Spitfire in Love

by Isabelle Ronin

  Not yet.

  Not ever.

  Did she expect me to let her go?

  She probably did. She probably thought I had let her go completely when I left. And for a while, I had fooled myself that I could. That I did.

  But one look at her that day in Rick’s office and all thoughts about letting her go went out the window.

  Being with me might complicate her life more than it was already. She was already struggling, I could see that as clear as day. But I was selfish. I was greedy. I wanted her.

  I wanted her anger, her annoyance, her mean streak. Every fucking thing I could get.

  I was weak when it came to her. I realized that now. Fighting it just made me a miserable son of a bitch.

  I had no reason to believe that she would come back to me. I had given her every reason to stay away, but something inside me…hoped. And kept wanting.

  I stood in the middle of the yard, like a stupid motherfucker, waiting.

  And hell…she said she never went out with guys. Who was that guy who picked her up? What was wrong with her car? She had an auto shop, for goddamn sake. What did she need a ride for? She could just ask me.

  I fisted my hands, feeling the bite of my nails against my palms.

  She had to come back.

  I had sworn I wouldn’t wait for anyone anymore, but she made me break that promise I had made to myself.

  I could feel the sting of the wind on my skin, but I was burning up. If she wasn’t going to come back, I would go to her.

  I was just going to hop into my truck and chase after her when I saw the white Jeep pull up in the yard.

  My chest felt tight as I watched her shoot out of the vehicle, march her way to me.

  Kara.

  My Kara.

  My Spitfire.

  The tightness loosened up a bit.

  She was mad as hell. Her face was flushed, her mouth in a tight, straight line. The fire in those hazel eyes—those eyes that starred in my dreams every night—as they homed in on me raced through me like an electric shock.

  She was mesmerizing and terrifying, like a big tidal wave in the middle of the ocean where your lifeboat was floating in peace. She would appear out of nowhere, swallow you whole, and obliterate every sign of you on earth.

  She came back for me.

  * * *

  There had never been any woman who looked as beautiful to me as she did at that moment. I could not take my eyes off her.

  Whatever was building between us had been destroyed when I left. But I was here now, and I was here to get her back, whatever it took.

  She parked her long legs in front of me. She was breathing hard, and it wasn’t because of the distance she’d walked. It was her anger toward me. I’d take it. I’d take anything.

  She raised her chin defiantly and looked down her nose at me.

  She couldn’t hide her emotions if she tried. Somehow, it always came out—whatever she was feeling, whatever she was thinking. I couldn’t fucking get enough of it.

  “Give me a reason why I should stay here with you,” she demanded.

  I looked at her. And I told her the truth.

  “I miss you,” I whispered. “I miss you so much it’s driving me fucking crazy.”

  Her eyes softened, but she didn’t move. I knew it was going to be hard convincing her to be with me. I expected it, but I wasn’t going to give up easily. Not this time.

  “Let me fix it,” I said, but it was a plea. My voice sounded gruff to my ears.

  She just looked at me, not saying anything. It started to scare me. Was she going back to that guy? Was he the guy who was texting and calling her?

  Over my dead fucking body.

  I held out my hand to her. “Will you take my hand?” I said softly. “Kara?”

  I saw her take a deep breath, close her eyes for a moment. And when she opened them, she placed her hand in mine.

  * * *

  We were on the road a moment later. I insisted we use my company truck. It was a little cold outside, so we had the windows closed. I was driving toward the one place no one knew I had. If there was anyone I wanted to show it to, it would be her.

  She faced the passenger window, not giving me a glimpse of her lovely face. She was still mad at me. I couldn’t blame her. I hadn’t answered any of her questions.

  “Where are we going?” she finally asked. And still she wouldn’t look at me.

  “You said you barely know me,” I started.

  Now she faced me. I wished I could park somewhere, so I could just hold her face in my hands, feel her skin, and just look at her. Touch her. Kiss her. Taste her.

  “So I’ll take you to a place that’s important to me,” I finished.

  She looked intrigued. Good. But she turned and faced the window again.

  If my chest felt tight again, I ignored it. She was here with me. That was all that mattered.

  “Who was that guy?” I asked.

  “I’m not answering any of your questions until you answer mine,” she told the window.

  “Fair enough.”

  I tapped the steering wheel. I felt itchy, spoiling for a fight. Preferably with that guy she wouldn’t tell me about.

  “Kara.” Damn, I could hear the impatience in my voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Who was that guy?”

  Now she laughed. A knowing, teasing laugh only a woman could make. She threw me a look. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Damn, she had a mean streak. And damn if I didn’t crave it. I was miserable without it when I left. But right now, it was driving me crazy.

  “Ask me something you want to know then,” I told her.

  She faced the window again. Dismissing me.

  That hurt. She didn’t want to know anything about me anymore. Had I damaged everything between us? Didn’t she want me anymore?

  “Tell me why you left,” she said after a moment.

  She said it so softly, her voice so maddeningly small, that my chest ached.

