Start Me Up

by Victoria Dahl

  She grinned on a rush of relief. “That’s all I needed. Thanks.”

  His smile didn’t match hers. He didn’t look relieved at all. “Lori…” he said, a sort of a question in his voice that faded away before he could ask it.

  Crap. He must suspect she was up to something. She tried very hard not to look at the file. What kind of a girl planned on stealing something from a man she was sleeping with, anyway?

  He met her eyes briefly before his gaze drifted to the ground.

  Maybe he had something to hide. Maybe he was sleeping with her just so he could get access to the exact dimensions of her property! Bastard!

  “Lori,” he started again. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh?”

  “Last night was…”

  She blinked, trying to keep her eyes in her head despite the abrupt subject change. She’d been worrying about the wrong thing. “Yeah?” she croaked. Last night was what? Amazing? Scary? The kind of freak show he never thought he’d get himself involved in?

  A change of subject had seemed ideal, yet now Lori thought longingly of the top secret real estate minefield she’d been tiptoeing through.

  “Last night was fun. More than fun.”

  “Um…Thanks.”

  His eyes rose to meet hers. “It’s all been more than fun.”

  “Thank you. Again.” Premonition made her skin tighten with anxiety. “And I agree. This has been great. You’ve been great. Definitely.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her as if he were trying to figure something out. Her face flushed and the heat seeped inside her, leaching deep into her body.

  She said, “Anyway,” about to break for the door and make her escape, but Quinn interrupted her flight.

  “I think we should give this a chance.”

  The words fell into the room like a rock. A heavy rock that might break something if it kept rolling toward Lori. She took a step back and shook her head. “What?”

  “We should give this a chance. Us, I mean.”

  “Um…”

  “It doesn’t have to be a summer fling. It could be more. A lot more.”

  The rock rolled solidly onto her chest and sat there, defying the laws of gravity. Molly had been right. Quinn’s temper had been a very bad sign.

  She said, “No,” just because that’s all she could get out.

  “Come on. We’re great together. We’ve known each other since you could walk. The sex is amazing.” His smile screamed nervousness. “And we’re friends.”

  “This is…” She swallowed against something solid lodged in her throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This can’t be anything more.”

  “Why?”

  “Um…because I won’t see you for at least six months while the pass is closed?”

  Quinn shrugged as if that was nothing. “Plenty of people have long-distance relationships.”

  “Yeah, in college. And those usually work out so well.”

  “Lori, we’re not in college. We’re adults. There’s no reason we couldn’t make it work. We could make an effort to see each other every few weeks, at least.”

  She stood up too fast and had to put a hand on the desk to steady herself. “No, that’s not what this is. I made that clear to you. You volunteered to have a purely sexual relationship with me. I can’t handle anything more. My life is a complete mess.”

  “So? This doesn’t have to be a messy part of it.”

  “‘So?’ That’s it? That’s your response?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. I’m not asking you to marry me, Lori. I just want to keep seeing you.”

  Okay. Okay, maybe her panic was a bit of an over-reaction. Quinn was right. He wasn’t asking to marry her. He hadn’t even mentioned love. So why was her heart throwing a tantrum in her chest, screaming for her to run, run, run?

  “Let’s not argue, all right?” Quinn said softly, any sign of a smile long gone from his face. “I didn’t mean this to be some grand declaration. Just think about it. That’s all. No big deal.”

  What kind of a person was she that she just wanted to shout “No!” and stomp from the room? He was being reasonable, though he had gone back on the whole premise for this relationship. In the end she only nodded and tried to ignore the rabid butterflies dive-bombing her stomach.

  Quinn wasn’t in love with her. He hadn’t said that at all. The man just wanted to draw out his encounter with a kink-obsessed, no-strings-attached lover. What guy wouldn’t want that?

  When Quinn mentioned breakfast again, Lori jumped on the chance to leave this horrible subject behind.

