by Ruthie Knox
“Everything all right?” the contractor asked.
She lifted her chin and collided with his eyes again. Soft eyes. Soft face, soft mouth. She glanced down, hoping for a soft body, a target for the disdain she needed to locate, but instead she found a chest and the word burly.
A big, burly chest, and giant arms covered in fur, and jean-clad thighs that she wasn’t sure she could span with her hands. Snug jeans. A big belt buckle that belonged in Texas or somewhere, and beneath it—
Oh, God.
Carmen dragged her eyes up, up, up to his face, thinking burly again along the way and feeling her cheeks heat. She made her voice extra cool when she said, “Everything is fine. You’ll have to make it Monday. Roman will be back by then.”
The man nodded. “I’m Noah.”
He stuck out his hand.
She took it, and it engulfed hers, and her entire lower body disappeared in the conflagration.
“Carmen,” she squeaked.
“I know.” He tipped up her hard hat, ran a finger under the strap, and frowned. “Here. There’s a trick to these.”
She just stood there. Stood there like a wax figure—a melting wax figure—as he took her hat off, made some adjustment to it, put it back on, and fastened the strap under her chin.
Impossible. She’d looked at the mechanism, and she understood it perfectly well. There were no tricks.
But her hat fit now.
“So you’re Roman’s girl,” he said. “I’ve wondered about you.”
I’m not anyone’s girl, she snapped. Inside her head. Don’t be impertinent. And don’t stand so close.
Though he had to be four feet away now. He’d stepped back when he finished with her hat. He only felt close.
She only felt as though she couldn’t control her tongue when she said “No.”
Noah’s forehead corrugated. “Oh.” An awkward silence reigned for a few beats, and then he asked, “Does Roman know that?”
Of course he does, she said.
Except she didn’t, at all. She opened her mouth, and a torrent of nonsense came out. “You’ve misunderstood. I’m seeing Roman—I mean, he’s in Georgia, so—but we’re not exclusively … we haven’t said that we won’t. See other people. And it’s not as though he owns me, but yes, we’re still going out, if that’s what you mean.”
Something poked Carmen in the throat. The clipboard. She was clutching it to her chest like a shield.
How mortifying. Where had those words even come from? Not exclusive? She’d been dating Roman for a year, sleeping with him for nearly as long, and even before he’d asked her out there had been an inevitability to their relationship. She’d known, and he must have, too, that as soon as he traded his run-down apartment for a decent condo with landscaped grounds—as soon as he traded in his late-model Accord for the Cadillac—he would ask her out, and she would accept.
And yet the words kept crawling up her throat from some place she couldn’t even name. She kept them contained behind her tongue, but they rioted around back there, clamoring to get out.
We don’t live together.
He rarely even sleeps over.
Sometimes a week goes by—two weeks—without my seeing him, and I’m not bothered.
Sometimes when we have sex, I’m bored. I think he might be bored, too.
I like your belt. I like your eyes. I like your mouth.
Noah smiled again, sort of sheepish. As though he were the one who’d just unleashed a flood of embarrassing nonsense. “Yeah. That’s what I meant.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She clicked her nails against the clipboard, impatient. She had no idea for what.
Noah looked past her, out the door, and cleared his throat. “So I’ve about looked everything over already. All the damage is superficial—it’s mostly just a god-awful mess. If you want, we can do a quick sweep, then I’ll lock up and we can maybe grab some lunch after.”
Carmen didn’t react. She kept her face completely serene. She had no idea why Noah responded by lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just lunch,” he said, with a self-effacing sort of chuckle that had no guile in it, no calculation whatsoever. “Totally platonic. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to hit on Roman’s girl.”
She searched all her mental store cupboards for cool, but cool was out of stock. This strange man and his big hands and his beard and that belt buckle and everything underneath the belt buckle had done something to her, had stolen her cool, so she did the only thing she could possibly do.
She fled.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Escalade waited in Mitzi’s gravel driveway, sporting a deep new dent in the bumper courtesy of Jerry’s being both reckless and insane, as well as a long scratch along the side courtesy of he had no idea who.
Roman waited on Mitzi’s porch.
His keys were in his pocket, his bag packed and sitting by his right hip. Ashley had turned out to be correct about the trailer hitch—it was just the pressure of its being jackknifed that had made it impossible to remove—and he’d towed the Airstream into Mitzi’s driveway and then set it loose.
All of it a performance, of course. Ashley had him by the balls, and both of them knew it.
So he waited.
She came out of the house and sat down beside him. Through the open screen door, he heard Mitzi and Kirk talking, alto and baritone. He could hear a dog barking, and he could see past his truck over the lawn to the swamp, but he couldn’t see the shape of what was supposed to happen next.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“What do you want from me?”
