Tight Quarters: Strangers on a Train

by Samantha Hunter

  Dedication

  Thanks so much to my Strangers on a Train partners Ruthie, Sarah, Donna and Cara who made the adventure of writing this series so much fun, and for all of their support and advice along the way. This was about as perfect as any group writing experience could be, from start to finish.

  And thanks to whoever it was on Tumblr who took all of those pictures of guys on trains, inspiring our idea in the first place. ;)

  Chapter One

  Brenna Burke forced herself to relax, her bags bumping against her hip with each step even though the middle aisle of the train was more than wide enough for two people to walk abreast.

  She was feeling good and rocking this trip so far. It was the fifth time she’d boarded this train in the past year, but this time would be the one.

  Everyone was on her side. The porters had cheered her on when she’d arrived, and the conductor had even given her a thumbs-up.

  “You can do it, Brenna. You’ll clinch it this time,” she heard someone say, and she looked up to see Sean, the bright-eyed, young car attendant who had showed her the suite a few weeks before. He was helping a disabled woman to her seat.

  “Thanks, Sean,” she said with a smile that was sunny and positive.

  Because that’s who she was, she reminded herself. In all areas of her life, Brenna took the bull by the horns and lived. She loved her friends, her home and her work as a travel editor. If she could tame this last demon that had kept her down for the past twelve years, she would be good to go.

  The first time she’d tried taking the weekend train from Lake Champlain to Niagara Falls, she’d choked up inside the door and had to get out, nearly plowing over several passengers in her hurry to escape. Each of the subsequent times, something had gone wrong at different points before departure, and she’d had to leave.

  This was her chance, and life wasn’t waiting for her. On the cusp of turning twenty-nine, she dreamed of the world out there. She thought about turning thirty in Paris. Or on some amazing beach in the Caribbean. This was the next step to making that happen.

  If Brenna could do this—spend four days on a train—she could do anything.

  Something jolted her. She paused in the middle of the aisle, caught in thought. People were lined up behind her; the aisle was full. Too full, making her feel closed in.

  Breathe.

  She inhaled something spicy…cloves? No, sandalwood. It was nice. Calming. Then she realized it was coming from whoever was standing right behind her, breathing down her neck, their body inches from hers, crowding…

  No. The poor guy was stuck there, waiting for her to move. Turning slightly, she smiled at him.

  “Sorry,” she offered, proud of how steady her voice was, considering that his chest completely blocked her view. He was big. Not rotund, but large. Muscular. Broad. Solid.

  Shit. She was staring. He was staring back, though it was more like he was trying to exert some superpower through the force of his brown-eyed gaze—namely, the ability to make her move forward. Then he smiled, and that didn’t help her stop staring.

  “No problem,” he said. “Take your time.”

  Innocent enough—polite even—though his voice was the closest thing to sex she’d had in a while. Unfortunately, her problem with close spaces had taken its toll on intimacy as well. Trying to make love while asking the man she was with not to crowd her didn’t usually work out very well.

  Brenna somehow made one foot move in front of the other, continuing down the length of the long car. Taking her mind off of where she was and what it all meant, she focused on the beautiful train she was boarding for the weekend. The 1930s Zephyr had been retooled to include all of the amenities that contemporary luxury travel had to offer—including spacious sleeper cars that replaced the original roomettes, which had barely had enough space for the pullout bed.

  Though its “Silver Streak” namesake was one of the fastest trains of its time, this one would roll along at a gentle pace, allowing everyone to enjoy the view while making frequent stops for shopping and sightseeing. For Brenna, those detours were also an escape hatch, if need be.

  A glance behind told her that he was still there, keeping step, right behind her. That, in and of itself, wasn’t a huge deal, except that as they passed room after room, other passengers found theirs, and eventually it was only the two of them making their way to the end of the car. Brenna had asked for the end room—a suite—specifically, since it had more windows. Four windows in ninety-five square feet with one double bed and one pullout half-twin.