  Everything was going to be just fine. The meaningless, mind-blowing sex would continue, and no one would get hurt.

  No harm, no foul.

  LORI PULLED INTO her deserted lot with a sigh of relief. It was only seven in the morning, and she was stuffed full of pancakes, physically exhausted and still reeling from the emotional roller coaster of being Quinn Jennings’s lover. Regardless of those tense minutes in his office, they’d managed to get in a few more orgasms before they’d made it to the kitchen. A much better way to change the subject, and she’d been sure to convey her gratefulness to Quinn.

  But all in all, she was glad she’d escaped without more deep talk. She couldn’t handle sincerity right now. She just couldn’t. And she’d cut off any chance of that on her way out of his house by sprinting upstairs to steal the Anton/Bliss file. She couldn’t possibly have deep feelings for a man if she was willing to steal from him, right? And Quinn would never love her if he found out about it. Not only was the file a good clue, it was also an insurance policy against an unwelcome complication.

  The stolen item in her hand reminded her of just how screwed up her life was, so Lori gave more than a passing look to the yard of the garage as she headed for her front door. Everything looked fine. No further destruction had befallen the property during her night away.

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open, trying to ignore the sadness of the room that greeted her. It was almost noon, but her house was dark and silent. No family or friends inside. No cheerful kitchen or bright garden awaiting her attention. Just her sad, brown couch sitting on her sad, brown carpet. Hell, even her walls were looking slightly muddy.

  A redecoration was long overdue. First, she’d waited because it was her father’s home. Regardless of whether he’d be conscious of it or not, it would have been wrong to change his home around him, even if she’d had the time or money to do so.

  And now that he was gone, why hadn’t she changed anything?

  Lori set down her purse with a sigh. She still didn’t have any money, but that wasn’t truly the reason. She could paint, at least. Put away the bowling trophies and buy a damn slipcover for that horrendous couch. But she didn’t. Because sprucing this place up was a clear admission that she meant to stay. Making her father’s house into her own would be a declaration: this is my place in this world. This town, this house, this work is mine.

  And though she was afraid to leave—even though she couldn’t leave—neither could she take the steps that would mean staying.

  Like redecorating. Settling down. Falling in love.

  Her life was in permanent limbo.

  “God, I am a grade A loser,” Lori muttered, kicking off her heels. But she was a loser who’d had her world rocked the night before, and that was something.

  Her cell was almost out of power, so Lori headed straight for the kitchen to plug it in, wrinkling her nose a bit at the heavy tinge of oil in the air. Another strike against her home design skills. Motor oil probably wasn’t nearly as popular a scent as vanilla or lavender. Still, if she bought some nice candles, there was the danger the whole place would blow. Even if the petroleum fumes didn’t catch fire, the ancient layers of dust might.

  When she drew a deep breath, meaning to heave a loud, pitiful sigh, fumes stung her nose. “What the…” That was definitely not normal. Even she wouldn’t live in a house that smelled like a working refinery.
Lori dropped her phone on the counter and yanked open the door to the garage office.

  Thick air cascaded over her, making her cough, but the source wasn’t the office. Everything looked in place and normal. She rushed for the next door, her mind perfectly blank. The blankness stayed when she opened the door. Nothing registered. She took one step down and stopped.

  Swirls of gold and black twisted across the floor of the garage, deepening to dark brown sludge near the drain. She stared for a long time before she realized that the swirls were actually liquid. Oil. One of her oil barrels had sprung a leak.

  “Oh, no,” she moaned. Despair traveled up her chest and spun through her head as she looked over the damage. The horror slowed down the workings of her brain, so it took her a moment to process what her eyes told her. In fact, she was staring at an overturned barrel for quite a long time before her mind signaled alarm.

