by Caroline Lee
Jace didn’t want to tell her to clean them all up, because that would mean her losing an hour of work and adding even more time to lay them all back out. But he didn’t see how else he could sleep up here tonight.
At that moment, with him kneeling awkwardly at the top of the stairs, his stomach rumbled twice as loudly as last time and made up his mind for him. Waving his hand, he said, “Just leave it for now. I’m hungry. We can deal with it later.”
As he was backing down the stairs, he swore he heard her giggle. “Why Jace, how incredibly impulsive of you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He was grinning as he fetched his sweater and shoes from the closet. “Hunger makes a man do strange things.”
But it wasn’t hunger that made him offer her his arm on the way to the restaurant, and it wasn’t hunger that made his chest feel light when she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and moved closer. It might’ve been for warmth, but Jace suspected not.
He hoped not, at least.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Which landlocked country, at sixty-one miles square, has the capital city of Vaduz?”
As the trivia-master cued the song that gave them about two minutes to formulate their answer, Ellie leaned in and mouthed a word.
“What?” Jace was in charge of writing down their answers, just because he had the best handwriting. The Redfern sisters preferred typing, and Will’s hands had been busy with his plate of hot wings since they arrived.
Ellie stretched towards the center of the table, a look of frustration on her face, and mouthed the word again.
Dink snorted. “What? Why aren’t you speaking?”
“Because,” Ellie hissed, “I don’t want anyone to overhear the answer.”
A very serious Jace leaned across the table to bring his head closer to Ellie’s, and said in a low voice, barely heard over the music, “I think we’re okay, Ellie. You can tell us.”
Dink’s sister sighed. “Liechtenstein.”
While Jace began to write, Dink burst into giggles. When her sister scowled, Dink giggled harder. “You expected us to be able to read your lips for ‘Liechtenstein’?”
“Shh!” Ellie glanced around to make sure no one had heard, which made Dink giggle even harder.
Jace interrupted their budding bickering. “You’re sure, Ellie? You just happen to have all the world’s countries’ capitals memorized?”
Dink elbowed him. “What, and you don’t?” It seemed like something he would know, but Jace just smiled and shook his head slightly.
“No, I don’t have the world capitals memorized.” Ellie sat back and picked up her root beer proudly. “I just know square mileage.”
What? Now that was ridiculous. Dink began to giggle again, and Jace lifted one elegant brow in invitation for Ellie to continue. She shrugged. “Listen, I know the smallest countries in the world, right? And I know that Vatican City is point-two miles square, and San Marino is twenty-four miles square, so the answer can’t be either of those. So, the next-smallest non-island nation is...”
“Liechtenstein.” Jace nodded.
Both sisters shushed him simultaneously, and he just rolled his eyes as he turned to Will. “Can you believe this?”
“Hey,” Will shrugged, holding a hot wing in one hand and the other covered in sauce. “I’m just here for the food.” He pointed at Ellie with the wing. “She’s the brains in this operation. And the beauty.” Dink smiled when Ellie blushed at the compliment, then did some eye-rolling of her own when the engaged couple leaned in for a hot-wing-sauce covered kiss.
They were half-way through their trivia game, and it was obvious Will had only come for Ellie, but he was a good sport. Jace, on the other hand, was really into the game, and Dink was surprised by how much fun she was having too. She’d been able to contribute a few answers—mainly about old TV shows and music—and had laughed when Jace teased her.
Jace… Something had happened to Jace today, when he’d seen her work. He looked at her differently, almost like he respected her. Not that he had been anything other than gentlemanly before, despite his sometimes-infuriating bluntness, but now… She could tell he admired her job, which she hadn’t expected.
She’d spent the last months living out of her car basically, crashing on her friends’ sofas and borrowing places to set up her sewing machine to work. She could do her work anywhere there was a post office, as long as she had her trusty Singer machine and her bin of felts and brightly colored knits, and internet access. To someone like Jace, an accountant with a home and a fancy car and a grad school degree, her job must seem like only a step above “homeless artist”. Which is why she’d hesitated in telling him about it, and about how well it was going.
But today, in the loft, her fears all seemed groundless. He’d smiled and something in his expression had shifted, and Dink had felt part of her melt. There was more to Jace Cunningham than an uptight persona and a gorgeous smile and a set of abs she could bounce a quarter off of. And remembering the way it felt to take his arm on the walk to the restaurant, Dink realized she wanted to know all of him.
“Hey, Earth to Dink?” She jumped slightly when she felt his shoulder bump hers, and then blushed. “You’ve been staring at your cream soda for ages. You okay?”
“Yeah.” She blinked and smiled at Jace. “Yeah, I’m good. Did you turn in our answer?”
He chuckled, and she got distracted again by his lightning-fast smile. “You’re really out of it, huh? Yeah, I turned it in, and your sister’s answer was right.” Dink glanced at Ellie, who was talking quietly with Will and seemed oblivious. “I went ahead and answered the next one too, unless you knew anything about famous wrestlers of the ‘90s?”
Dink snorted. “Not a thing.” So they had the space of another song before they had to concentrate on the trivia again. “How’s your burger?”
