Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)

by Tessa Bailey

  Be brave! I wish I would have said that more often without throwing my own bravery in their faces. Be brave, crash together and fall apart. It’s okay. It’s okay to diverge, knowing sometime in the future, you’ll collide again. As long as those rare times are remembered, their meanings retained.

  Listen to me. I sound like such a mother. Here’s one more mom-ism for good measure…You kids stop bickering, or I’ll turn this car around right now—

  “Stop,” Rita croaked. “Turn the car around.”

  She looked up from the journal to find that the Suburban was already pulled over on the side of the road, its occupants staring at her from all corners. Tears plopped down on her hands, wetting the pages of Miriam’s journal until Aaron tugged it away, and stowed it in his briefcase. Belmont watched her steadily in the rearview mirror, and Peggy gave her shoulders awkward, but enthusiastic, pats from the backseat.

  And with those knowing eyes on her, she could suddenly see. See all the things she’d been blind to for so long. Being in the kitchen earlier that night—she’d enjoyed herself. Maybe for the first time ever in a kitchen. Because those dishes had been made for her. For Jasper. No one else. She’d finally figured out how to cook without fear. And it was due in part to the man she was leaving behind. The man who’d spent days breaking her free of that prison, maybe without even being conscious of the difference he made, moment by moment.

  Could she—stay? Stay and love a man without the terror of disappointing him? Disappointing herself? Yes. Yes. Last night, a seed had been planted in Jasper’s kitchen. The seed of enjoyment, love. Things cooking had made her feel before. Before they got lost in the attempt to be someone other than Rita. She’d proven tonight it wasn’t the cooking that had broken her. She’d broken herself. But, dammit, she’d also fixed the damage. With Jasper. Oh, God, Jasper. The only way she could disappoint him would be by leaving.

  “I’m sorry.” She spoke to Belmont because it was easiest and he’d never had the ability to pass judgment with his face. “I’m sorry…I know this was my idea. But I think I might have found a home with that man. The one I’m meant for.” Rita doubled over, tucking her face between her knees. “Oh, God, I feel like I’m dying. I hate it.”

  Silence reigned for long moments before Aaron broke through. “It was Mom’s idea, Rita. That’s why we’re here.” He shifted, looking out the window. “You don’t have to take responsibility for it. We would have found our way here somehow, all right?” He reached over and nudged her shoulder. “And…if you finding a home is all that comes from this trip, it was worth it. I think maybe there’s more for us four on the road, but the road ends for you here. You and your flannel-wearing babies.”

  With a watery laugh, Rita unbuckled her seat belt and lunged across the seat, throwing her arms around Aaron’s neck. “I’m sorry we were such assholes to each other.”

  “Me too.” He planted a kiss on her forehead. “Although I maintain I was right most of the time.”

  A jagged sound left Rita as she pulled back, turning to Peggy. “God, Peggy. About the apartment—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Peggy’s eyelashes were clumped together with dampness, beautiful despite her red nose and distressed expression. Her hands fluttered a moment, and in what looked like an effort to anchor them, she nodded toward the front passenger seat. “I’ll just have to convince Sage to move with me.”

  A low growl from the driver’s seat raised everyone’s eyebrows, but Rita took the focus off her older brother by climbing out of the Suburban. After a moment of searching for her suitcase in the rear and coming up empty, Belmont’s shoulder brushed against hers, making her look up in confusion. “Where’s my suitcase?”

  He glanced back toward Hurley. “I left it in the kitchen at Buried Treasure.”

  Rita’s throat tugged with so much gravity she had to circle it with two hands. “What if I hadn’t figured it out?”

  Her brother’s sigh joined forces with the desert wind to ruffle her hair. “Then we would’ve had to come back. Or Jasper would have brought it to you. And maybe by then you’d have figured it out.”

  “Thank you,” Rita breathed, certain she couldn’t carry the weight of so much feeling. Loving her family, missing Jasper. Something had to give. Pressure was pushing her from the insides, expanding by the second. On impulse, she reached out and laid a hand on Belmont’s cheek. “You’re a great man, Belmont. A great one.”

