just the whiskey talking. But I thought it’d be easier on both of us if I stayed away.”
“I’m sorry,” he gritted. He didn’t know what else to say. Didn’t know what to think.
Had to get the hell away from her.
He hefted his tools and turned toward the lobby. Spotted two boys, maybe fifteen or sixteen, headed into the woods behind the motel. One of them was drinking out of a plastic sports bottle. The other was smoking.
“Hey!” he yelled at them, and felt Allison jump beside him. “Careful with that cigarette!” The boy with the water bottle lifted it toward Joe in acknowledgment. The other boy gave him the finger.
Joe grunted, and watched them disappear into the trees. “One of these days those woods are gonna go up in smoke.” He turned back to Allison, gave her a stiff nod. “You’re right about the party. It’ll mean a lot to Snoozy, having you there.”
“Joe.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Tell me what happened with your brother.”
He pulled away. “Meet me out front at seven.”
* * *
SHE’D LET HIM DOWN.
Allison pressed a hand to her chest and rubbed at the stinging tangle of regret. A year ago, she’d been so caught up in her own hurt and resentment that she hadn’t seen how much Joe had needed her. How alone he must have felt. How lost.
No wonder he was bitter.
She shut the door of her room and slapped at the safety bar, then remembered Mitzi and flipped it open again in case she needed to make a speedy escape.
Escape. God, how she wanted to go home. She missed her desk, her color-coordinated file system and the calculator her mother had given her as a college graduation gift. She’d had it engraved—You can count on me.