  “I’ll show you when we get to where we’re going. Will you wait till then?” I asked.

  She nodded but, again, didn’t say anything. Did that mean she wouldn’t tell me about that guy until we were there?

  I sighed loudly, blowing my hair off my forehead.

  “He’s just a friend from church,” she said. I heard a smile in her voice.

  “He’s not…your boyfriend?”

  “Well…”

  I shot her a look. Her hazel eyes were full of mischief. Just the way I liked it, but not when she was torturing me like this. Not about another guy.

  “Do you see now how it can drive you crazy not knowing what I’m thinking? When I won’t tell you anything?”

  I kept my mouth shut. She got me there. I knew it. I knew it now.

  “It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Doesn’t it make you want to assume things? Make you feel awful that you’re contemplating the worst?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I won’t know what you’re thinking if you don’t tell me.”

  “Okay,” I murmured. “I understand.”

  She seemed placated by that because she said, “He is a boy friend.”

  “What?”

  “A guy friend. I like him.”

  “You. Like. Him.”

  “Yeah,” she said cheekily. “I like him.”

  Her tone said What are you going to do about it, big guy?

  “I could crush him like nothing,” I growled.

  She laughed. A very feminine laugh that did something below my stomach.

  “You sound like a jealous boyfriend.”

  “I am your boyfriend.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “What? No, you’re not!”

  She was right,
but that hurt a little. She didn’t sound repulsed by the idea, so I figured I still had a chance. I’d have to convince her.

  “You don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Not yet.”

  She was teasing me, baiting me to respond. She knew I was jealous, and this was driving me crazy, but she wouldn’t show any mercy.

  I guessed I deserved that. Again, I wisely kept my mouth shut.

  She was wearing another dress today. It was pale pink, and she’d paired it with black stockings—the sheer kind. The kind that drove a man wild.

  My eyes roved down to her legs. She had long, long legs. Shapely ones. The skirt of her dress rode high above her upper thighs, showing the little sweet V shape where the length of her legs met. My hands itched to touch.

  “I’m hungry,” she said suddenly.

  I sucked at my bottom lip. Me too.

  “I have”—Jesus, my voice sounded rough—“some food in my cooler. It’s in the back.”

  “You bring a cooler to work?” There was curiosity in her voice. I didn’t realize how much it meant to me that she wanted to know me until she took it away earlier.

  “I have to eat something every hour or so,” I answered. “I get hungry a lot.”

  I could feel her eyes travel down my body.

  “I could see that.” She muttered something else under her breath that sounded like “Is that why you’re big?” but I couldn’t hear her properly.

  She unbuckled her seat belt and shifted so she could reach over the back seat, her arm accidentally grazing mine. I clenched my jaw.

  When she returned to her seat, she placed the cooler on her lap. She didn’t seem affected by that little contact. At all.

  “Seat belt,” I growled.

  She ignored me and opened the cooler.

  “Whoa. Did you put your fridge in here or what?”

  “I’m pulling over if you don’t put your seat belt on.”

  “Fine.” But it took her another minute before she did it.

  “Holy crap. These are some monster sandwiches. What kind are these?”

  I rarely cooked and I wasn’t very good at it either. I usually just slapped some bread, a lot of lean meat, and cheese together and called it a meal. There were probably five big sandwiches in the cooler. I wasn’t kidding when I told her I got hungry every hour.

  “Ham, chicken. I don’t know. Food stuff,” I said.

  “I’m vegetarian.”

  “What’s a vegetarian?”

  She glared at me for a moment, staring at my face, then laughed. “I’m serious. I’m hungry,” she grumbled.

  “There’s a service station up ahead. I’ll get you something there,” I said.

  She grabbed something in her purse, squirted something in her hand, and rubbed it all over them. It smelled like alcohol and peaches. A hand sanitizer probably.

  “So what should I get you?” I asked, wanting to keep her talking. The sadness in her voice was fading. I wanted her to be happy, like she was before. With me. “I’m not sure if they serve smoked wild alfalfa sprouts a la carte there, but I’ll try.”

  She pinched my arm.

  “Ouch!”

  That hurt. That really hurt. She wasn’t pulling any punches. I rubbed my arm, then quickly returned my hand to the steering wheel.

  “When I’m hungry, I become the Hulk. Don’t joke around. I’m serious.”

  I glanced at her and saw the little pout on her lips. Damn she was cute. I missed her. I missed her a damned lot.

  She was pulling the sandwiches apart, checking what was in them. “You have an egg sandwich?”

  “I thought vegetarians don’t eat eggs?”

  “You’re thinking of vegans. They don’t eat animal products at all. I’m a vegetarian. There are different kinds. My kind eats eggs, milk, and cheese.”

  I shrugged. “All right.” But I made a note of it.

  “So, any egg sandwiches here?” She was still rummaging.

  “That means boiling eggs, so no.”

  She sighed.

