by Jane Graves
“Not this time.”
“Marc—”
“Will you knock it off?”
Nina clamped her mouth shut, but he could tell she still had plenty to say.
Marc hated being the bad guy. He hated Nina insisting on something he did not want. And he hated feeling as if he was doing something wrong when, at this point in his life, nothing was more right.
So why did he feel like the biggest jerk alive?
“I know what this is about,” Nina said.
“Oh, you do?”
“You think your life is going to be just rosy the day you get to hop on that motorcycle and head down the highway, and you’re already resenting anybody you think might get in the way of that.”
Yes, by God, that was exactly right. It was nice that Nina was aware of how he felt. What wasn’t nice was her tone that said he had no right to feel that way.
“But here’s what you don’t know,” Nina said. “When the time comes, you won’t be able to do it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I am getting on that motorcycle. I am heading down the highway. And everybody else can take care of themselves for a switch.”
Without another word, Marc slid out of the booth, paid the check, then left the café. He went to where his truck was parked in front of the wineshop and got in, telling himself he’d done the right thing. Kari was doing what she needed to do. She was going back to face the music. Then maybe she’d finally get her life in order. Yes, it was a very good thing.
He started his truck and headed back down Rainbow Way toward the highway. He’d already spent too much time in town today when there were a hundred things he needed to do back at the vineyard. But as he drove, his mind began to wander.
Who would pick Kari up at the bus station in Houston? Her friend, Jill, who thought she and the asshole were just perfect for each other? Her father who ran her life like a prison guard? The asshole himself who wanted her name on a marriage license so he could enjoy that nice big inheritance coming Kari’s way when her father finally kicked the bucket?
Marc shook away those thoughts. It didn’t matter. She needed to face up to the challenge. Sometimes people needed to have their backs shoved against the wall until they came out fighting.
But would Kari come out fighting? Or would she give in and be stuck in a marriage with a man who saw her only as a means to a very lucrative end?
She needs your help.
No. Go home. She’s not your problem.
But if she goes to Houston, she may be miserable for the rest of her life.
Butt out. She has to learn to stand on her own two feet.
He slowed his truck and pulled to the side of the road. He put it in park and gripped the steering wheel, listening to the voices parry inside his head until he was so confused he didn’t know which way to turn, and confusion was a state he didn’t like dealing with.
Shake it off. You don’t even know her. And you’re certainly not responsible for her.
Finally he put his truck in gear, hit the gas, and headed for home.
Chapter 6
An hour later, Marc was trimming the bushes that surrounded his back deck when his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and was happy to see Angela’s name on the caller ID.
“Angela! Hey! How are things going?”
“Great! I’m having a blast.”
Oh, thank God. He loved hearing that happy lilt in her voice. “No! School is serious business. Why am I paying all that tuition if you’re not miserable? I want my money’s worth.”
Angela laughed. “Too late. I love this place. How are things at home?”
Marc thought about Kari. No need to bring that up. “It’s only been a day, so…just about the same as when you left.”
“Yeah, I guess nothing much has had time to happen, huh?”
If only she knew. “How are you and your roommate getting along?”
“Great. We’ve got the room all set up. And we found out we have two of the big freshmen lecture classes together.”
Then Marc heard something in the background he didn’t like. “Is that a boy’s voice I hear?”
“Yeah. It’s a friend of Kim’s. He brought his roommate along. We’re going to a movie this afternoon. Classes don’t start for a few days, so we thought we’d play around a little.”
Marc cringed. He remembered Kim and her tattoos and piercings and that hair that looked as if she’d dyed it jet-black and then stuck her finger in an electrical socket. What were the chances that she hung out with guys who were drug-free virgins heading for the dean’s list?
“Sorry, Dad. I just called to say hi, but I gotta go now. Everybody’s waiting for me.”
No. He wanted to keep talking. To what end, he didn’t know. He hated this. As soon as the connection was gone, she could be anywhere. He wouldn’t know if bad things happened, and the worry would begin all over again.
“Dad? Are you there?”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Marc hit the button to disconnect the call and stuck his phone back into his pocket. So this was what it was going to be like for the next four years? Short little phone calls that made him worry until she called again for another two-minute conversation that made him worry about something else?
Then all at once he heard a loud noise coming from the front of the house. An engine? If so, it was a very large engine. Brandy leaped up and began to bark. Marc tossed the hedge clippers aside and came around the side of the house, and he couldn’t believe what he saw.
A bus had pulled into the circle drive in front of his house. The driver was closing the luggage compartment and climbing back onto the bus. A woman stood beside the bus next to a crapload of massive suitcases wearing a dress that looked like a tropical explosion.
The bus began to pull away. Marc took off running, shouting at the driver, but the bus never slowed down. As it disappeared up his driveway, he stopped and stood there helplessly, then slowly turned to look at Kari.
She looked small in the midst of those huge suitcases, holding that french-fry-stealing rag mop. The dog yapped once, then looked at him quizzically. Brandy tilted her head, clearly unsure what to think about a dog that looked like one of her fuzzy chew toys.