  Rita let her hand drop and stepped back, finding her siblings gathered around her. Sage, too. There they stood, on the side of the quiet road, draped in moonlight. And somehow it was the worst moment of her life, while doubling as the most important. The best. Surrounded by her past while the future lay a quarter mile away, a beacon glowing softly with subdued light. Rita hugged Peggy hard, still wishing like hell she’d gotten to the bottom of her sister’s heartache, but knowing Peggy had the inner strength to face it. Something she hadn’t been sure of before the trip started.

  Rita embraced Sage, whispering in her ear, “Take care of my brother,” and then she stepped back, away from the group. Toward Hurley. “I’ll be on the beach New Year’s Day. One way or another, I’ll be there. That’s a promise.”

  Sage gestured to the Suburban, still looking a little flustered from Rita’s show of affection. “Don’t you want us to drive you back to town?”

  “No,” Rita started jogging backwards, taking one last look at her family. “I have to do this myself.”

  “Rita, you failed gym class three times,” Aaron called. “You can’t run for shit.”

  Her laughter rang out in the night as she turned and ran.

  Toward Jasper. Toward her life.

  * * *

  Jasper would never know what made him stop outside Buried Treasure, halfway to his car. Maybe he was listening for the sound of the Suburban pulling out of town. Maybe he didn’t want to go home to an empty house just yet. Whatever the reason, Jasper paused at the edge of the parking lot, keys in hand, listening for something. When nothing presented itself but silence and the whispering of sand being carried from the desert to the asphalt, circling his feet, Jasper took another few steps toward the truck.

  Those few steps gave him a view of the main road. Having grown up in Hurley, he knew every bump and lump of the town. So when something in the distance appeared to be getting larger, moving under streetlights and vanishing before reappearing again, his curiosity forced him toward it, needing to get a better look, an erratic pump beginning in his chest. His fingers loosened, his keys dropped to the ground, but taking his gaze off the approaching figure was impossible, so he kept walking. Walking down the center of the main road, like some kind of sleepwalking maniac. Sand crunched underneath his boots, less and less time passing in between the sounds. Was he running now? Yeah—yeah, he was running.

  Rita. It was Rita. His heart had known it back in the parking lot, but his eyes had refused to accept the gift. He’d truly thought the woman couldn’t get any more beautiful to him, but watching her sprint toward him in the partially illuminated darkness, hair streaming out behind her, face broken into a smile—yeah, he changed his mind. She could get more beautiful. So beautiful he stumbled in the road and fell to his knees, opening his arms just in time for Rita to dive into them, knocking them both backwards.

  “I love you, too. I love you, too.” The words were rambled sweetly into his neck as he stared up at the sky, a man thanking God for his fortune. “I want to stay right here with you. I don’t want to leave.” Her sobs jabbed his heart with sharp little swords. “I’m sorry I even tried.”

  “Okay, beautiful. It’s okay.” Jasper stroked shaking hands down Rita’s hair and back, reassuring himself she wasn’t a hallucination. With the goal of sitting up and gathering her in his lap, Jasper attempted to move but found his legs were paralyzed, clinging to the road like melted plastic. “No, it’s not okay, actually. You damn near killed me. I’m not recovered yet.”

  She smoothed hands up and down his ch
est, as if trying to warm his heart into jump-starting. “Keep saying things like that. I deserve them.”

  That got his blood flowing, mostly out of protest. Jasper moved into a sitting position, releasing a heavy sigh when Rita wrapped her limbs around him and clung. “No. I don’t want you feeling guilty. I don’t want you to feel anything but glad you came back to me. Not now, not ever.”

  Her lips moved over his jaw, his cheeks, leaving kisses. “I never really left. My heart stayed here the whole time.”

  “It must have crossed paths with mine. It left town when you did.” He pushed open her lips with his own, groaning at the perfection he’d thought never to feel again. His Rita. “You brought it back. You’re…staying?”

  “Yes.”

