Harlequin Superromance August 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: What Happens Between FriendsStaying at Joe'sHer Road Home

by Beth Andrews

  She pulled on her coveralls and headed for the office, and shivered in the gray curtain of rain that bordered the sidewalk. At least the weather wouldn’t prevent them from working. Thanks to the discovery of Mitzi, and Allison’s wild imagination, they’d lost more than a day on renovations. No doubt Joe realized by now that he’d made one lousy bargain.

  At the reception desk she tapped twice on the bell. Her hands quivered just the tiniest bit but she was determined—though the first mention of the situation with her mother and she was shutting him down.

  She heard him walking down the hallway, and braced herself.

  He came around the corner, a pen and a pad of paper in his hands and...reading glasses on his nose? She blinked, could actually feel her antagonism leaking out of her as she leaned on the counter and propped her chin in her hand.

  “You look rather scholarly.”

  His cheeks grew ruddy and he tossed the pad onto the counter. “Don’t you mean old?”

  Actually she’d meant sexy, but no way she’d admit that.

  She pushed upright. “I’m reporting for duty. Put me in, coach. Unless it involves paneling—then I think I’ll develop a torn ligament, or jock itch or whatever it takes to get me benched.”

  Joe peered at her over the top of his glasses, but what he had no doubt meant to be a disapproving expression looked more like a come-on. She entertained a sudden, brief fantasy—Joe, bare-chested and intent, leaning over her in bed, his eyes locked on hers as he slowly removed his glasses and set them on the bedside table, then turned back to her, the scorching purpose in his gaze promising his undivided attention, and so much more—

  “What we need to do is get some groceries.”

  The mundane words chased away her fantasy. Too bad it couldn’t do anything about the damp state of her underwear. She drove her teeth into the inside of her lower lip and forced herself to pay attention.

  “I put Marcus in #1, told him to take it easy today and we’d hit it hard tomorrow. In the meantime we have some meal planning to do. What do you say—up for a trip to the supermarket?”

  “As long as we’re coming back with M&M’s.”

  “That’s understood.” Then he did take his glasses off, and her belly did a little shimmy. “Let’s go see what our patient might need.”

  While Joe knocked at Marcus’s door, Allison continued on to her room to grab her purse and lose the coveralls. Then she made her way back to Marcus’s room and peeked in to find Joe scribbling on his pad and Marcus hovering awkwardly by the bed. The television was off—somehow she’d had a feeling he wouldn’t have any patience with afternoon programming.

  She set the book she carried on the table under the window. “You have to promise not to tell me who did it.”

  He gave her a wary nod, his gaze lingering on the paperback. Joe read from his list. “Orange juice. Potatoes. You like ketchup on your eggs? Probably should get another—”

  “In the cupboard. Behind the peanut butter.”

  “Scratch the ketchup.” Joe never looked up to see Marcus flush. “I suppose you two will want bacon as well.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Joe and Allison were in the refrigerated aisle of the supermarket, arguing about orange juice while a sale on animal crackers was announced over the PA system.

  “The pulp is good for you,” Joe insisted.

  “I don’t like to chew my juice.”

  “Just get one of each,” spoke a little voice behind them.

  They turned. A young girl with freckles and shoulder-length russet hair stood watching them, a gallon of milk cradled in her arms. Joe pulled her into a one-armed hug.

  “Hey, sport. You’re exactly right. We’ll get one of each.” He put the juice into the cart while the girl tipped her head at Allison.

  “You’re the lady who found the snake. I’m Nat.”

  “I’m Allison and, unfortunately, yes, I did find the snake. I think they heard me screaming in Canada.”

  Nat giggled and Joe tugged gently at her hair. “Nat brought me the kitten.”

  The girl’s face brightened at Joe. “What’d you name her?”

  “Nothing, yet. I’m still thinking.”

  “She doesn’t have a name?”

  “She’ll have one soon. I promise.”

  “But it’s been days,” she said plaintively, drawing out the last word.

  “You don’t want me to saddle her with a name that doesn’t suit her, do you?”

  “I just want you to care enough to give her one.” Nat raised her chin and hefted the gallon of milk. “Excuse me. I have to go find my mother.”

  They watched her walk stiffly away, a study of huffiness in pink. Allison’s amusement evaporated when she noticed the stark regret on Joe’s face.

  “I did it again,” he said.

  “Did what?”

  The grocery list crumpled in his hand. “Let someone down.”

  “Joe, it’s an easy enough fix. You just have to come up with a name.”

  He was shaking his head as he turned up the nearest aisle, scouting out the next item on the list. “It’s never an easy fix.”

  Allison let it go.

  She waited until they’d loaded the groceries and were on their way back to the motel before asking the question she had no right to ask. “Was it your brother you let down?”

  The truck slowed and his jaw flexed. “Among others. Speaking of which...” He checked the rearview mirror and sped up again. “I want to help you. I want to pay off that loan.”

  She stared at him, sputtered, stared some more. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She should have known he wouldn’t leave it alone.

  “I have investments. I can afford it.” He shot her a dark look. “I understand your need to get free of the grip of something that’s slowly strangling you.”