  It wasn’t a leak at all. Her gaze skipped from left to right, feeding her more information. Not just one overturned barrel, but three. Both of the most popular weights of motor oil, plus the barrel that stored the used oil for recycling. All of them had been unplugged and dumped. Her gaze kept moving, touching on various things. The clogged drain, the cover of the work pit, the workings of the air pressure system, now two inches deep in oil. How was she supposed to clean this up? How was she supposed to fix this?

  She took another step down, then stopped herself. The phone. Her boots. When she turned, her legs protested the weight, trembling beneath her, but she could hardly feel it. And it didn’t matter. Shaky or not, they worked, and soon enough, she’d pulled on her unlaced boots and grabbed the phone.

  “I need to report an act of vandalism,” she said to the dispatcher. She gave the details she thought necessary, then hung up. Her jaw hurt, her throat burned, and further talking was simply out of the question.

  She needed to get fresh air in here, and there seemed to be a relatively dry path around the far edge of the room. As her phone rang in her hand, Lori stepped down and picked her way toward the cabinets on the far wall. She was almost there, just passing the damaged air pressure system, when she got careless. She put her foot down too casually, didn’t balance it just right, and began to slide. Suddenly, her legs were in front of her.

  Lori reached out, trying to catch herself as she went down, but instead she punched the bolted edge of the air tank. Her hand exploded in pain and she kept falling. A deep, fleshy thunk filled her head just before the world went cool and black and liquid around her.

  “LORI? LORI! DAMN IT, FRANK, be careful. I don’t need you hurt, too. Lori, can you hear me?”

  Lori ignored Ben’s voice and concentrated on trying not to throw up. Her head was rolling. Then again, her body was moving pretty uncertainly, too. She felt whoever was carrying her slide in slow motion, then catch himself before falling. Though she thought about being worried, she couldn’t summon the will.

  Eventually, the world steadied around her. Heat soaked into her back and she felt concrete against her skin. Her front sidewalk, all warm and cozy in the afternoon sun, just like it had been after she’d run through the sprinkler as a little girl. She was sighing with pleasure when a hand gripped hers and set bone scraping against bone.

  “Ah!” she screamed. “Fuck!” The words hurt her head, and Lori was suddenly furious. “Let go!”

  “Lori,” Ben’s voice murmured, warm with relief. “Thank God. What happened?”

  “My hand,” she groaned, and the fingers let her go.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. The ambulance should be here any minute.”

  “Don’t need an ambulance.”

  “Quiet.”

  An extraordinarily annoying mosquito began to buzz in her ear. She tried to brush at it before it got louder and turned into a siren. Too many people surrounded her. Something cold slid under the neckline of her dress. A metallic snick rang in her ears.

  “What the hell?” she cursed, struggling to sit up.

  “Lori,” Ben Lawsons’s voice cut in. “They need to get the dress off you or the oil could hurt your skin.”

  She looked down at herself, at the strange sight of her new dress paired with steel-toed boots, like a candid peek into her recent life. But now her beautiful blue dress was soaked with grease and cut at the neckline and even the boots looked ruined.

  “Fine. Just get me a blanket, would you?”

  The paramedics handed her a blanket and Ben moved away to talk on the phone. Her blood pressure was measured, her neck braced, her hand splinted. More lights flashed as she lay staring at the overhang of her house. These lights weren’t like the others. They were orange.

  “Who’s that?” she asked no one, not expecting a reply, but Ben answered from somewhere behind her.

  “It’s the county. They’re calling up the EPA to monitor the spill.”

  “Oh, son of a bitch. This is just great.”

  “Can you tell me what happened before they cart you off to the hospital?”

  She gave him the short version. Heck, there wasn’t much to tell.

  “Were you at Quinn’s all night?”

  Her neck didn’t budge when she tried to nod. “Yeah.”

  And then Molly was there, crying and holding Lori’s unbroken hand, and it was such a relief to watch someone cry for her that Lori felt better even though her head was pounding. “Hey, Moll,” she murmured. “Say something funny.”

  Molly shook her head, but relented in the same moment. “Don’t go toward the light,” she sobbed.

