by April Hunt
“You made reservations?”
Trey raised an eyebrow at the surprise in her voice and tugged on his own coat. “I do know how to work a phone. Have for a while now. I’m good with my hands…I can press the buttons and everything.”
“I know you’re good with your hands. I’ve seen them in action.” Kill her. Kill her now. “I’m shutting up. For the entire night, because I obviously can’t be expected not to embarrass myself.”
Trey looped an arm around her and tugged her to the front of his body. “I like when you start talking all discombobulated-like. It’s fucking adorable.”
Elle didn’t feel adorable. She felt out-of-sorts, only marginally relaxing as Trey navigated the truck through the dark mountain roads. Each time she did, though, he’d glance her way, and then it was back to square one.
Swallow Falls was nestled a little higher in the Pocono Mountains, the main house a sprawling, two-story gray stone structure complete with white twinkling lights and more romantic ambiance than in a romance novel. A grand front porch was wedged between the front of the building and the long circular drive, where Trey stopped the truck in front of a gangly teenage valet.
Trey opened her door and extended a hand to help her step down from the truck. And then he kept his fingers wrapped around hers as they stepped into the resort’s lobby. Rich earth tones complemented the stone and wood accents. A massive fireplace filled the room with the scent of pine and nature. It was country elegance from the baseboards to the open, vaulted ceilings.
Trey led the way to the dining room, where a young male twenty-something greeted them with a flashy smile and led them toward a secluded section of the room.
“Your server will be with you in a moment. Is there anything I can get you in the meantime? Would you like to see the wine list?” the young man asked.
“Yeah, sure. That would be great,” Trey said, nodding.
The young man walked away, and in Elle’s quest to relieve her Saharan dry mouth, she knocked her arm into her water goblet. She swallowed a curse and righted it quickly. With all her father’s political parties and society dinners, you’d think she’d feel a bit more reserved, but nope.
Grabbing her attention, Trey captured her fingers from across the table. “Why are you so nervous?”
“I’m not nervous,” she lied through her teeth. At the disbelieving arch of his eyebrow, she amended her words. “So maybe I’m a little nervous, but if you ask me why, I honestly wouldn’t be able to give you an answer.”
“I know what you mean.”
She gave an unladylike snort. “Uh-huh. I don’t think anything can get you ruffled. You always look the epitome of calm, cool, and collected.”
“Then you’re not looking hard enough.”
“I don’t know. I’m looking pretty hard.” And the more she looked, the more she liked. The man was two hundred pounds of walking complexities. Whenever she thought she had him figured out and had a grip on how insanely drawn she felt toward him, he did something like this and stole that control from her grasp.
He kept her guessing, kept her on her toes.
“Good evening,” a low, sultry voice broke through the moment. A tall, lithe blonde stood next to their table, her thousand-watt smile focused on Trey. The woman was gorgeous and knew it. Her white shirt strained at the buttons from her ample breasts, and her black linen pants looked as if they’d been spray-painted onto her body. “My name’s Emmaline and it’ll be my pleasure to serve you tonight in any way I can.”
Elle barely withheld an eye-roll at the woman’s blatant vocalization of interest. She all but ripped her shirt apart and laid supine on top of Trey’s place setting.
Trey’s knowing smirk—or his attention—hadn’t left Elle. “I’m glad to hear that, Emmaline, because tonight’s a special night—the birthday of one of the most incredible women I know.”
As the waitress’s smile dimmed, Elle’s grew.
“Well…that’s wonderful,” Emmaline’s tone oozed manufactured politeness. “I’ll be sure to let the chef know that you’re celebrating. He may want us to serve you from his personal menu, if that’s okay?”
Trey looked to Elle for the answer, and she nodded. She’d have to chew her food carefully, judging by the look on the waitress’s face. The blonde put a little extra shimmy in her step as she walked away.
“I suppose that’s status quo for you when you go out, isn’t it?” When Trey acted as if he didn’t know what she meant, she added, “Women asking you to make them your appetizer instead of the breadsticks. And don’t pretend like you don’t know the effect you have on women, because I’ll be forced to hurt you.”
Trey chuckled. “No pretending. But do you want a bit of truth?”
Did she? She wasn’t sure. “Go ahead. Enlighten me.”
“A long line of half-naked women could be standing in the room, and all of my focus would still be on you and only you.”
Elle’s heart stuttered a little bit, making her chest tremble. “That’s a really, really good bit of truth.”
“You look like you don’t believe me.”
“Actually, I do,” Elle said honestly. If anyone else had said it, probably not. If it had come out of James’s mouth, definitely not. But if she’d learned anything about Trey in their time together, it was that he said what he meant. She was still getting used to that.
When the appetizer came, Trey stared at the plate in front of them and even looked a little pale. “What the holy fuck is that?”
Elle nearly choked on her laugh. “Escargots. In what looks to be some kind of garlic-and- herb sauce.”
Trey’s throat bobbed as he continued to stare at the shelled delicacy. “Those are snails.”
“Yes. Yes, they are. I take it you’ve never had escargot?” Neither had she and, honestly, she wasn’t all too keen on giving it a whirl.