“Amazing. River’s End Ranch always had the world’s best beef. I really hope I get the job Wade’s offering, so I can eat here more often.”
Chuckling, Dink agreed. “My burger is awesome too, but there’s gotta be more reasons other than the beef to work here.”
“Oh, the scenery isn’t bad, and the company’s nice.” Instead of looking at his best friend when he said it though, Jace kept his gaze firmly on Dink, who felt herself blushing again.
“Well, I’ve been enjoying my visit to the ranch too.” It was lame, but all she could come up with at the moment.
Jace propped his elbow on the table and somehow ended up a little closer to her. On purpose? “And after the wedding? You going back to Texas?”
“Um…” She started to fiddle with the napkin in her lap. “I guess. I haven’t heard from the mechanic. And it depends on…” She sighed. This conversation had taken a turn for the awkward.
“Depends on what?”
“Well, I don’t really have a place to live down there.” It was hard to admit. “I’d been living with my boyfriend, but when I caught him cheating, I moved in with a friend.” Magnus had tried several times to get her to come back, but she realized she’d fallen out of love with him a long time ago. His betrayal didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have.
But when Jace put his hand on her forearm, and she met his eyes, she was startled to see genuine concern. “I’m sorry, Dink. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
She forced herself to shrug. “It’s not that big a deal. You saw my set-up. I can work anywhere…even the loft of a tiny house.” He didn’t grin at her poor attempt at a joke. “So maybe I’ll go back to Texas. Maybe I’ll go to Charleston with my family. I dunno.”
He squeezed her arm once before he let go. There was something a little…forced about his smile when he said, “Well, let me know if you want to stay in Idaho. I’m sure Ellie would like it.”
Dink had to roll her eyes and be honest with herself. “This place sure is pretty, but let’s be real, Jace… You and I would probably murder each other if I stayed.”
This time his smile was g
enuine, but fleeting, as he picked up his burger. “Oh, I don’t know. We’re pretty opposite—”
“You’re uptight and stodgy, whereas I’m normal?”
“—but we work pretty well together, don’t you think?”
“Well…” she begrudgingly agreed. “We haven’t killed each other yet, and we’ve been living together.”
“See?” He took a bite and said around it, “Maybe we can adapt.”
“Jace Cunningham!” She pretended to be shocked. “You’re talking with your mouth full, and your elbows are on the table.”
He blinked, surprised, and even glanced down at his elbows before swallowing and smiling. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”
“Okay, trivia teams! The next question is: This composer died of cerebral hemorrhage on March 5th, 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin, but wasn’t interred for three full days because the crowds gathered in Moscow to mourn prevented travel on the roads.”
“That’s it, we’re out.” Ellie stood up and tossed Will her napkin to clean his hands. “I’ll get Steve to settle us up on the way out, but I can’t handle anymore mid-century history. Boring.”
Will was chuckling as he pushed away from the table. “I’m pretty beat too. I did two tours back-to-back, and then she made me go for a jog.”
Ellie kissed him on the cheek. “You’re welcome, husband-to-be.”
Will’s goofy grin bloomed and Dink couldn’t help smiling back. “I guess y’all should get some sleep. T-minus-five days ‘til the wedding.” They’d purposefully scheduled the wedding mid-week to get the most out of the tourist promotion.
“Good night, you two.” Jace waved lazily. “I think we’re pretty close to the lead, so I’m going to stick around.” He turned to Dink with his brows raised, the silent question obvious.
“Of course I’m staying. I don’t trust you to protect Team Wedding’s reputation.”
“I still say that’s a dumb name.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “It’s better than anything you came up with.”
“Good night, children. Play nice.” Ellie winked as she took Will’s hand and pulled him away from the table.
Jace watched them go. “Do you get the impression that maybe we were just abandoned on purpose?”
“Yep.” Dink dunked a fry into the ketchup and stuffed it into her mouth. “She thinks she’s being sneaky, but they’ve been over there whispering about something for ages.”
Jace hummed thoughtfully and picked up his burger again. “So, famous composer who died in Moscow the same day as Stalin?”
“Sergei Prokofiev.” Dink grinned when he halted mid-bite, a surprised look on his face. Presumably, he hadn’t expected her to have an answer.
“Of Peter and the Wolf fame?”
She shrugged, not knowing any of the man’s actual works, but Jace wasn’t satisfied.
“How in the world do you know that?” He still held the burger away from his mouth, and she started to giggle.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
He lowered his meal, a cautious look on his face. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because, you know…” Her smile grew. “Class.”
He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Does this have to do with your abominable taste in music?”
“Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev. Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc.” His eyes grew wider as she sang through four years of Billy Joel’s iconic stolen-from-the-headlines number-one hit.
To her surprise, though, Jace joined in at the chorus. “We didn’t start the fire! It was always burning since the world’s been turning! We didn’t start the fire. No we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.”
He had a really nice voice, even though they were both trying to stay under the volume of whatever song the trivia-master was blaring. Dink stared at Jace, bemused. “Wow.”
Wow again. But this time, it was because he’d surprised her.
