While scanning in his purchases, the kid looked up at him. “Did you get everything you were looking for?”
“No, but I’ll be back later.”
Chapter Nine
It surprised Ruby not at all that when she headed out of the shop that night, Nate was waiting for her, leaning up against a late-model Volvo SUV, looking stupidly handsome. He’d showered and changed clothes since she saw him earlier, though now he was in khaki shorts and a polo shirt instead of athletic shorts and a tee. He looked…delicious. And like heartbreak waiting to happen.
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?”
Ruby narrowed her eyes at him. “If you think showing up on time once is going to—”
He shook his head. “I don’t. My plan is to show up here every day you work, rain or shine, ask you how your day’s been, and then… Well, my plan had been to walk you to your car, but I don’t see your car anywhere. Do you live close enough to walk?”
Pleasure warred with mortification. It was one fucking day, but…he’d showed up. He was making an effort. It didn’t count for a lot, but it counted for something. And fuck it all, it was flattering, it made her feel good, and she’d take that anywhere she could get it.
“Yes, I do. So, uh, thanks. My day was fine, and I’ll see you around.”
There. That was polite and noncommittal. Didn’t sound at all as if she was all atwitter. Which she fucking wasn’t.
But of course, Nate Carter was not one to be dissuaded by a polite blow-off. She was beginning to get the impression that he wouldn’t be discouraged by much of anything, for better or for worse.
“Great, then I’ll walk you home.”
“You really don’t need to do that.” And by didn’t need to, she meant she didn’t want him to. He probably expected that when she said she lived within walking distance, that she lived around the corner or a few streets away. She did not. She meant it in a very literal way. It was possible to walk to her house. And since gas was not an expense that she could afford right now, she would do it.
“I know I don’t need to. I have no doubt you could take care of any scoundrel or rogue who might roam this town and who was foolish enough to accost you. But I’d very much like to. So lead the way.”
Nate was an odd duck. Sometimes he was fucking her like some kind of sex prodigy in the back of her car, and sometimes he was spouting lines like a Regency romance hero. She liked it. A quick check of her phone told her it didn’t matter if she liked it or not because she was going to be later than she’d told Chloe if she didn’t start hoofing it right now. And while lateness would be forgiven because of the two packages of shrimp ramen she’d managed to score at the grocery store on her lunch break—thank you, two-for-fifty-cents sale bin—she didn’t want her daughter to worry.
“Suit yourself.”
She forced herself not to look over her shoulder to see if he was following her as she strode out of the parking lot. But a few seconds later, there was the sound of someone breaking into a jog, and then Nate was by her side.
“Tell me about your day. I mean, I know some jerk came in and bugged you while you strung his racquet—that’s not a euphemism, by the way, although it’d be a good one—but aside from that, how were things?”
The side-eye she gave him was pretty epic. How could a guy who built robots be interested in hearing about what a simple retail monkey did all day? Would he pity her and then not show up tomorrow because her job was boring and anyone could do it? Had Nate Carter ever had a minimum-wage job? Had he ever scooped ice cream or waited tables for a summer? Or was he always off at fucking yacht camp until he got some fancy internship or some shit?
Tiny waves of embarrassment had started lapping at her feet back at the shop, and now the waves were up to her chest. It was almost hard to walk. But then there was a nudge at her biceps.
“You were awesome at that, by the way. I’ve watched a lot of racquets get strung and done a bunch myself, and you made it look easy. Do you do a lot of them?”
Oh. “Some. Summer’s obviously our busy time, though I get some over the winter when people travel to resorts. It took a lot of practice, but once you’ve got it down, there’s a nice rhythm to it, you know?”
Nate nodded, his head bobbing, and he looked so…easy. “I worked at a country club for a few summers, and they had a pro shop there. I’m rusty now, but I used to be almost as good as you. Do you play, too?”
A snort escaped her nose in an unflattering way. Her, play tennis? “Uh, no. I just string racquets for people who do.”
