Nobody's Princess

by Sarah Hegger

  Back to the iPad and she read some more. So, if she rotated the line about its center, it would sweep out a circle whose area was … she looked at her formula … π… what?

  Numbers, order, it flowed into her like good whisky, sliding down your windpipe and settling in your stomach with a delicious burn.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tiffany peeked at Thomas’s chest across the table.

  Dear Algebra, said his tee, Stop asking us to find your X—she’s not coming back.

  She’d never wear it, but she wanted that T-shirt. Her morning had rocked along nicely so far. She’d slept well, and the diner made her an egg white omelet with vegetables. It had taken some time to rouse Dakota out of bed and get him to come to breakfast. Fortunately the lure of food got him up and running.

  Dakota and Thomas tucked into the All-American: two eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and hash browns. Didn’t they care what they put into their bodies? Then again, by the look of them, they didn’t have to. She bit into a piece of dry toast and chased it with black coffee.

  Dakota had forgone the makeup that morning, and it was much easier to see his resemblance to Luke without the thick black lines around his eyes. After breakfast, they took a walk to the repair shop.

  The sun warmed her legs exposed by her crisp linen shorts. Pairing them with a cool, floaty tank because of the heat, she’d lathered on the sunblock. Shorts and heels, a total no-no, so she’d sacrificed the heels for a pair of Ralph Lauren ballet flats.

  Families, out and about, transformed the town into a lively bustle. It was like she’d wandered onto the set of a forties sitcom. People actually nodded and greeted them.

  And Thomas greeted them all back. He even stopped once or twice to chat. God, where did he keep all this good cheer?

  The mechanic looked exactly the same as he had the day before. Down to the same coveralls pushed under his belly and, Tiffany swore, the exact same stains on his forearms. Something country crackled out of the radio. The Miura sat on the lift looking very vulnerable and alone. The VW bus seemed to have gone home.

  “Morning,” Thomas greeted him.

  “Clogged radiator.” The man sniffed and came out from behind the pick up. “Could flush her out, but your best bet is to get a new one.”

  Poof. Tiffany’s good mood disappeared.

  “How long?” Thomas rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Got to find the right part, order it, wait for it to get here, three days labor. I would say two weeks.”

  Forget good mood disappearing, now she was plain pissed.

  *

  Thomas dragged in a deep breath. He wanted to pick the mechanic up by his scruff and shake him. Two fucking weeks. He didn’t have anywhere close to two weeks. He’d spoken to his partners last night. They had the appointment with the Zambian minister next week. It had taken them months to find the right man to talk to, and now they had him. News was out and the big players were already sniffing around. He had to find Luke, get those survey results, and get them to Zambia. The other two were relying on him, killing time in a hotel in Lusaka.

  Three weeks he’d been stateside already, and the itch to get back to site chafed at him. It was what he did, out on site, sometimes with days separating him and the rest of the world. He liked it that way. Being back in the States choked him, made him restless.

  Beside him, Tiffany muttered beneath her breath. She might as well mutter. He had a word or two for her. Why had the stubborn woman insisted on getting in that pretty piece of a racing machine and gone screaming across the country? He could go on without her. No, I can’t. A deal was a deal, and leaving her there would be a dickhead thing to do. God, his conscience always sounded like his mother. “What should we do?” Way to go on keeping his temper out of his voice.

  “I don’t know what you’re going to do.” Her green eyes sparkled. “But I’m not waiting here for two weeks.”

  “You want to leave the car?”

  She tossed her head. “Are you nuts?”

  Thomas braced for whatever was coming. The brain of Tiffany seemed to be a dark and mysterious place. Every time he tried to get a bead on her, she shifted out of range. In their first meeting, he’d pinned her as Barbie, just like Dakota. He wasn’t so sure anymore. Barbie had sharp teeth and a look in her eyes that made him think again. Right now, she had her phone in her hand thumbing through her contacts. Looked like Barbie also had a plan.