“Wow yourself, lady. That’s not a horrible song. I’m impressed you—”
“Knew all the words?” she snorted. “Classic rock! Of course I know all the words.”
“I’m impressed you knew what all the words meant.”
She burst into laughter as Jace scrawled her answer down on the ballot, then watched him as he snaked his way through the crowd towards the DJ stand to turn it in. She realized that she was staring at how good his rear end looked in those trousers.
Trousers? Come on, Dink. She was used to paint-splattered blue jeans and flannel pajama pants. How in the world could she be admiring a man in a pair of loafers, Dockers, and a button-up shirt under a blue angora sweater?
Because he’s darn good looking, is why.
Jace was still humming We Didn’t Start The Fire when he got back to their table, and Dink had to smile. Apparently, he liked at least one of her “abominable” songs, after all.
She bumped his shoulders with her own when he sat down. “Is this where I admit that I actually sing Mozart in the shower?”
“Really?” His brows went up, and she didn’t mind his smile one bit. “I don’t believe it.”
“Well,” she began, and laughed, “I’m not going to prove it to you!”
Since they’d gotten “Prokofiev” correct, they continued to play as they finished their dinner. They stayed until the end of the trivia contest and came in second place. The final question had been about the order of the vice presidents, and they were clueless. But they’d had a grand time and stayed out much later than they’d expected.
As they walked back to the house, Dink yawned, then stumbled unexpectedly. Jace’s arm wrapped around her shoulders to keep her upright, but even once she was steady and walking once more, he didn’t release her. And she didn’t mind.
From the corner of her eye, she glanced up at him. His jaw was set into a hard line and his gaze was focused in the dark. Maybe he sensed her question, because he made a little snorting noise. “Don’t make more of this than it is, Lloyd. It’s cold.”
“Yeah, it’s cold.” She snuggled a little closer, marveling at how easily she tucked under his arm. “And I don’t even like you.”
“Yeah. I don’t like you either. We’re just stuck together because of Will and Ellie.”
“We make a good team though.”
“Because we complement each other. I’m serious and steady and stable, and you’re…”
She sighed. “I’m me.”
Over the last few days, he’d made jokes about their differences. Tonight though, he seemed to be trying to remind them of why they weren’t suitable. And they weren’t suitable, Dink knew.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to enjoy the warmth of his arms for the walk back to the house.
Jace was exhausted. Running the river with Will that morning, then sitting hunched over in the loft all afternoon, and then staying out ‘til almost midnight meant he could barely keep his eyes open. He fumbled with the key to the tiny house, and noticed Dink was waiting, slumped against the railing, with her eyes drooping as well. They both breathed a little sigh of relief when he got the door open and they stumbled out of the cold and into the tiny house.
He followed her back to the bedroom to put his shoes away and claim his pajamas. She stumbled into the bathroom to give him some privacy, so he shut the pocket door and changed. Once changed, he left the bedroom and found the bathroom door open, so poked his head inside to see if it was his turn.
Dink was sitting in the shower, on the little bench, brushing her teeth. She looked like she was forcing her eyes to stay open, but when he raised a brow at her, she glanced around the shower and said, “What? Tiny house.”
Only, it came out as “Whaaa? Ieee-ooo” because of the toothbrush in her mouth, so Jace just chuckled and shook his head as he reached for his own toothbrush. It certainly was a tiny house; too tiny for both of them to stand in the bathroom at the same time, so it was just as well she was sitting in the shower.
They brushed
in companionable silence, and Jace wondered what it would be like to really live with someone—someone like her. To come home every evening and brush their teeth together, to learn to put up with her hairbrush—blonde and teal hairs still stuck to it!—lying beside the sink. To pick her socks up off the floor for her, or to learn to enjoy the smell of coffee in the morning.
They were opposites, alright, but he was beginning to wonder if that really mattered.
It wasn’t until she brushed past him to spit and rinse, and then headed into the bedroom to change, that Jace pulled himself back to reality. They weren’t living together, not really. They were just two strangers who were forced to share a too-small cabin. Even if he got the job here at the ranch, she wasn’t going to be staying. There wasn’t a future for them together.
He sighed, then spit, and got ready to head upstairs for another night on the too-short mattress.
And that’s when Jace remembered the state of the loft. They’d left hours ago, with her sewing spread carefully across the bed, and had decided not to clean it up. He was going to have to climb upstairs and ruin all of her hard work, just to be able to sleep. And he knew he wouldn’t be able to just sweep all the designs off the bed; he’d feel obligated to carefully transfer stuff to the floor, and that meant at least a half-hour until he could collapse into bed.
He groaned aloud and dropped his head to the doorjamb. He was so tired.
“What?” Dink stuck her head out of the back bedroom, already wearing her well-loved robe, which he knew hid a pair of killer legs he tried so hard to ignore each morning.
“Nothing.” He sighed. Then, unable to help himself, his gaze rose to the ceiling.
Hers followed, and she gasped. “Oh, shoot! The capes!” She stepped out of the bedroom completely. “I’m sorry, Jace. I’ll go up and clear them off.”