“So besides that annoying but handsome gentleman whose racquet you so thoroughly strung, were your customers well-behaved?”
“I didn’t have too many more, actually. I spent most of my day getting some of our winter inventory that just arrived tagged and sorted, entered into the system, and stored. Nothing exciting.”
“But satisfying, right? I enjoy doing that kind of stuff. Not all the time because it can get a little mind-numbing, but it can be awesome to organize stuff. Categorize it and then complete a task. Not when I’m doing lessons at camp, obviously, because so many of my students are only there for a week, but at my other job, a lot of my projects go on so long that I rarely get to say something is finished.”
They kept walking, kept chatting. Nate was easy to talk to. Partly because he could talk incessantly without coming across as one of those jackasses who couldn’t shut up about themselves and how awesome they were. Partly because his conversation was liberally sprinkled with questions, and not once did he ask if they were at her house. For forty-five minutes, and a little over two miles, dude just walked. And talked. Asked no questions about if they were there yet, didn’t check his phone. Besides good times with Chloe—because god knows not all times with a child are good times—this was probably the most she’d enjoyed herself in a very long time.
It was tempting not to let him walk her up to her doorstep. To insist he leave and go back to the shop to pick up his fancy car with its no doubt full gas tank. And if it wasn’t full, it wasn’t because he couldn’t afford to fill it. He’d do it too, if she pushed hard enough. He might go for the hard sell, but there was something about his constant chattering and easygoing-ness with the rest of what she’d thrown at him that said if she really put her foot down, he’d listen.
But what was the sense of making him leave now? If Nate did show up every day—as he likely would—and walked her home, one day they’d kiss and she’d want to invite him back to her place—say if Chloe were at a friend’s house or something—and she’d want to do more than kiss. She’d want to do it in a place other than the back of Clementine, and she’d probably never feel comfortable at Camp Firefly Falls. So why not let him see where she lived so he could wrinkle his nose or, if she was lucky, keep a carefully blank expression and then not show up at the store tomorrow.
Fuck it. She’d let him walk her right up to the front door that needed a pane of glass replaced because Chloe had broken it when she’d hit a softball through it, and a pane of glass cost how much plus some guy to come and install it? Until she could afford to fix it, which would likely be never, it was a piece of Plexiglas duct-taped to the door and colored on with window markers by Chloe herself. Fucking let Nate Carter see that now before she got any ideas in her head about how nice it would be to do this again tomorrow. And the next day. And maybe the day after that.
She kept her gaze fixed on his face as they approached the house, pulled taut like a bow and just waiting to be released. But although he must be able to see Clementine parked to the side of the house, straddling some grass that could use a mow, he didn’t say anything. That wasn’t quite true. He was yammering on like a noisy bird in the early hours of the morning when you were just trying to get one more frigging hour of sleep, but he didn’t say a damn thing about her house. About the rest of the houses on her street, about any of her neighborhood. No, he just walked with her right up into her
overgrown front yard and, when they got to the first stepping stone in the walk, stopped rather abruptly.
Here it came. Great, so, uh, guess I’ll see you around. And he never would. He’d seen where she lived, what she was, and it didn’t interest him. He could go fuck himself with that attitude because she didn’t have time for people who looked down on her for busting her ass and trying to make a life for herself and Chloe however she damn well could.
But Nate cocked his head toward the house and put his hands in his pockets. “We’ve got an audience.”
They sure did. Chloe’s mischievous and oh-so-curious eyes peeked out from over the top of the couch, and her ponytail sprung from the top of her head. Clearly she’d redone it herself at some point today.
Ruby smiled and waved at her daughter and then held up a finger. It was bad enough that she’d get peppered with questions when she went inside, but she didn’t need Chloe coming out and interrogating Nate. She’d probably ask him about his intentions or something equally mortifying. And she didn’t want Chloe getting attached. Even a little. Chloe had only met a couple of her boyfriends because the rest hadn’t been worth introducing. They hadn’t made the cut. Her kid deserved better.