  “There are peaches,” I said quietly. I wondered if she’d figure out I ate them because of her, then I realized there was no way she’d know. “At the bottom of the cooler. Keep looking.”

  “No way. Cool.”

  I heard her biting on one, then she moaned.

  My mouth watered.

  “Omigod, these are so ripe. Yummy,” she said happily.

  “Give me one. I’m hungry now too.”

  I wasn’t sure if she would. We’d been apart for weeks, and I wasn’t sure how she would react to such an intimate request.

  When she offered it to me, I felt something warm inside my chest.

  I took a big bite, my tongue grazing her finger. She pulled away, and I could feel her intense gaze on my face. I pretended not to notice. I chewed, swallowed.

  “Again,” I said.

  “No.” She pulled away. She hadn’t forgiven me yet. I understood. But it made me…sad. And dampened the happy mood we had.

  It was all right. I would fix it soon.

  “My hands are sticky. I need tissues,” she said and opened my glove box. I heard her sharp inhale. She reached for something inside it.

  “I saw you wearing this on Monday,” she said. “Did you miss me that much?”

  She had the blue hair tie I stole from her in her hand. It had been a month ago, but it seemed longer than that. My eyes shifted to hers. Her hazel eyes were glittering. Grass green, I thought with a hitch in my heart, more than brown.

  “Yes,” I said gruffly.

  “Then why…”

  “I was an idiot. I’m sorry, Kara,” I whispered.

  I swallowed the tightness in my throat. I wanted to pull to the side of the road, park there, so I could right the wrongs that happened between us.

  “You made me worry,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” It seemed such an inconsequential word. I wanted to show her how I felt, not say it.

  “I don’t want your sorry,” she said. “I want an explanation.”

  I stopped myself from rubbing a hand over my face. “I’ll tell you what I can when we reach our destination.”

  She quieted, content for now. She wouldn’t be for long.

  The thought of opening up made my heart flip in my chest.

  I had seen psychiatrists when I was a kid. My dad had insisted that Raven send me to see professionals after the incident when I was eight. When Raven refused, he threatened to take custody of me. That scared her into action.

  All of the doctors I’d seen tried their best to make me talk about what happened, but I had refused. In fact, I hadn’t talked for a couple of years after the incident.

  I still didn’t want to. But for Kara I would try.

  It hurt to talk about it. Every time I thought about it or tried to talk about it, it felt like there was a pit of nothingness in my stomach and acid was filling it up.

  She perked up in her seat when I turned my signal on, slowed down, and pulled up to a service station.

  “What do you want to eat?” I unbuckled my seat belt, grabbed my wallet from the compartment in the middle console. “I’ll get it. Stay here.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said and simply jumped out of the truck.

  I smiled. She didn’t like to be told what to do and would do the opposite if I even brought it up.

  She looked exhausted. I wondered if she’d been picking up shifts at the nursing home again, if she’d quit her job at the coffee shop. Hopefully now that she worked for Rick, that would lessen.

  “How long is the drive to this place?” she asked as she went straight to the small eatery beside the service station.

  “About another hour.”

  Her eyes widened in alarm. “What? What time do you expect u
s to go home tonight?”

  “I’ll take you home.”

  “I thought it was a half hour away or something. What about my car?”

  “It’ll be there in the morning. I’ll give you a ride. Don’t worry about it. Grab your snacks and let’s go.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Fine.” I hid my smile.

  I’d keep telling her what to do. I wouldn’t be able to help it just as she wouldn’t be able to help throwing it back to my face. It was perfect.

  “Fine,” she said, just for the hell of it.

  She always wanted the last word. With me, anyway.

  She took her time, and I could tell it was because she was still upset. She could be exasperating, but even that I liked about her. I liked everything about her.

  I bought a few things from the convenience store and stored them in the back seat. She munched on tofu hot dogs and sweet potato fries when we were back on the road.

  “I like that they had that small eatery beside the service station.”

  “It’s for truck drivers mainly.”

  She nodded, took a big bite of her hot dog bun. “The older woman who owns it said her husband was a truck driver, and she knew how hard it was to find a hot meal on the road, so she’d set up the eatery. Isn’t that nice?”

  “You got all that from buying your hot dog and fries?”

  She sipped her drink. “You’d be surprised what people will tell you if you ask.”

  I kept quiet.

  “Are we there yet?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “How long still?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “Come on. Tell me.”

  She tugged on my shirt and I threw her a look. She was smiling like a little girl. She was playing with me.

  “I hope this night doesn’t end,” I whispered.

  “Sorry, what did you say?”

  She didn’t hear me. “Soon,” I said instead.

  “I’m feeling sleepy, Cameron.”

  My throat felt tight. She said my name. She must be really tired because I hadn’t heard her say my name for what felt like a long time.

  “Go ahead and take a nap. I’ll wake you when we get there.”

  I thought that she had fallen asleep, but she mumbled something. Maybe she was dreaming. Her voice was too low, and I couldn’t hear her. And then she said it again.