Girl Least Likely to Marry

by Amy Andrews

  He laughed again. ‘No…I mean so oblivious to material things.’

  Cassie shrugged. ‘Human beings really only have five basic requirements. The rest is just…stuff.’

  ‘Makes you kind of hard to impress,’ he joked.

  Cassie raised an eyebrow at him. ‘I think your ability to give me screaming orgasms every night, night after night, is pretty impressive.’

  Her words, delivered in that non-flirty, matter-of-fact tone of hers, crawled right inside his pants and stroked. He was used to being appreciated for his ‘stuff’ and it was a turn-on to be appreciated for his innate talents. He felt as if he was standing under the lights again, football in hand, listening to the crowd screaming his name.

  The last few years had been generally emasculating—Cassie’s unconditional presence in his life made him feel virile and potent again.

  ‘You make a hell of an argument.’ He smiled. ‘But I think you need to prepare yourself to be pretty damn impressed when this plane lands. And I’m going to do it without even touching you.’

  Cassie stood in the open doorway of the Gulf Stream an hour later, looking out into the glare of a hot dry day for a clue as to their location. Then she saw the sign proclaiming their destination—Flagstaff, Arizona. Her heart skipped a beat. She turned to look at Tuck, who loomed behind her.

  ‘We’re going to Barringer?’

  Tuck grinned. ‘Yup.’

  Cassie was momentarily speechless. She’d had no idea when Tuck had asked her to pack an overnight bag last night where they’d end up, but this would have been her very last guess. She turned back to look at the sign again.

  It was perfect. He couldn’t have picked a more perfect destination to bring her to.

  ‘I…I don’t know what to say.’ She looked back at him. ‘Thank you, Tuck. Thank you so much. This is totally…’

  She didn’t have words. And it was hard to speak anyway as a bloom of heat in her chest travelled upwards, threatening to close off her throat.

  ‘Impressive?’ he supplied.

  Cassie nodded. He looked so cocky and sure of himself, knowing how very much it meant to her, and all scruffy and casual. His pheromones oozed all over her and that heat spread everywhere. He was sexy when he was right.

  She launched herself into his arms, her mouth seeking his, wanting to smell him, taste him, absorb him into her. Her tongue sought his and he groaned against her mouth, his hands splaying low on the small of her back, holding her steady, anchoring them together as ardour swayed them both in the narrow doorway.

  ‘Wow—that impressive, huh?’ he teased when she finally let go of him. Her spontaneity was as sexy as hell for someone who didn’t really do spontaneity.

  Cassie felt a little light-headed for a moment, clinging to his biceps all warm and bulky in her palms. ‘You did good.’

  He smiled and gestured for her to precede him. ‘Well, let’s get going, then.’

  After that the afternoon flew by. Despite it being a holiday, a vintage Cadillac Deville convertible was waiting for them at the airport, because apparently an American road trip called for an American classic even if it only took them twenty minutes to arrive at their destination.

  Cassie felt a little trill of happiness as she bounded out of the car. It increased when she looked at Tuck. The only thing he could have done that was more perfect was fly her to the moon, but she guessed even Tuck had his limitations.

  Not to mention those nights when he’d taken her closer to the stars than any deep-space telescope ever had…

  There were quite a few visitors bustling in and out of the Visitor Center, and Cassie hurried quickly in its direction, impatient to see the crater. She wasn’t disappointed. The site of the massive hole in the earth, four thousand feet across, stopped her in its tracks. It was simply awe-inspiring, and Cassie just stood and stared at it, her astronomer’s heart just about bursting out of her chest, trying to wrap her head around the circumstances of its creation.

  ‘You’re excited, right?’ Tuck murmured low in her ear.

  Cassie dug him in the ribs, but her face felt flushed, her pulse tripped, she was hyperaware—it was a tiny bit sexual. ‘I wish you’d told me,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘I don’t have my camera with me.’

  Tuck held up a bag that held a very expensive piece of photographic gear that he’d figured would impress even a woman who had access to kick-ass telescopes on a daily basis.

  Cassie grabbed him by his shirt and smacked a brief, hard kiss on his mouth. ‘You are outdoing yourself today.’

  Tuck grinned. ‘Oh, there’s more where that came from, baby.’

  But Cassie barely heard him, distracted as she was by the path skirting the rim of the crater. If she’d been allowed, she would have jumped over the edge and dashed to the bottom. It looked like a lunar surface, hallowed ground, and to walk where the Apollo astronauts had trained would be a dream come true.

  ‘There’s a rim tour starting in ten minutes,’ Tuck said.

  ‘We’ll catch the next one,’ she said, because she was impatient but also because she didn’t want to hear someone else’s patter first. She just wanted to absorb everything and match it with the reams of knowledge teeming in her head.

  Tuck chuckled. ‘Okay, lead on.’

  They spent two hours in the blazing sun, stopping and starting and reading information boards and taking pictures. Cassie talked geek stuff about asteroids and took pictures, and Tuck enjoyed her breadth of knowledge mixed with her infectious excitement. He’d never seen her so animated and he liked it.