  “You don’t understand anything. If you did you wouldn’t even consider making such an offer.”

  “I made the offer because I care about you.”

  “I don’t need you to care about me. I need you to respect me.”

  For a long while there was silence in the cab. Then Joe exhaled. “Fair enough,” he said.

  A handful of beats later, Allison huffed out a humorless laugh. “That almost worked.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I ask about your brother, you distract me. Big time.”

  His body stilled. Then he flipped on his turn signal and pulled off into the nearest parking lot, which happened to belong to the produce stand Allison had spotted on her way into Castle Creek. Due to the unfriendly weather, the lot was nearly empty. With an impatient flick of his wrist Joe turned off the truck and they sat in silence, cocooned in the dry warmth of the cab while rain drummed a steady rhythm on the roof. Outside, hopeful workers in bright yellow plastic ponchos arranged quarts of strawberries on rough wooden display stands.

  Joe shifted to face her. She barely resisted folding her arms over her chest, which would only have made her look childish and defensive.

  Though that was pretty much how she felt.

  “Why the sudden interest?” His voice was bleak, and he had a damned good point. But the answer was clear.

  “I know you better now. Over the past few days I’ve learned more about you than I learned in the three months we were dating.”

  “For example?” His tone was skeptical, but there was no mistaking the curiosity in his eyes.

  “You have an affinity for unconventional old ladies. You know construction phrases like ‘grade beam’ and ‘barge rafter.’ You cook a mean fried egg. You have a big protective streak. And you’re a sucker for the underdog.” She turned to face him as well, her knee sliding up onto the seat. “Last year we were so caught up in the sneaking around and the...the physical stuff...that we neve
r took the time to talk. Really talk.”

  “‘The physical stuff’?”

  Of everything she’d said, that was what he’d zeroed in on? “If I said ‘screwing,’ would that make you feel better?”

  He shifted again, banged his wrist on the steering wheel and swore. “I don’t see the point of this.”

  “You said we were friends.”

  “And friends force deep dark secrets out of each other?”

  “You forced one out of me.”

  “So now we’re playing show me yours and I’ll show you mine? I thought that particular game was off the table.”

  Table, bed, kitchen floor...she’d play it wherever he wanted to. Easy, Allie. She fiddled with a loose thread on the hem of her jeans.

  “We trade questions. That’s what we do. Besides, Ivy knows. She said that you two talked about it on the anniversary of Braden’s death.”

  “Now you’re jealous of Ivy?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m not sure why, since you and I aren’t—” She shrugged. “I guess, after all we’ve been through, it makes me sad that she knows and I don’t.”

  Joe turned and opened his door, letting in a chilly swirl of rain-speckled air. Allison put out a hand.

  “Wait. Where are you going?”

  “This is exactly the kind of thing whiskey was invented for. But since we don’t have any, coffee will have to do.” He got out of the truck and jogged toward the green-and-white striped canopy. That’s when she saw the sign under the giant strawberry. Hot and Cold Beverages for Sale.

  Her palms went slick. He really had no desire to tell her. Suddenly she wondered if she really wanted to know.

  When he came back she leaned across the seat to take both cups of coffee from him while he got in the truck. Drops of rain silvered his windbreaker and glistened in his hair. She looked away.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She took a sip—strong, but not stale—and realized he’d taken time to add cream and sugar. “It’s good.”

  “It’s warm.”

  For a short while the only sounds in the truck were the creak of thin plastic lids and the huff of careful breaths. Then Joe stopped pretending to be fascinated by the design on his cup.

  “My mother was an addict, too. Prescription drugs were her thing. My brother and I were only kids—we didn’t know what was going on. But we knew something was wrong. It didn’t occur to my father to put her into rehab, or maybe he just figured she wasn’t worth the money. Anyway, he kicked her out.”

  Allison caught her breath. “Did you ever see her again?” The jerk of Joe’s chin roused an ache behind her breastbone. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “So were we. My brother and I. My dad, not so much. But he hadn’t counted on how hard it would be to raise two young boys. And the guilt... He couldn’t take it. He shut down. Braden and I, we took care of each other. Grew up, got decent jobs, made plans together. Too bad I never took the time to realize he hadn’t forgiven my mother for leaving. Or my father for not giving her a choice. Eventually he followed her example. Turned to drugs.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I was working too hard to notice. When his car ran off the road—” With extra care he placed his cup into the holder between them then fisted his hands in his lap. “It wasn’t an accident. And he wasn’t alone.”

  “You mean...he tried to—”

  “—kill himself. And my father, too.”

  Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. Allison needed to walk, to scream, to move. She reached out but Joe thrust up a hand.

  “Maybe now you understand why I don’t talk about it.”

  “Your dad. Is he...”

  “He survived. But he refuses to see me.”

  Allison stared out the window into the gloom brought on by the rain, his truths, her failures.

  “No wonder,” she murmured, her throat thick with anguish. “No wonder you had to escape.”

  “I’m not proud of that. That I made the same mistake as Mom and Braden. I’ve always been a drinker, struggled with it especially in college, but I had a handle on it. Or thought I did. Anyway, maybe if I’d turned to you instead of booze...who knows where we’d be today.”