  Even Lori herself couldn’t believe it when she managed a laugh. “Deal. I’ll tell my dad to go take a flying leap if I see him beckoning.”

  With a loud, wet sniff, Molly nodded. “Okay. Good.” She flipped open her phone, but kept a hold on Lori with her free hand. “I’ll call Quinn.”

  “No! Why?”

  “He should be here.”

  “He should not. He’s not my boyfriend. And anyway, he’s on his way out of town today.”

  Molly just looked at her, phone still menacingly open.

  “Do. Not. Call. Quinn.” Lori ground out.

  “He’ll be furious if I don’t.”

  Lori played her best card. “You’re making my head hurt with this shit!” She didn’t have to call tears to her eyes; they were already there, waiting.

  “Oh, God,” Molly gasped. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry. I won’t call him.” She closed the phone and put it away.

  Good.

  Lori wanted him here. Wanted to lean on him and let him take care of her. But after that conversation this morning, leaning on Quinn wasn’t an option. That kind of thing led to crying and cuddling and quiet moments and deep talks. That kind of thing led to love. And if she’d thought her life was screwed up this morning…Well, this afternoon it was completely in the ditch, engulfed in flames. There was no room for company.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT’S mouth was moving. “Have a nice day,” she might be saying. Or “Thank you for flying with us.” Whatever it was, Quinn couldn’t hear it past the rush of hot blood pounding against his ears. He could only respond to her by politely aiming his glare in another direction.

  After Vancouver, the Colorado air felt thin against his skin as he descended the narrow steps to the tarmac. Too thin to cool him down. When he’d called Ben and accidentally stumbled onto the news of Lori’s accident, his only emotion had been fear. Once Ben had assured him that Lori was out of danger and everything was fine, his stark fear had been replaced with worry for Lori and hurt that she hadn’t called him.

  But throughout the afternoon as he’d tried in vain to arrange an earlier flight home, as he’d left message after message for Lori, as he’d slowly worked his way across the continent from Vancouver to Denver and Denver to Aspen, anger had built inside him. It seemed that getting closer to Tumble Creek was like drawing closer to a red-hot grill. From a distance it looked like nothing…no flames, little smoke. But a closer view revealed waves
of shimmering air over the glowing coals. Closer still and you stumbled onto the sudden danger of a blast of superheated air singeing all the hair off your body. Quinn wouldn’t have been surprised to look into a mirror and find that his eyebrows had vanished in the heat of his own fury.

  Thanks to the small proportions of the Aspen airport, Quinn was in his car and headed closer to the source of his anger within a few minutes. Twenty more minutes—most of which he couldn’t recall later—and Quinn’s tires were throwing up gravel in the lot of Love’s Garage. The sun glinted like flames off of the wind-shields of the parked vehicles as he slammed out of his car and headed for Lori’s house.

  He wasn’t the only one angry with her, apparently. As he approached, he could hear the sound of shouting from within.

  “But what the hell were you thinking, trying to walk through that mess?” a man’s voice boomed, the words carrying easily through an open window in the living room.

  Lori’s reply was too soft to hear.

  “You could have killed yourself.”

  Whatever she said, it was dismissive.

  “Damn it, just sell that land and get out already. I don’t even care if it’s me anymore, just get the best price you can and get out of here.”

  Frowning even harder now, Quinn banged on the door. The voices froze. When the door opened, it was Lori’s mechanic, Joe, holding the knob. “Hey,” he said. After a glance back at the couch, Joe shook his head and brushed past Quinn. “I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

  Quinn just stood there in the open door, staring over the back of the couch at the top of Lori’s head. She must know it was him. He’d left enough messages letting her know he was on the way.

  More than twenty-four hours had passed since her accident. More than twenty-four hours and she hadn’t called. Hell, he’d still been in town when she’d been hurt.

  Quinn closed the door softly, his hand shaking. “Are you all right?” he asked first.

  Her head nodded.