  Then they joined a tour for another go around the rim, which wasn’t anywhere near as exciting—mainly because it took the group of twenty only about two minutes to recognise Tuck, and he spent a lot of time as they went around talking about himself to a bunch of fans and not next to Cassie as he’d wanted.

  They stopped at one of the viewing areas and Cassie looked over at Tuck, talking to a couple of teenagers. He shot her an apologetic shrug and she just smiled and rolled her eyes. The guide was talking about the make-up of the asteroid that had slammed into the earth and Cassie separated herself slightly to snap another picture down into the crater.

  A man holding a camera sidled up beside her and said, ‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’

  Cassie looked away from the viewfinder. ‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed. ‘Truly amazing.’ She looked through the lens again.

  ‘You’re with Tuck, yes?’ he asked casually. ‘You his…?’ He looked her up and down. ‘Girlfriend?’

  Cassie glanced at him. The guy was looking at her as if he was trying to figure out what genus and species she belonged to. He had a huge gold ring on his finger and a heavy gold chain around his neck. And a very large, expensive-looking camera with a gigantic lens. Tuck would have said he was compensating for something.

  ‘Not really.’

  What else could she say? No, he’s just my libido’s drug of choice? Hardly something you’d tell a stranger, even if it was the very startling truth. Plus, after today she wasn’t sure what she felt about him. It suddenly seemed more than just sex between them. But maybe that was just the crater talking?

  The guy was still watching her closely, and Cassie glanced over to see Tuck signing another autograph. She turned her attention back to the camera, snapping off more pictures.

  ‘You’re not his usual…type.’

  Cassie’s finger faltered on the button. She was wearing a pair
of roomy gym shorts that allowed a good flow of air in the stifling heat and her usual three-sizes-too-big T-shirt that said ‘Higgs Boson Gives Me a Hadron’. Tuck had bought her a baseball cap from the gift shop and squashed it down on her head before the tour had started. Her dark brown hair hung down her back in its usual low ponytail, held fast by a floral scrunchie.

  Her cheeks were flushed pink from the heat and she had sweat on her upper lip and forehead. She looked at the man over the top of the camera.

  ‘They usually wear…’ he looked over her outfit again, as if he was some Parisian designer who did not like what he saw ‘…less. And have more…make-up.’

  Cassie frowned at the completely impractical observation. ‘Who wears make-up in this heat?’

  Then a little boy ran up to him, saying, ‘Daddy, Daddy.’

  ‘Hey, Zack,’ he said.

  ‘Look, I got Tuck’s autograph.’

  And then the guide moved them on and the conversation was over as the guy was dragged back to his family and Tuck headed her way.

  ‘More pictures?’ Tuck asked.

  His hand slid onto her neck under the knot of her ponytail and Cassie smiled up at him. ‘Can’t wait to see these on my laptop,’ she said.

  Tuck kissed the tip of her nose and they moved on with the rest of the tour.

  They stayed until the crater closed at five, and then drove into Flagstaff and wandered about the town centre, enjoying the Fourth of July celebrations. Tuck regaled Cassie with stories of his family’s legendary Texan celebrations.

  ‘Oh, look, they’ve got fireworks later,’ Cassie said as she bit into an enormous stick of fairy floss—or cotton candy, as Tuck had told her.

  ‘Oh, no. I have plans for you,’ Tuck said, his arm around her waist, drawing her close into his side as they walked around amidst the crowds. He’d commandeered her baseball cap and pulled it down low, managing to stay inconspicuous in these much bigger crowds.

  Cassie’s belly clenched at the low, husky note in his voice. This whole venture had put her libido on high alert. ‘But I like fireworks,’ she said. As a young child Cassie had literally felt transported to the stars amidst all the pop and dazzle.

  Tuck grinned. ‘Oh, there’ll be fireworks. Don’t you worry about that.’

  Cassie looked at him and could see another night of heaven in his arms. ‘Where are we staying tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘Ah…’ He grinned. ‘That’s the best bit.’ He ducked his head and swiped a mouthful of cotton candy that melted on his tongue. ‘Come on—eat that and I’ll show you.’

  They drove out of Flagstaff with the Cadillac’s top down and headed towards the crater again. A lot of women would have been impressed by the romance, the fifties movie feel—an open-top, a man who could have graced any screen, the open road—but Cassie simply let her head loll back against the headrest and watched the stars float above her.

  They passed the road to the crater they’d taken earlier today and some lights could be seen shining from the crater’s RV park.

  Tuck drove another minute and started to slow. ‘I reckon this is as good a spot as any,’ he said as he left the road and drove into the desert wilderness, the headlights illuminating an expanse of rocky, arid nothing.

  They bumped over some rocks and low vegetation before Tuck turned off the engine and killed the lights, plunging them into the still, inky blackness of a desert night. They hadn’t travelled far from the highway and behind them the RV park seemed reasonably close.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Cassie asked.

  ‘I want an astronomy lesson,’ he said. ‘And it just so happens that I’m sleeping with a world-class astronomer. I thought a night under the stars would be kind of cool.’