  Hitting a contact, she put her phone to her ear. “Chuck, babe,” she said into the phone.

  Thomas had to roll his tongue back into his head. She stood right there and yet, he would swear another woman had materialized in front of him.

  “You’ll never guess who this is?” she said, her voice smooth like the stroke of velvet on naked skin.

  It was beyond freaky. Suddenly, she seemed to shimmer and sparkle and ooze fuckability. She’d caught him unawares yesterday in the desert. Watching it now, he felt a bit better about having fallen for it like a trout on a worm. Man, she was scary good at this shit.

  “Oh, babe, you’re too good to me.” Her giggle burned with naughty, sweaty sex, and pictures exploded behind Thomas’s eyes.

  Even Dakota watched her with mild curiosity.

  Chuck, whoever the hell he was, must be panting by now. At the same time, Thomas wanted to beat the shit out of Chuck for even thinking that way.

  The mechanic looked like he’d died and gone to heaven. The guy needed his jaw punched shut.

  Her legs went on forever in those teeny-tiny shorts. Thomas let his gaze roam up to the pert swell of her breasts. No bra straps over the smooth curve of her shoulders. He should look away, but then she started talking again.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to do something for me, babe.” Chuck got it with both barrels. A flutter of those dark lashes, and a pout that Chuck couldn’t see, but could certainly hear. “You’re a bad boy, Chuck.”

  Thomas could imagine what Chuck wanted her to do for him. He wanted to do much the same.

  “No, babe, I need a radiator for my sweet girl.” A pause while she listened. Her voice, when she spoke, rasped across the nape of his neck. “Really? Four days? Is that the best you can do?”

  She nodded as Chuck spoke.

  “Two?” She gave a little squeal. What would a man have to do to get her to make that noise again? Thomas shook his head. He must’ve wandered into a freaky parallel dimension.

  The mechanic took a few dazed steps closer to her. Pulled like metal to a magnet.

  “Oh, Chuck.” She made his name into a moan. “If you could do that for me, I’d be your slave for life.” A throaty giggle. “You’re so bad.”

  Another of those breathy giggles that shot straight to his dick. His only consolation was that the mechanic was catching flies with his mouth open. Thomas checked to make sure his own mouth was shut.

  “And you can send it to me here?” The words said one thing, but the voice said something entirely different. “Where? Just a minute.” She pulled the phone away from her ear and turned to the starstruck mechanic. “Where are we?”

  “Youngtown, Utah,” he said.

  She repeated the address into the phone. “Two days would be wonderful, Chuck, but tomorrow would make me your girl for life! I know you will.” She did a little purr thing and hung up. “Chuck says he’ll try to get the radiator here by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Thomas gave his head a quick shake. “I’m sure he did.”

  She turned back to the mechanic. “Will that be good?”

  “Sure.” The mechanic swallowed. “I’ll put her right up and get her done.”

  “You would?” Had she been possessed by the spirit of Marilyn Monroe? “That would be wonderful.”

  The mechanic sucked in his gut and pushed the flab into his chest. “No need to thank me, ma’am. Keeping my customers happy is my number one priority.”

  “I can see that.” She put her slim hand on the mechanic’s forearm.

  The man puffed up
like he’d just single-handedly won World War Three.

  “Right.” Tiffany turned, and triumph sparkled in those incredible eyes. “What shall we do with the rest of the day?”

  A reluctant smile threatened his face. He tugged it back down. She had an honest-to-God super power going on there. “Not all men fall for that shit.”

  She tossed her glossy black hair with a smile that made him want to sit up and beg. “Wanna bet?”

  He grunted. Because, no, he did not want to bet on that.

  Dakota sucked a breath between his teeth. “Fucking freaky.”

  *

  “Ever seen the Grand Canyon?” Thomas looked up from the map in his hand. Her map, the one that was supposed to get her all the way to Canyons. Tiffany stared at him. Was this a trick question? “No.”

  She peered over her shoulder at Dakota, who shrugged.