Ruby spread an arm toward the house, her child, encompassing. “Welcome to my life.”
Nate smiled at her in a way that made her feel as though he didn’t mind—maybe even liked?—what he saw. She kinda hated him for it. There was no way this ended well, and she didn’t really appreciate him trying to convince her otherwise. But she wouldn’t snap his head off for trying to be a good guy.
“I better get back to camp. Ginger is making shrimp scampi tonight, and it’s one of my favorites. Don’t want to be late and miss it. Do you get out of work same time tomorrow?”
Even though his blue eyes were sincere, she wanted to call him on this. For what? Are you actually going to show up? And if you do, how long are you going to do this for before you figure out that chasing after a single mom was not your best-laid plan? Even if we go out a few times, how are you going to feel when I have to cancel because Chloe’s got a summer cold and doesn’t want me to leave? Does hanging out on the couch with maybe a pizza if I’m splurging, watching one of our old DVDs because I can’t afford cable sound like a good time?
But Nate was trying to be kind, and she’d let him at least pretend to be a good dude. Something would come up, and sooner or later, he’d get sick of this routine.
“No. It’s three o’clock tomorrow, because Chloe has riding lessons at four thirty.”
Nate nodded, pulled his phone from his pocket, pressed something, and then swiped at the screen before turning it toward her. There was a screen filled with colors and lines, and it took her a second to decipher. His calendar. For tomorrow. And from two forty until five thirty was now a red block, labeled Ruby.
She also made an approving note that he hadn’t made any kind of face when she said Chloe was riding. She got that a lot. From her parents, from people in town. How could Chloe take horseback riding lessons if they were actually poor? Riding was expensive. It sure as fuck was, but Chloe loved it beyond reason, and if she could give her kid one frigging thing that made her happy when she otherwise so often went without things other kids had, then Ruby was damn well going to bust her ass to do it.
“Cool. See you then. Have a good night, Ruby.” He smiled and waved at Chloe, who was still watching them, which of course caused her to duck below the sash of the window to hide. A smile curled Ruby’s lips. Little weirdo.
“You too, Nate.”
And as he turned to walk back toward his car, still parked at Landry’s, she added a silent goodbye.
Chapter Ten
It had been raining all afternoon. It had been raining all afternoon, and yet she was humming. Ruby didn’t hum, especially not when sorting socks. But here she was, putting the things back in their proper bins so that when the kids came looking for their soccer knee-highs to go over their shin guards, they’d be able to find the right color in the right size. She should remake the labels, because as usual the punks had written disparaging things on the signs she’d affixed to the bins to denote which socks matched which school or league uniforms.
She couldn’t get too mad, though. Back in high school she would’ve been one of those delinquents scrawling smack about her school’s rivals, not the store employee complaining about the damn kids.
She made a note in the little flipbook she kept in her pocket and then tucked it back where it had come from. It was pouring rain, the store was dead, and she was…happy. And it was all Nate Carter’s fucking fault. He’d shown up every goddamn day for the past three weeks, walked her home without complaint, and then walked back to Landry’s and presumably headed back to camp.
On their walks, he’d chatter away, seeming to sense which days she was too tired to contribute much and which days she had something—or a lot of somethings—to say. He and Chloe would wave at each other, but he never brought anything for her—sometimes boyfriends had tried to bribe their way into Chloe’s heart with baubles and that made Ruby uncomfortable on several levels. She was glad she’d never had to tell Nate to stop. Nor did he bring Ruby presents, which was also good because she wouldn’t be able to accept anything from him.
The movie she had of what it would be like to be in Nate’s car with him this afternoon, though? It would be a small treat she allowed herself, letting him drive her home in his shiny new car without kid detritus littering the backseat. She’d known it was going to rain, and that had been her first thought: I get to be in a car with Nate. Yes, it was a shorter timeframe than when he walked her home, but she’d bet his car smelled like him, and there was something intimate about being in an enclosed space with a man. Plus, it was one of the very few ways in which she could bring herself to let him do something nice for her.