  Cassie looked up again. Millions of stars winked down at her through the obsidian dome of the night sky. It had been so long since she’d looked at them—really looked at them—with the human eye. She’d been studying the cosmos for over a decade, and with the advantage of deep-space telescopes and the miracles of modern imaging it was easy to forget the sense of wonder and insignificance she’d used to feel when looking up.

  It crowded in on her now, and she took a deep unsteady breath.

  ‘I have luxury bedding in the trunk,’ Tuck said. ‘I thought we could sleep on the hood of the Caddy.’

  Cassie, her head resting back against the leather headrest, rolled her head to the side. It was dark, the one-quarter moon still low in the sky, but she could see Tuck’s eyes shining with the same sort of wonder that Marnie’s used to hold when she’d begged for an impromptu astronomy session.

  ‘Unless you’d rather check into a hotel?’

  Cassie slowly shook her head. It was an ideal night for some star-gazing. ‘I can’t think of any place more perfect than this,’ she murmured. ‘Or anyone I’d rather be with.’

  Cassie blinked as the words slipped from her lips. Obviously her libido was mouthy, but even she could recognise how the words resonated with her on a much deeper level. She’d found something with Tuck that it had never occurred to her to seek out. And she liked it.

  Tuck was taken aback by the spontaneous declaration, and the sincerity in Cassie’s gaze. It had been a novelty, being with a woman who didn’t cling and wasn’t emotionally needy, but it wasn’t until this moment that he realised it was also nice to hear her acknowledge that whatever it was they had, she was into it too.

  To acknowledge that maybe she needed him as much as he was growing to need her.

  ‘I’ll get the stuff,’ he said. Because, frankly, he didn’t know what to say to such utter honesty. He was so used to the game he didn’t know how to react when someone played it straight.

  Cassie nodded as Tuck climbed out of the car. Another woman might have been puzzled about Tuck’s non-reaction to her statement, but Cassie was as eager as Tuck to get flat on her back. And mind-games just weren’t her forte.

  As it turned out they didn’t end up flat on their backs. Tuck adjusted a double sleeping bag with a thick foam mattress on the hood, but when they got inside he propped his back against the windshield and she nestled between his legs, her back to his front, her head on his shoulder, with the entire Arizonan sky stretched like a sheath of black satin above them.

  ‘Do you suppose we’ll see a shooting star?’ Tuck asked.

  His breath stirred the hair at her temple and Cassie momentarily shut her eyes. ‘Absolutely,’ she said, her eyelids opening. ‘If we watch long enough. Although statistically we are more likely to see one after midnight. But you know they’re not technically stars, right? They’re meteors.’

  Tuck lay back and listened to Cassie chatter about a subject on which she obviously knew a great deal. He liked listening to her, and her Australian accent, so obvious most of the time, became less distinct as her voice took on a generic wonder.

  She pointed out all the constellations, including Cassiopeia, and was full of facts and figures and interesting anecdotes. The night was perfect, their location even more so, and they did indeed see several shooting stars over the two hours they sat with their faces turned upwards.

  ‘I suppose you’ve known all this since you could talk?’ Tuck murmured as she regaled him with some ancient Greek myths about the constellations.

  Cassie nodded. ‘I used to spend hours under the stars with Mum as a little girl. I used to complain about going to bed and wish we had a glass roof, so I could sleep under the stars. Then she bought me these glow-in-the-dark sta
r stickers for my ceiling. There were planets as well. We mapped the whole solar system out—all geographically correct, with the constellations accurately represented—and I got to sleep under the stars every night.’

  Tuck stroked his fingers up and down Cassie’s arm. The desert night air was getting cool now, and he felt gooseflesh beneath the pads of his fingers. ‘You sound like you’re close to your mother?’ he said as he pulled the bedding up around them.

  Cassie shrugged. Her relationship with her mother had always been hard to define. ‘Yes and no.’

  Tuck heard the wistfulness in her voice. ‘Oh?’

  Cassie didn’t know how to explain it. ‘I was the child that interrupted her astronomy career. Put a stop to her grand plans of a great discovery that would forever change the world and a subsequent Nobel Prize. Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand, and she pushed me to go on and do what she hadn’t been able to, but…I don’t know… I think there’s part of her that has always resented the intrusion of a child…of me. She loved having me around to teach me things about the stars, but outside of that there’s just this part of her that I never seem to be able to reach…like the stars, I guess.’

  Cassie wasn’t sure where the calm insights had come from. She’d never given them voice before. Never thought about them too much. But there was a whole lot going on with her emotionally lately that she’d never thought possible. And somehow, cocooned in this warm dark night with Tuck, it seemed right to talk about it.

  ‘What about your dad?’ Tuck asked.

  ‘He adores her…but he’s never really understood her. Her brilliance. And certainly not why she chose him. He sure as hell doesn’t get me. So he does his thing, and she does hers, and I do mine and we all live in a kind of oblivious co-existence. I don’t know…it works, but I don’t think they’re happy.’