  Don’t flatten back onto the road again. Hold fast, man. Make sure this is the best thing for Rita before you let the relief completely take over. “Your family—”

  “My family.” She seemed deep in thought a moment. “They know I need to be here. And I know they all need to be someplace else. I’m not sure where yet.” Her sweet breath was a thing of dreams coasting over his face. “They’ll find it. The way I found you. Hopefully it won’t take them driving away to realize they can’t live without it.”

  A dam burst inside Jasper, finally allowing relief to rush in and fill all the cracks her leaving had caused. “I’m not making presumptions, Rita, but you’re moving in with me.” Another fierce trading of kisses. “All right, I’m making presumptions. I need you walking my floors. Need your touch on everything I owned before, the things we’ll own together after today. Need your touch all over me, too. I need so many things and they all begin and end with you.”

  God, he loved the way his words visibly affected her, made her eyes go soft. Loved knowing that the constant ache behind them was worth every second. “After thinking I might never see you again, I’ve never been more sure I can’t go a day without you,” Rita breathed. “Take me home.”

  Jasper stood, taking Rita with him. “I’ll take you to our home.” He kissed her on the silent street beneath the lamplight. “I’ll read you the specials until you fall asleep.” Another kiss. “I’ll tell you I love you between each one.”

  “I love you, too,” she whispered. “Did I mention that?”

  He slung her up into his arms, heading for Buried Treasure. “Did you?” His throat constricted. “I’m feeling a bit of amnesia coming on. Might need to hear it again…”

  She chanted it against his neck the whole way home.

  Their home.

  Epilogue

  Aaron watched through the giant back window of the Suburban until Rita became a speck, growing smaller and smaller beneath the streetlights of Hurley. Goddamn. He really hadn’t thought his sister had it in her. Kind of made him wonder whom else he’d underestimated or discounted recently. When Aaron accidentally made eye contact with Belmont in the rearview mirror, he feigned great interest in the contents of his briefcase. Although, yeah, not really feigning, right? He’d read the initial entry from Miriam—the one that had taken them on this heinous ride through hell—but hadn’t gone beyond it. Mostly due to the journal being in Rita’s possession since—

  Liar. Quit being such a fucking liar.

  No one wanted to go through their parents’ final thoughts on this earth and have confirmed what had been so obvious all along. He was the only one in the family who had been born without a heart. Their mother had never been able to hide her discomfort with Aaron’s ability to lie, to cajole, to win at all costs. The ease with which he moved from one girl to the next, no discernable shame concerning relationship overlaps. What would Miriam think if she knew why he’d been fired from his job working beneath the senator?

  Her lack of surprise would have been the stuff of legends.

  Which is why he wasn’t opening the journal. Not today. Not in twenty years. Being a great liar gave him the ability to pad the reality of how soulless he was against the backdrop of his siblings. Peggy was the bleeding heart who had such a hard time saying no that she’d yes’d four proposals so no one’s feelings would get hurt. Belmont’s still waters ran deep—deep enough to keep everyone the hell out. Even if it hadn’t always been that way between Aaron and his brother. They’d even been friends. Or maybe he’d just imagined the whole thing—it sure seemed that way now.

  Aaron cleared the discomfort from his throat. At one time he’d thought Rita and he were most similar among the Clarksons, but he’d never experienced the kind of emotion it took to sprint a quarter mile toward anyone. Shit, he’d never gone past a second date. So here he sat, minus a sister and still an asshole. What the hell was he thinking, crashing the campaign trail in Iowa? He could very well be crucified.

  Or. Or he could rise again. No. He would.

  The Suburban passed a blue-and-white-painted sign that read NOW LEAVING HURLEY and Belmont tapped the horn twice. Aaron swallowed the smile he felt trying to form when he thought of Rita buying a pair of cowboy boots and started to return his attention to the Internet research documents in his briefcase. But a flash of white alongside the road caught his eye. A dog?

  “Hold up.” Aaron jabbed the back of Belmont’s seat. “Hit the brakes.”