Rainy days would suck extra bad when he’d gone back up to Boston because she’d have to walk home in her raincoat and the wellies with a hole in them that she’d tried to patch with duct tape on the inside and her umbrella that was coming apart. Or she’d have to bite the bullet and drive Clementine to work. But for the moment? She’d let him. Let him drive her home. Almost as though they’d been on a date. But it was better than that. It wasn’t just a date that she’d go out on, and then it would be over because there had been some first dates in the past several years, but rarely a second.
Nate, though, had been showing up for almost a month now. Just like he’d promised to. And that was…well, it had her humming, so there was that.
Maybe she’d kiss him when he dropped her off. It was raining so hard that Chloe wouldn’t be able to see them clearly, and hell, she just…wanted to.
Tess’s voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that the store would be closing in fifteen minutes and requesting that shoppers bring their items to the checkout desk. As far as Ruby could tell, they didn’t have any customers, but it was also possible she hadn’t noticed because she was too busy daydreaming about her knight in shining Volvo coming to pick her up.
She finished sorting the dozen pairs of socks she still had in her lap and then hefted herself up from the floor, dusted off her backside. Time to punch out, and then it would be time to see Nate.
Twenty minutes later, though, and there was no sign of him. The rain was still coming down, but there was no silver SUV in the parking lot. Nor were there any messages on her phone, voice or text.
She’d guarded her number as carefully as anything else, but Nate had wheedled it out of her all the same and didn’t abuse the privilege. He occasionally sent her pictures from camp, without comment and seemingly without expectation of a response. Sometimes on their walk to her house he’d tell her about the sunrise off a dock he’d photographed—captured at early morning yoga he suffered through because his friend Birk had dared him to—but sometimes not. It was sweet. And easy. It didn’t matter that she smiled now whenever she felt her phone buzz in her pocket with a text.
It
was ridiculous to be as disappointed and devastated as she was that he hadn’t shown up. What had she expected? Nate had seemed too good to be true, and it was finally turning out he was. He’d jumped through her hoops and followed her rules and shown up every day for nearly a month. And yet now he was notably absent. On a day when it was raining cats and dogs. She’d brought her raincoat, but not her wellies or her umbrella because she’d been so certain he’d be here.
This was what happened when you relied on people other than yourself.
Ruby took one last look outside to make sure she wasn’t missing Nate’s car, but she was fooling herself. If he’d showed up, he would’ve come to the front door with a giant golf umbrella and walked her out to his warm, waiting car. He wasn’t here.
She zipped her coat all the way up her throat and pulled the strings to tighten the hood in the hopes that it would help keep her hair dry-ish. And then—wearing sneakers, because she was a naïve moron who should know better than to trust her own judgment—she walked out the door and sucked in a breath. The rain was even colder than it had seemed from inside. And now she was going to walk two miles in it.
Goddamn you, Nate Carter.
***
Fuck. Fuck, shit, and damn.
Nate’s phone shook in his hands, or rather, his hands shook and the phone followed suit. Adrenaline served a purpose, but goddamn the comedown was hard on a guy. And now, not only was he starting to go into withdrawal from that delightful chemical, but he was realizing that he was late. He was really fucking late and it was raining and Ruby was going to murder him. Nah, if he was lucky, Ruby would murder him. If he were unlucky, she wouldn’t even acknowledge his existence, and that woman had such a power of mind it wouldn’t surprise him if she’d be able to walk right through him after deciding he simply didn’t exist.
Leaning up against the wood wall of the main lodge, he took a few deep breaths and tried to tame the shuddering. He wanted to leave at this very second, but it wasn’t going to do anyone a bit of good if he was so ramped up that he drove carelessly and wrecked. So he waited, toe tapping, until there was only a small tremor left in his hands. Then he dragged on his raincoat and loped over to the staff parking lot, slamming the door of the car as he got inside.
Love, All (Camp Firefly Falls Book 19) Page 7