“I’ve eaten grubs. Scorpions. Snakes. But it was when I was in the middle of fucking nowhere and my choices were to either eat them or die from starvation. They sure as hell didn’t come on fine china. This is the kind of stuff that’s on the chef’s personal menu?”
Elle chuckled. “You did say he was a French chef. I can’t wait to see what he has prepared for the entrée.”
If possible, Trey’s complexion went from pale to ashen, but he picked up a snail shell and inspected it like it was going to bite off his tongue.
“You know, I saw a dive bar on the way here that boasted about having the best fried chicken strips this side of the mountain,” Elle interrupted before he put his fork in his mouth.
Trey stopped. “But I wanted…it’s your birthday. I wanted to make it a memorable night for you.”
Elle’s chest ached with the sweetness of his words. She reached over the table and took the fork from his hand. “It already is. And it’ll be for good reason if I don’t have to force myself to swallow snails.”
Trey dropped his fork to the plate and signaled Emmaline for the check. “Thank fucking God.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Trey felt instantly more at home in Dixie, the dive bar within the town of Jonesville, than he had in the escargot-serving restaurant at the ski resort. A collection of stuffed wildlife adorned the walls as well as a decorative chronological history of hunting paraphernalia. Every inch of the place played up the livelihood of the people who lived in the area.
And there was no one set of people. Men ranged from mountain men who looked like they hadn’t seen the sharp edge of a razor in close to twenty years to couples who looked to be like him and Elle—out for a night at the only place in town open past ten o’clock.
When they walked through the front door, Elle didn’t take a single hesitant step, gripping his hand and leading the way to a beat-up table in the back of the room. The bar’s locals only looked half-interested in their presence—until Elle innocently shimmied out of her coat, unaware of the heads turning in their direction. Goddamn, he didn’t want any trouble tonight.
He exc
hanged nods with the nearest table of male admirers, making his warning clear—eyes back on their fucking beers. They got the message a second before a waitress sidled up to their table.
“What can I get ya’s?” The young woman—who looked barely out of her teens—snapped her gum and gave Elle’s dress a cursory glance. “And I’m going to warn ya’s right now. We don’t have any fancy wines or those pigs in blankets. We have watered-down beer because Tom forgot to pay up to the supplier and grease with a side of chicken fingers.”
“Good,” Elle gave the woman a friendly smile. “Because that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
“Same here,” Trey nodded.
The waitress snapped her gum again and rolled her eyes before taking their order back to the bar.
Trey turned back to Elle and shook his head at the smile on her face. “So this is your idea of a birthday dinner, huh?”
“Well, it sure isn’t escargot,” she teased. She reached across the table to squeeze his hand and, instead of letting her go, he wrapped his fingers through hers and held on tight. “But I think it’s really sweet that you tried.”
“Yeah, well. Who would’ve thought that the daughter of…you”—he caught himself before mentioning her father’s name—“would prefer chicken fingers to buttery snails?”
Her smile wilted slightly. “Is that how you see me? As escargot?”
“No. I see you as a strong, beautiful woman who’s not afraid to mosey into a dive bar as if she’s done it a million times before. Come to think of it, that dive in Thailand was a lot like this one.”
She shrugged. “There weren’t a whole lot of options there. Besides, I’m not a fan of all the stigma that usually comes along with buttered snails.”
The waitress plopped down their beers and their chicken strips before disappearing toward the other side of the room. Despite this being a far cry from Swallow Falls, they’d already talked more than they had from over the top of a bright linen tablecloth.
“At the gala, you looked as if you belonged.” Trey chose his words carefully. “But anyone who looked a little harder could see that you didn’t.”
Elle’s eyes flashed up to meet his. “And you looked harder?”
He nodded.
“And what, exactly, did you see?”
“Honestly? I saw a woman who mentally tallied the costs of all the gowns and decorations and the platters of food around her and thought of all the good that same amount of money could do for a community in need.”
“Well, it’s frivolous,” Elle said, looking slightly embarrassed as she chomped on a fry. “One of those gowns alone could buy a month’s worth of medicine for a clinic like the one in Thailand. And don’t get me started on some of those charities run by the social elite. If the people who needed the help got a fraction of the money that was spent to hold those fund-raisers, there’d be no more famine in the world.”
“And that pisses you off.”
“Of course it pisses me off.” She looked disgusted. “People who are in a position to do good should use that power for the good—and not their own.”
“Is that what your father did?” Trey had to ask. The sudden swarm of hurt darkening her eyes made him do it. He brushed his thumb over her wrist. “Did he use his influence for his own personal gain?”
“He doesn’t live to serve the people. In his eyes, the people live to serve him. And if someone’s brazen enough to interfere with his agenda, he’ll be right there with a good ultimatum. That’s why people don’t dare go against my father.”
“You did.”
Elle laughed, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes. “No.”
“So you’re telling me that your father planned for you to become a nurse with an NGO?”
“No, I’m saying that until I took the position at Caring Hands, I let him bully me into compliance like he did everyone else.” At the sight of his confusion, she gently pulled away. “What if I told you that I used to be a Stepford Daughter?”