He walked back and stopped in front of Kari. He rubbed his hand across his face, then let out a long, weary breath. “Okay. How did you get that bus driver to bring you here?”
“The route passes right by the vineyard. I just asked him if he’d mind dropping me off.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Not completely. You told me to do it.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t tell you—”
“Yes, you did. You told me to burn my boats.”
“What?”
“Now that the bus is gone, I have to convince you to let me stay in your cottage, or I have no place to sleep tonight. It’s not exactly a fight to the death, but if I have to drag all that luggage back to town, it’ll probably kill me. So I guess it’s pretty much the same thing.”
Marc couldn’t believe it. How had she managed to use his own words so thoroughly and completely against him?
“I meant for you to do all that boat burning in Houston,” he said.
“I picked a different battle.”
“What if I put you in my truck and take you back to town?”
“You could do that,” Kari said. “But I’ll be knocking on your door again within the hour. I know that staying here is a lot to ask, but according to your sister, it’s not unprecedented. So what’s it going to be? Are you going to let me stay in your cottage, or do I sleep on your front lawn?”
Good God. This woman was stuck to him like a barnacle on the side of a ship.
“I don’t get you,” Marc said. “You want to stay in a town you know nothing about. Work in a place you know nothing about. At a job you have no experience for.”
She smiled. “It’s an adventure. I like adventures.”
> “Yeah,” Marc said wearily. “I gathered that. And you want to stay here when you don’t know a damned thing about me.”
“Actually, I know a lot about you.”
“You met me last night. How could you possibly—”
“Trust me. I know. The important stuff, anyway. Everybody I talk to says you’re a good guy. Gus. Rosie. And you didn’t let Greg push me around.” A light breeze picked up a strand of her hair and swept it across her face. She brushed it away with her fingertips and peered up at him with those beautiful green eyes. “As long as I’m with you, I don’t have to worry. Nothing bad will happen to me.”
Ah, crap. He did not need to hear that.
The problem was that he couldn’t forget how that guy had grabbed her arm. If he’d do that in a public place with other people looking on, what would he do in private? Marc knew that kind of guy. It wasn’t a matter of if. It was a matter of when, and just the thought of it made anger slither up his spine. Thinking about it, if she went home to Houston now, anything might happen. She just wasn’t strong enough yet to haul off and kick the guy where it would hurt the most. Marc was glad he’d chased that asshole out of town, and if he had the opportunity, he’d do it all over again.
But that wasn’t all. Even now in the midst of this crazy situation, he couldn’t keep his gaze from wandering places it shouldn’t. To her red hair spilling over her shoulders in long, loose waves. To the outline of her breasts against the thin fabric of the dress she wore. To those gorgeous green eyes that were turning him into a spineless moron. Even though the word no formed inside his head, he just couldn’t get it to come out of his mouth.
It was official. He was a sap. A gutless, pathetic sap who couldn’t even utter a simple two-letter word.
“Okay,” he said on a sigh of resignation. “You can stay.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “I can?” Then she smiled. “Wow. That was easier than I thought it would be.”
“Don’t get cocky. It’s only until you get a deposit together to rent an apartment. Or wash out of your job. Whichever comes first.”
“The deposit will come first. I already called Rosie to tell her I was taking the job after all.”
Marc grabbed her two biggest suitcases. “We’ll see how it goes.”
He started down the path toward the cottage. Kari put her dog down, pulled up the handles on her two smaller suitcases, and hurried after him.
“I’m going to pay you back,” she said. “I don’t know how exactly, but I’m going to. Maybe I can help you with your harvest. You said you needed somebody to help pick grapes. That sounds like fun.”
Fun? Good God, she had no idea what she was saying. Picking grapes was hard, dirty, sticky, sweaty work that even strong, healthy men had a hard time with, and she was about as substantial as dandelion fluff.
“We’ll talk about that when the time comes,” he said.
But the truth was that the time wasn’t going to come. He hadn’t been joking when he told her he expected her to wash out of her job at Rosie’s. If she lasted past the first day it would be a miracle. But that would mean she’d no longer have a job, and when that happened, what in the world was he going to do with her then?
He’s letting you stay.
Those words echoed over and over in Kari’s mind, but she could still scarcely believe them. There was definitely something to be said for the boat-burning thing.
They circled the house, and when the cottage came into view, Kari was sure she’d ended up in Disney World by mistake. It looked like a miniature prairie-style house with wooden steps leading to a wide front porch. The clapboard siding was painted a cheery peach color that made her happy just to look at it.
“What a cute place!” Kari said.
“It’s orange,” Marc said. “I hate orange.”
“No,” Kari said. “It’s peach.”
“That’s what Nina said, too, but you’re both wrong. It’s orange.”
“So why’d you paint it this color if you hate it?”
“Nina insisted. She says I have no color sense. I have color sense. Every time I see orange, I sense that it’s an ugly color.”
“What color did you want to paint it?”
“White.”
“Oh. White is nice.”