  And if she’d put him first, ahead of T&P... Allison felt his gaze, his need for her to face him. But there was no sense in rehashing the past. His drinking had only hurried the inevitable. If his move to the country hadn’t ended them, her mother’s problems would have.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he switched on the engine. “I guess where we should be is back at the motel, putting these groceries away.”

  She gave a silent exhale of gratitude and gulped at her lukewarm coffee. “And checking on Marcus.” The underdog.

  “I can’t help feeling I made a mistake, asking him to stay.”

  “I thought maybe he...reminded you of your brother.” When Joe sucked in a breath she rushed to add, “Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’ll lock my door. And stick close to you.”

  Silence. To fill it she blurted the first thought that entered her head. “What was it about Castle Creek that drew you here?”

  He shook his head as he turned back onto the highway. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  She waited. Nothing. “Um, that was a rhetorical question, right?”

  “That was our plan. Braden’s and mine. To buy a run-down motel in the country and renovate it. I kept telling him to wait. That we needed more capital. Now I have plenty of capital and no brother.” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes waiting is the wrong thing to do.”

  * * *

  AFTER PUTTING AWAY the groceries, Allison and Joe checked on Marcus. He’d been sleeping, but it didn’t take him long to get to the door—staying off his ankle seemed to have helped. At some point he’d apparently started the book Allison had given him—it lay on the bedside table beside a glass of water, a folded-up piece of paper neatly marking his place. After Joe offered up any of his books to Marcus that he might be interested in, he asked him what he wanted to do for dinner. Allison suggested she bring him a plate of Ivy’s sandwiches and Marcus accepted before she’d even finished the sentence. And since she had work waiting on her laptop, Allison told Joe she’d eat in her room, as well.

  Joe didn’t argue. Of course, she hadn’t expected him to. No doubt he looked forward to locking himself up in the motel office so he could stick pins into a voodoo doll that had butter-blond hair and snappy fashion sense.

  The rain had a way of making Allison sleepy, but of course as soon as she was ready to go to bed, it stopped and she was wide-awake. Since she’d already answered emails and finished a few outstanding reports, she downloaded a book and settled into bed, her laptop on her knees, but the story failed to keep her interest. She thought with longing of the gym in #10—an hour on the treadmill would certainly wear her out—but she’d forgotten to get a key from Joe, and bothering him at this hour was not an option.

  She turned out the light and lay down, started imagining what Marcus’s story might be, like Ivy and her friends had done for Joe. The sole heir to a fortune controlled by a ruthless and demanding father, Marcus had recently discovered he was adopted and was searching for his natural parents. She yawned. Too far-fetched. Maybe he was a college student who’d been backpacking across the country, when he got conked on the head during a mugging in Erie and he’s been wandering ever since. Wait. What if he was actually the mugger...?

  An insistent banging dragged her out of a hard-won sleep. What the—? With a long, drawn-out hum of frustration, Allison shifted onto her back and blinked up at the ceiling. No way could it be morning. Which meant the light seeping in through the gap in the curtains was the artificial kind. Which also meant it was nowhere near time to get out of bed.

  More knocking. For God’s sake, enough with the banging alr
eady. Didn’t she hear enough of it during the day? She yawned, then finally realized that if someone was knocking at her door at—she lifted her head and squinted over at the table by the bed—1:00 a.m., there had to be a reason. And it probably wasn’t a pleasant one.

  She shoved at the covers, sat up and had just scrambled to her feet when the door swung open.

  CHAPTER TEN

  JOE STOOD IN the doorway, keycard in hand. The scream withered in Allison’s throat. When he spotted her, his entire body sagged and she frowned. He had on sweatpants but no shirt, and his feet were bare, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. But the intensity in his face had little to do with desire. Panic slithered down her spine, like a fat drop of ice water.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “You didn’t throw the bolt,” he growled softy. He strode forward and grabbed her hand, pulled her out into the night and shut the door behind them.

  “What’s going on?”

  Instead of answering, he tugged her along the sidewalk, the naked soles of her feet slapping against the damp concrete.

  “Joe.” She stopped, and struggled to reclaim her hand. “You’re scaring me.”

  He put a finger to his lips and glanced at the door to Marcus’s room. He’d put him beside her in #1. She’d wondered from the beginning if Joe had given her #2 to remind her of the two weeks she’d promised—of course, it had only ended up reminding her of the two grand her mother had frittered away.

  The glow from the nearest streetlight angled across his face, revealing the disquiet in his eyes. And a lack of focus that told her he’d been drinking. He wasn’t drunk, but he wasn’t all Joe, either. She wanted to cry.

  His grip tightened. “I had a nightmare. I needed to know you were safe.”

  The hot knot of disappointment blocking her throat shrank a little. He motioned with his head toward the office and started pulling again. Silently he led her through the lobby, down the hall and across the living room to his bed. He held the covers and she slipped underneath, shivering at the feel of his leftover warmth, the masculine smell that lingered on the sheets. She gazed up through the dimness as he leaned over her and snagged the extra pillow. He hesitated, staring down at her, then straightened and turned away. The couch squeaked. A muffled flap as he shook the afghan free of its fold.