There was a long silence. He wondered if she was hesitating because she thought he might snap. He might have told her not to worry about it. All the snap had gone out of him. How many days had he been with her—three? And she’d already beaten him.
Jerry had been the last straw. Jerry and the fucking dent in Roman’s fucking Cadillac, and then Carmen telling him he couldn’t leave. That he had to find a way to control Ashley. By Monday.
As if there were such a thing as a way to control Ashley.
“I want you to change your mind,” she said.
“That’s not possible.”
She tucked her feet closer and wrapped her arms around her knees, converting herself into a small, neat package perched at the edge of the step. “I think it is,” she said. “And even if it’s not, I have to try.”
“Haven’t you already tried? I got the speech at the palm tree, the speech at the diner.” He lifted his hand, gestured at the view. “I got one all-expenses-paid night in this lovely swamp, which I assume is supposed to be a taste of the good life, courtesy of Ashley Bowman.”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t get you stuck here.”
“You didn’t help get me unstuck, either.”
After a moment, she said, “Fine. I’ll take half the responsibility if you take the other half.”
Roman could accept that. He was at least fifty percent responsible for getting himself into this mess. He hadn’t listened when his instincts told him to be wary of the deal he’d made with Susan. He’d underestimated Ashley from the beginning, and then he’d let her get to him, and then he’d underestimated her again and she’d blindsided him with this Key deer bullshit.
He just hadn’t expected her to lie to him. Hadn’t expected her to use this particular brand of sneaky, underhanded manipulation.
“What will it take to make you drop the deer thing?”
“Your cooperation.”
“With …?”
He turned slightly to study her compact form, her inward-focused expression. She wore shorts and a T-shirt with black flip-flops. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, her nose freckled, her lips shiny with glossy stuff that smelled like watermelon.
She looked exactly as she had when he met her. Nothing special.
Yet he had to do whatever she asked.
“With a trip,” she said. “We’re going to take a trip.”
“Where?”
“That’s for me to know and you to discover.”
He felt so tired, so heavy, he couldn’t even care. Gravity pulled on every part of him, and he wanted to lie down and let it have him.
Just give up.
Just quit.
He might have. Except if he didn’t have Sunnyvale—if he didn’t have a way to prove his worth to Heberto, to Carmen—then what did he have?
Nothing.
At eighteen, he’d been emancipated from the foster care system and kicked out of the house he’d grown up in by a man who no longer wanted to be his father.
Something wrong with you.
Never want to see you again.
He’d moved to Princeton, New Jersey, to begin an education paid for by another man. A stranger who despised his values but admired his energy. Heberto Zumbado had read Roman’s entry in an essay contest, and he’d taken Roman on as a project.
Never mind that Roman’s essay had been, essentially, a middle finger brandished at Zumbado’s anti-Castro, pro-capitalist ethos. Roman was deep in his Cuban revolutionary phase at the time, and he’d written a screed about Che Guevara and the New Man that must have made Heberto’s blood pressure spike. Still, Heberto had seen Roman’s potential, and he’d shaken his hand and voted for it in the way that counted most: with his own money.
He’d paid every cent of Roman’s tuition and board, and when he found out Roman had no home to visit, he flew him to Miami for Thanksgiving and Christmas from then on.
Heberto gave him summer jobs. Heberto molded him into the man he’d become.
Heberto had voted for Roman’s Coral Cay development with his own money, and Roman would come through. He had to. He owed it to Heberto—this offering, this proof that he’d been a worthwhile investment.
More than that, he owed it to himself, because once he had the first phase of Coral Cay done, Heberto would buy out Ojito Enterprises and make Roman a partner. Then he’d be set for life. Wealthy enough to buy a house in Coral Gables and a ring he wouldn’t be ashamed to give to Carmen.
They didn’t let people like Ashley Bowman past the gates in Coral Gables. Money would make him impermeable.
Safe.
“How long does this trip last?” he asked.
“As long as it takes.”
“No.”
Ashley leaned forward and rubbed her thumb over the chipped blue polish on her big toe. “You’re not in a position to say no.”
“Give me an upper limit.”
“Two weeks.”
Two weeks, when Carmen had said Monday.
He already knew whose timeline was going to win. Carmen had faith in him, but she hadn’t met Ashley. She didn’t know.
If Ashley wanted two weeks, she was going to get them.
“You should just drag me out into the swamp and feed me to the gators.”
“I’m going to drag you all over the country instead. And introduce you to my friends.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
Ashley tilted her head and smiled at her toe. She looked sad, and he thought it might be for him, which just made him feel heavier.
“Because I love them.” She looked at him. “These people are my family, Roman. Sunnyvale is my home. I guess I’m hoping, if you meet them, you’ll get it. And you’ll care.”