No, it wasn’t. White was boring. Ugly. Utilitarian. Only people with zero imagination painted anything white. But telling Marc his sister was right and he was wrong probably wouldn’t be well received.
They climbed the porch steps, and Marc pulled his keys from his pocket and opened the door. He set the luggage down inside, then grabbed the two suitcases Kari was struggling with and put them beside the others. She looked around and couldn’t help smiling. It was as if she’d stepped back in time twenty years. Along one wall sat a flowered sofa that was paired with a rattan coffee table, with a bean pot lamp sitting on an end table next to it. A kitchenette lined one wall, with Formica counters and white appliances. The place was definitely dated, and there was a layer of dust on everything, but it was cute nonetheless. And definitely better than sleeping in the street.
Boo ran in circles, sniffing and yapping in a dizzying dance of sheer delight. Marc’s dog tried galloping after him.
“Brandy!”
The dog made an about-face and hurried back to Marc’s side, her head ducked, looking properly chastised even though she still quivered with excitement. Finally Kari intercepted Boo and scooped him up.
“What is that thing, anyway?” Marc asked, nodding at Boo.
“What do you mean, what is it? It’s a dog.”
“No,” he said, pointing to Brandy. “That’s a dog.” He pointed to Boo. “That looks like a bad toupee.”
“He’s a cairn terrier. Well, most of him is, anyway.”
“Exactly how destructive is he?”
Uh-oh. “Destructive?”
“Does he tear things up?”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll have you know Boo went to Canine Cotillion, the finest obedience school in Houston. He was a standout student. The instructor said he’d never had a pupil like him.”
“When we were at Rosie’s and you were in the ladies’ room, he grabbed a french fry right off your plate. I guess he missed the class on table manners.”
“Once he settles in, he’ll be fine.”
From the look on Marc’s face, he clearly didn’t believe that. Frankly, Kari didn’t believe it, either. What she hadn’t told Marc was that Boo was a standout student at Canine Cotillion because he was deaf to every command the instructor tried to teach him. Kari held out hope that Boo might eventually graduate, right up to the moment he peed on the guy’s shoe. After that, she just accepted the fact that Boo was going to be a sweet, loving, door-pawing, shoe-destroying, inappropriately barking dog for the rest of his life.
“There are some canned goods and other nonperishables in the pantry,” Marc said. “Help yourself to them. They should tide you over for several days.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“There are a few cans of dog food, too.”
She nodded.
“Well,” Marc said, crossing his arms. “I guess you did it. You talked me into letting you stay in the cottage.”
“Yes.” And it felt so good.
“And you have a job.”
“That’s right.”
“Question,” Marc said.
“Yes?”
“How are you going to get to work?”
Her brain froze. “What?”
“When it’s time to go to work in the morning, what are you going to do?”
Kari blinked, stunned at the question. Oh, crap. The vineyard was miles from town. Miles. She’d already determined that walking there would likely kill her. Even a bicycle was out of the question. There was a reason they called this the Texas Hill Country, and she wasn’t exactly in tip-top physical condition. As full of herself as she’d felt before, that was how deflated she felt now.
“Well…I’m not sure,” she said.
“That wasn’t part of your plan?”
She shrugged weakly. “Well, I guess I thought maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
“Well, okay. Actually, I didn’t think. But you go to town every day, right?”
“Nope.”
“But you were in town this morning. At your shop?”
“Yes. But I just make deliveries now and then with no particular schedule. Nina runs it.”
“Oh.” She stared at Marc, dropping her chin and peering up at him like a puppy who’d peed in the corner, thinking maybe if she looked pathetic enough he’d take pity on her. Unfortunately, she was looking for pity from a man who, by all indications, had very little of it to give.
“Any ideas?” Marc said.
Damn it. One glitch. One stupid, stinking glitch and her whole plan was coming unraveled.
“Don’t worry,” Marc said. “I have a solution.”
Kari brightened. “You do?”
“Yes. I have a car you can drive. But you won’t like it. In fact, the moment you see it, you may decide to get back on that bus after all.”
“No! I will! I’ll drive anything that’ll get me there. Anything!”
“Okay, then. Come with me.”
They left the cottage, and Kari followed Marc toward the barn. They went around to the side of it, where a tractor was parked, along with something that had the appearance of a car. If not for the four tires, though, identification might have been impossible.
“This,” Marc said, “is the Bomb.”
Kari winced. “The Bomb?”
“It’s a 1989 Vista Cruiser nine-passenger station wagon.”
Kari thought about her cute little Lexus that was dead on arrival and felt a stab of longing. This had to be a test. Marc was offering her the most noxious vehicle on the planet just to see if she’d turn tail and run. She walked closer, feeling as if she was approaching a pile of toxic waste.
“What’s that stuff peeling off the sides?” she asked.
“Fake wood grain. It’s like contact paper only crappier.”
“What color did it used to be before the rust ate it up?”
“As I remember, it was blue.”
“That’s the biggest car I’ve ever seen.”