His eyebrows lifted. “I don’t see you as the type of woman to just fall into line.”
“Then you’re eyesight’s all wonky. At sixteen, I rocked at throwing parties like the gala. If my father demanded that I wear dark blue, I wore it from head to toe. If my father demanded that I date a certain up-and-coming political prospect, I waited for the doorbell to ring and accepted the flowers with a smile. I made a long tradition out of succumbing to every single one of my father’s demands.”
“But what about nursing school and your job at the NGO? Your father seems the type to think that profession’s…”
“Below him?” Elle nodded. “He does. It was one of the first times I put up a stink and, truthfully, I think it shocked him a little. But then he did as is his norm and demanded I be at his side during his reelection. I nearly flunked out of nursing school because I was trying to be in two places at one time—which I’m sure was his intent. But I graduated and became licensed…and then along came James.”
Trey’s irritation grew at the mention of the ex, and he stabbed his soggy fries a little too forcefully into his vat of ketchup. “And let me guess…he was one of those up-and-comers your father threw at you.”
Elle made a ding-ding noise and tapped her nose. “Nail on the head. I deluded myself into believing that I actually cared about James because thinking there were actual feelings was easier than admitting that the entire relationship was orchestrated by my father. And then—” Elle paused, a sudden wave of…something…washing over her face. “I was in the accident, and it wasn’t exactly a fender-bender. Then one day after a doctor’s appointment, I stopped off at James’s office to find him with his secretary—which, as she shared with me all too gleefully, wasn’t the first time they’d been together.”
Trey gripped his beer mug so hard he thought the damn thing would crack. He’d known about the cheating. She’d glossed over it a few times in passing, and then of course there was the altercation at the gala itself. But hearing the story from her own lips made him vow that if he ever saw that bastard again, he’d rip off his head and stuff it up his ass. “I should’ve broken his neck when I had the chance.”
“It would’ve been a waste of time.”
“Not so sure about that,” Trey murmured before taking a sip of his beer.
“I am. Because when I saw him that afternoon with his pants around his ankles, do you know what I felt?” Elle almost looked embarrassed as she fingered the condensation on her mug. “Nothing. What hurt worse was when he told me that it was just one of those things I was going to have to learn to deal with—and he really expected that I would. My father did too.”
“And that’s when you ended the engagement?”
“Right then and there—and again, their complete and total shock only solidified my resolve to start thinking and living for myself and no one else. Shay had already gone on a few assignments with Caring Hands, so she put me into contact with them, and a few weeks later I was on a plane bound for Thailand.”
Small pieces of the Elle Monroe puzzle finally started making sense—except one. “So if James didn’t hurt you, then why all your rules banning any relationships?”
It took a while for Elle to look him in the eye, and when she did, he saw the slight tremor as she captured her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t want to be put in the position to be tempted to let someone hijack my life again. It took a pathetic thirty years to break out of it the first time.”
It sounded feasible, and Elle looked sincere, but Trey suspected there was a bit more to her Elle Goes to Thailand escapade. He wanted to know it all, but he wasn’t about to demand she tell him and give her a reason to pull way.
Elle flashed him a nervous smile. “This conversation is a little much for a first date, don’t you think?”
He recognized her need to divert. “Is that what this is? A date? Seems like we’ve put the cart a little ways before the horse, haven’t we? We haven’t even had our first dance.”
“Th
en let’s remedy that.” Elle stood and extended her hand right when a fast-paced country song came out of the speakers. “Come on, cowboy.”
Shit. He had to learn to think before he spoke.
She dragged him to the edge of the dance floor, where he came to an abrupt stop.
“What’s the matter?” She looked at him curiously while he studied the complicated boot stomp being performed by the handful of couples—all in synch.
“How about we wait for a slow number, because I sure as hell know my limits, and it’s way before…that.”
“I’ll teach you.” She tugged gently and flashed him pleading smile. “Nobody expects perfection. It’s all about moving to the music.”
“Any moving to this music that I do is going to look like I’m having a fucking seizure.”
Trey could’ve pulled away if he really wanted to, but the smile on her face had him reluctantly shuffling his feet onto the dance floor, where she spent the entire song trying to teach him a handful of moves. When the song ended, he sent up a silent prayer, only for it to be answered with another fast song.
Trey followed the direction of Elle’s laugh and caught sight of an older woman in front of the jukebox with a mischievous smirk plastered on her face. “Go on, honey. Give it another whirl.”
After a few stumbles that had both him and Elle laughing, Trey managed to keep his embarrassment down to a minimum. Still, when a slow number came on, he pulled her into his arms with a low chuckle. “Thank fucking God. That was damned painful.”
Humor glittered from Elle’s blue eyes. Her fingers absently kneaded the back of his neck, while her other hand rested palm-down on his chest. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a little relieved that song ended. What’s the matter? You weren’t feeling the Boot-Stompin’ Shuffle?”
“Not one fucking bit. This is more my speed.” He inserted his knee between her legs and brought her as close as their two bodies would permit.
“I like this speed too.” Elle rested her cheek against his chest and smiled. If it were possible, she seemed to melt into him a little bit more, and Trey didn’t mind it one damn bit.