  “Wanna go?”

  “To the Grand Canyon?”

  “Yeah.” Thomas waved the map around, all perky and excited. It was kind of infectious. “It’s about three hours’ drive from here. Well, the North Rim is. I’ve never seen it, you’ve never seen it, and I’ll bet Dakota hasn’t either.”

  Dakota jammed his Beats over his head. “I don’t do nature.”

  Thomas pushed them off his ears. “You don’t want to come?”

  “No.” Dakota’s expression dissolved into open scorn.

  The frown on Thomas’s face looked as if such a thing fell beyond the limit of possible.

  “Hang on, Sparky.” Tiffany needed to get her vote in here and fast before Thomas had them abseiling off the side of a mountain. “I never said I wanted to go either.”

  His shoulders drooped. “Why not?”

  Tiffany opened her mouth to tell him and then shut it again. She really didn’t have a reason why not. They’d pretty much seen all there was to see of Young town, and there was only so long she could spend in her motel room. It was the kind of day that seemed to be made for a trip somewhere. “Okay, then.” She shrugged. “Let’s go and see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.”

  And just like that the sun came out over Thomas’s face again.

  “Count me out,” Dakota said.

  “But you can’t stay here.” Tiffany tried to picture leaving Dakota on the God-fearing streets of Youngtown and failed.

  “Why not?”

  “We can’t leave you on your own in a motel room.” If Dakota even stayed put.

  “I’m seventeen.” He sneered. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “He’s right.” Thomas engulfed Dakota’s shoulder in a meaty paw. “You won’t be too bored? The Grand Canyon is one of the natural wonders of the world.”

  Dakota shrugged as if it were a matter of complete indifference to him.

  Leaving him all by himself didn’t sit right with Tiffany. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

  Dakota turned his shoulder. A second later his Beats leaked the heavy bass throb of his music.

  “Do you think we should?” Tiffany studied Dakota’s back as he slouched away.

  “He’s seventeen,” Thomas said. “He can take care of himself for a few hours. Besides, look around you. Just how much trouble can anyone get into here?”

  It was an excellent point.

  “But I don’t hike.” Ground rules needed establishing here. “And I don’t go down gorges and things like that. We go, we look at the view, maybe take a few pictures, and come back.”

  *

  The Grand Canyon was spectacular. An awe-inspiring miracle of nature not in the least ruined by the throngs of people. Tiffany had a great day, as it turned out. Thomas’s infectious excitement swept everything along in its path. She called Dakota a couple of times to check up on him. He ignored the calls, but at least he responded to her three text messages.

  They drove back in the descending twilight, both of them dusty, tired, and relaxed. She didn’t even mind the layer of crud on her ballet flats. Her bag held a precious collection of pamphlets full of facts and figures. Thomas hadn’t questioned her need to have them, he’d collected her a whole bunch more.

  Tonight, she would enter them into her book, cross-check and investigate, play around with the numbers and see what happened. The perfect end to a great day, and most of that due to the man silently driving the truck. Thomas was so open in his reactions to everything, her guard slipped constantly. In the end, it became easier to go with his flow. Mostly. She’d barely stopped Thomas from signing them up for a white-water river trip.

  He took everything in, sucking up huge greedy gulps of the world around him. She’d never met anyone like him. If she’d been with Ryan or one of her friends from Chicago, it would’ve been a much more muted sort of day. Ryan didn’t get excited and, if he did, he certainly didn’t show it. Also, Ryan did Rome, Paris, London, and Venice. He did not do the Grand Canyon. And why not?

  The silky swish of the truck wheels on the road lulled her into a sort of meditation. Outside the window, parched desert flew past. Long shadows made grotesque shapes of the straggly trees in the ochre sand.