He almost told her then. That he didn’t like her. That she was frivolous and inconsequential.
He almost told her that love never got anybody anywhere, and it was a weakness he couldn’t afford.
But instead, he said, “Fine.”
She’d left him no other choice. He’d have to reshuffle the entire construction schedule. Make a dozen phone calls. He’d have to invent some bullshit to tell Heberto and some other bullshit to tell Carmen.
He’d try for Monday—try his hardest, give it his best. But he couldn’t find any hope for himself. Hadn’t been able to for three days.
“But at the end of two weeks,” he said, “no matter what, you forget about the deer, and you step aside.”
“Unless you change your mind.” Ashley stood.
“I won’t.”
“Then I guess that’s the chance I’m taking.”
“Fine.”
She walked away. With her hand on the screen door, she paused. “It might be fun.”
“It won’t be fun.”
She shrugged and opened the door. “At the very least, it’ll be good for you to take a vacation. You could use some relaxing. You’re so uptight.”
“I’m disciplined.”
“You’re uptight. You need a holiday.” Then she laughed, abruptly, at nothing. “A Roman holiday. Cute.”
The screen door slammed shut behind her. A few seconds passed before she returned, flattening her nose against the screen. “Oh, and we leave in the morning, with the Airstream,” she said. “I’m going to be driving your Caddy at least half the time, so get used to the idea.”
Then she was gone.
Roman sat on the porch until the sun set. His phone buzzed and chirped and rang in his pocket—the press of business relentless as ever—but he didn’t shift to answer it.
What would be the point? He’d accepted defeat. He’d agreed to his sentence.
Two weeks in purgatory. Two weeks with Ashley.
Two weeks of motherfucking holiday.
BY RUTHIE KNOX
Ride with Me
About Last Night
Along Came Trouble
Flirting with Disaster
Truly (Coming Spring 2014)
Novellas
Room at the Inn
How to Misbehave
Making It Last
Roman Holiday (Serialization)
PHOTO: MARK ANDERSON, STUN PHOTOGRAPHY
USA Today bestselling author RUTHIE KNOX writes contemporary romance that’s sexy, witty, and angsty—sometimes all three at once. After studying British history, she became an academic editor instead. Then she got really deep into knitting, as one does, followed by motherhood and romance novel writing.
Her debut novel, Ride with Me, is probably the only existing cross-country bicycling love story. She followed it up with About Last Night, a London-based romance whose hero has the unlikely name of Neville, and then Room at the Inn, a Christmas novella—both of which were finalists for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award. Her four-book series about the Clark family of Camelot, Ohio, has won accolades for its fresh, funny portrayal of small-town Midwestern life.
Ruthie moonlights as a mother, tweets incessantly, and bakes a mean focaccia. She’d love to hear from you, so visit her website and drop her a line.
http://www.ruthieknox.com
Be sure to continue your Roman Holiday with Episode 4: Ravaged
Roman lifted a stapled pamphlet from the top of a pile on one gunmetal-gray shelf. “Army Field Manual FM 21-20: Physical Readiness Training.” The cover featured line drawings of soldiers in fatigue pants, combat boots, and T-shirts engaged in calisthenics. One was doing a sit-up, another jogging into the distance. He flipped through the pages and then tossed the book into Ashley’s shopping cart.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“A manual.”
“For what?”
“To keep me from losing my mind around you.”
She picked it up and studied the cover, and he wanted to tear the book out of her hands.
“Cute,” she said, tossing it back into the cart. “Are you going to run ten miles and do five hundred jumping jacks before breakfast? Maybe we should find you a vintage sweat suit to go with your vintage workout routine.”
He wanted to take her by the wrist and pull her out of the store, flatten her against the stucco outside and press right up against her, get right in her face and insist, insist, that she tell him everything about this trip she had planned. That she stop teasing him and taunting him and leading him around as though he were harmless as a pony on a rope.
He wasn’t a fucking pony. He was a t
iger. He would claw her and eat her, rebel against her, and she wouldn’t even see it coming.
Roman crossed his arms and leaned back against the shelving. He tried to feel like a tiger while Ashley moved farther down the aisle and poked through a pile of canteens.
Easier said than done.
Coming December 2nd. Preorder now!
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And don’t miss the Camelot series which begins with a deliciously sexy original novella, in which a good girl, Amber Clark, learns, How to Misbehave. Her brother Caleb meets headstrong Ellen and the two bump noggins—and bodies—in Along Came Trouble. Sister Katie Clark enters a no-strings fling that looks an awful lot like falling in love—or, Flirting with Disaster. Lastly, revisit Amber and a story that will take you to new heights with a desire reinvented, Making It Last.