  Belmont grunted, stormy gaze lifting to the rearview again, but he finally pulled over, the Suburban groaning with the sudden stop. Aaron felt ridiculous the minute he stepped onto the gravel, the utter silence of the desert like a void around him. Peggy and Sage were watching him with curiosity through the back window, the glow of The Golden Girls playing on the laptop illuminating their faces. Belmont’s scrutiny burned a hole in his back. What? Everyone else got to act crazy in this family but he pulls over to get a closer look at a dog and suddenly he’s the candidate for a straitjacket?

  Aaron put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Come on. Don’t leave me standing here like a dick,” he muttered. Peggy and Sage came up on either side of Aaron after a minute passed, watching him instead of the black nothing before them. Just as Aaron poised himself to give up, a white blot of fur trotted into the light provided by the Suburban brake lights. “Took you long enough,” Aaron said, unsure what to do now that he’d confirmed what his eyes had seen.

  Peggy almost swallowed half the desert with her gasp. “Puppy, puppy, puppy.”

  Sage breathed a tremulous laugh, covering her mouth with both hands.

  “That’s not a puppy,” Aaron said, hunkering down. “That’s an old man.”

  The dog stopped trotting abruptly, as if insulted, sending both girls into a fit of laughter. Which cut off as soon as Belmont’s boots crunched up behind them. Aaron ignored his older brother and whistled again. Why? He had no idea. They’d never had pets growing up. He wasn’t even sure if he liked dogs. But leaving some poor mutt in the dark desert seemed like a shitty thing to do.

  “Come on, old man.” Aaron clapped once, his lips twitching when the dog only tilted his head. As if to say, You talkin’ to me? Good God, this was stupid. Standing on the side of the road in between towns trying to attract a stray animal. Maybe Aaron was just bored, his brain having gone so long without a challenge. Maybe he needed a distraction from the journal that had unexpectedly landed in his lap. Whatever the reason, he wanted the damn dog in the damn Suburban.

  “Could be a lost dog,” Belmont rumbled. “Someone might want him back.”

  “I can see from here he has no tags,” Aaron returned.

  Peggy hummed in her throat. “Can you see from here that it’s a he? Could be a girl. A little baby puppy girl.”

  “It’s a he. And he is ancient.” Aaron stood, swiping an impatient hand through his hair and striding toward the dog, bringing him to the edge of the light. His intention was to crouch down and pet the dog enough to make it affable, then carry it back to the Suburban. But the closer Aaron got to the animal, the more it cowered, which slowed him to a stop. “Hey,” Aaron murmured, checking over his shoulder to make sure none of the others could hear him. “It’s all right. We’r
e…peaceful people. Toward animals, anyway. Not so much to each other.”

  Right. So he was talking to a dog now. But—was he insane or did the dog’s brown eyes calm with total understanding? Yeah, the dog’s paw even slid a little bit in Aaron’s direction, causing a mild disturbance somewhere in Aaron’s gut.

  “Huh. Well, my sister just bailed and there’s an empty seat. There’s food—” The dog stood, ears perked. “Ahh, now I’m talking your language, right? We literally have restaurant doggy bags in the car. It’s like we knew…”

  Aaron trailed off when the dog coasted past him, heading for the Suburban. After three unsuccessful tries, the streak of white fur vanished into the backseat, leaving the four passengers staring at one another. Peggy was first to react, cramming her knuckles against her lips to muffle a squeal, while Belmont watched Sage for her reaction, giving Aaron the overwhelming urge to roll his eyes. The sexual tension between those two was enough to turn Sunday mass into an orgy.

  “What are you going to call him?” Sage breathed, addressing Aaron but staring at the Suburban. “You saved him. It’s up to you.”

  “We’ll call him Rita,” Aaron deadpanned, earning him a slug in the shoulder from Peggy. “All right, we’ll call him Old Man. Just until I can come up with something better.” Reluctantly, he looked over at Belmont. “You have a problem with the dog?”

  Belmont watched Aaron for a moment without responding, a muscle ticking in his jaw, before turning and heading back for the vehicle. When Peggy patted Aaron’s shoulder, necklace jangling, he shrugged it off. Where the hell had she gotten the impression he needed comfort? He was well used to being disregarded. By anyone other than voters, his constituents, the press. Which was why Iowa better look out.