  Come to think of it, why hadn’t her father taken her to the Grand Canyon? There had been hundreds of families milling about. Little kids being toted along on their fathers’ shoulders or holding tight to their hands. Her heart gave a weird, little twinge. Daddy had taken her shopping in New York, to the theatre in London, even the opera in Rome—trips for a princess to her mother’s favorite cities. He’d never spent a day in the hot sun, eating ice cream and enjoying the simple awe of seeing something so incredible. She’d even let Thomas talk her into eating ice cream. It had seemed right somehow.

  “Can I ask you something?” Thomas broke into her thoughts.

  “Can I stop you?”

  The corner of his mouth tilted up. “That thing you did earlier, at the repair shop, it was the same thing you pulled on me by the side of the road. It was like it was you, but not you. Then today, you were completely different.”

  A bit of honesty couldn’t hurt. “Luke used to call her Delilah.”

  Thomas flashed a grin, but kept silent, waiting for her to go on.

  “I did a lot of beauty pageants when I was younger.” It sounded a little strange as she listened to her own words. “Delilah is sort of like a skin I can slip into. Every woman has an inner Delilah.”

  “Yeah.” Thomas laughed softly. “But yours is like a super power.”

  He said it as a joke. It wasn’t meant to hurt. She knew that, but a weight pressed against her chest and she wanted to cry. Just like that. Without really knowing why.

  “Hey.” He slid his gaze from the road to look at her. His voice, gentle and caring, slipped past her defenses.

  “I didn’t like the pageants.” She couldn’t hold his gaze any longer and she stared out the window. Vibrant bolts of orange and scarlet shot through the darkening sky.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. The weight in her chest made breathing uncomfortable. She shifted in her seat. “I was a doll.” Her mouth kept moving, as if it had been waiting for the opportunity to get this out. “Like those ones you see in the plastic boxes. Their faces all painted and their hair all carefully curled and stuck a certain way. My father used to tell me stories when I was little. They were stories about a princess. Princess Pearly Perfect. And she was me.” She pressed her hot forehead to the cool glass of the window. “When we would go to the pageants and I would start acting out or being a little shit about something, he would say to me, ‘Let me see Princess Pearly Perfect.’ When she grew up, she became Delilah.”

  “Huh.”

  “Can we turn the AC down?” She rubbed her palms against her arms to dispel the goose bumps. She felt cold, exposed by her confession, and she wished he’d say something.

  He leaned forward, adjusted the dial, and went straight back to watching the road as he drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting lightly on his thigh. He looked relaxed, easy, like he was listening and not coming to any conclusions
. His deep voice rumbled through the cab. “I had Spider-Man underpants.”

  Tiffany burst out laughing.

  “I did.” He turned to her and grinned. “My mother had to buy me about eight pairs because she could never get me to take them off.”

  “Do you still have Spider-Man underpants?”

  “I don’t wear underpants.”

  The atmosphere in the truck shifted. Her gaze drifted down to his crotch, even as she cursed herself for asking the stupid question in the first place. Disturbing visuals ran in a show reel behind her eyes. The blatant eroticism of them left her shocked, and hot. Her mouth dropped open in surprise. She crossed her legs and turned to stare out of the window. The idea of what he wasn’t wearing beneath those jeans was doing things to her girl parts that it had no business doing. Okay, this was not good.

  Ryan. She stubbornly forced a picture of Ryan to the front of her mind. The naked shots of Thomas kept right on coming. Ryan. Her boyfriend. She had enough man mess on her plate without tossing in a dollop of lust for Thomas Hunter—going commando. Oh, my.

  “So why did you do them?” Thomas said.

  “Huh?” Damn, she’d missed the question.

  “The pageants. Why’d you do them if you hated them?”

  Because Daddy wanted me to. A pathetic answer, even in her own mind. She clamped her lips shut in case they decided to toss it out there anyway. She shrugged and kept staring out the window. “How much longer?”

  She needed to get out of that truck and get a good breath of fresh air. Being enclosed in this small space with him, the fading light, the conversation—not a good idea.

  “Almost there.” He snapped on the radio.

  A raucous blast of pop music hit the air.