  The berth was advertised as big enough for three people, with its own small bathroom, but it was just barely big enough for her to be comfortable inside with the door shut. Though it had cost her enough, she knew it would be worth it. She’d tried to get comfortable in the smaller rooms, but she wasn’t able to.

  Maybe he had simply missed his room number, she thought absently, still aware of him.

  As they reached the end of the car, however, her pulse picked up. Something was askew. Suddenly she felt very alone in the hallway. She reassured herself that if she screamed, people would certainly hear her.

  Brenna turned without warning and planted a hand on the man’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. His expression more surprised than menacing.

  “Why are you following me?” she asked, looking him in the eye. His were deep, dark brown, like the best chocolate and coffee. His hair was curly—not shaggy, but not styled either. A little wild, actually. Slightly darker than his eyes.

  “I’m not following you. Not in the way that you mean. I’m going to my room.” His eyes dropped to her hand.

  She removed it, her lips twisting in doubt.

  “The only room left in this car is mine. Yours must be behind you.”

  “No, mine is right down there.” He gestured to the end of the car.

  She detected a hint of Brooklyn in his tone, or maybe it was New Jersey or Philadelphia. She could never quite sort them out.

  “That’s not possible. I specifically reserved that berth,” she said pertly as she turned and walked away.

  When she slipped the key card into the slot on the door, it flashed green. She smiled, stepping inside and looking at him victoriously.

  “See? Yours is back there somewhere. Have a nice day.” She closed the door in his face.

  Turning her back to him and the door, she looked at the room.

  Just as she remembered. Except for the bouquet of flowers on the table by the window. Curious, she walked toward them, picking up the card. They were from her friend Mel, wishing her luck.

  The windows were small, with shades, but they let in enough light. The bathroom was also narrow, fitted with the bare necessities, but if she left the door open, she would be fine.

  Brenna felt good. A thrill ran through her. She could do it this time.

  The door behind her clicked, buzzed, then clunked. The same noise it had made when she was opening it with her key card. Shock had her fingers fisting around the handles of her bags as she turned to find him standing there in the entry.

  He smiled, waving his key card at her.

  “Well, look at that,” he said and winked at her with wicked satisfaction, stepping inside and closing the door behind him with a click of finality that echoed in her brain.

  Numbness set in. This couldn’t be happening. Brenna’s mind blanked as she confronted the one thing she couldn’t ever have prepared for.

  Reid Cooper watched the woman standing in the middle of the suite turn her back to him, facing the window as she started mumbling something to herself. She was breathing too quickly, her entire sweet body tense as a wire.

  He frown
ed, regretting the smart-assed move. This was clearly some sort of mix-up, but he hadn’t meant to scare her.

  “Just because I’m afraid doesn’t mean there’s danger,” she whispered over and over.

  “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out, but I’m not going to hurt you. Promise. I was just makin’ the point that this is my room. Or that one of us got the wrong assignment,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “We should, uh, go straighten it out, don’t you think?”

  She kept chanting. Great. He was stuck with a crazy person. Exactly what he was trying to get away from. It was why he’d quit his job in the NYPD in the first place.

  He’d dealt every kind of crazy in his job—funny-crazy to psychotic, dangerous crazy. The last one had nearly killed him. The memory made him cautious as he walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Hey, listen, I said—”

  She bolted so suddenly that he reached for his weapon reflexively before he realized he didn’t have it anymore. As she plastered herself against the wall, it became clear she posed no danger to him. In fact, she was white as a sheet and about to pass out if she didn’t get some air.

  “Listen, I’m not going to hurt you, okay? My name is Reid Cooper, and I’m a cop. NYPD. You’re safe, I promise. There’s just been a room mix-up. You need to calm down. Breathe more slowly, in, then out.”

  Old habits coming back as he took a deep breath, trying to get her to do the same.

  “Get out. You’re…t-too big!” She gulped breaths in between words, watching him closely and taking smoother breaths as the seconds passed.

  After a minute or so, she seemed much calmer, though she still clung to the wall as if she could crawl up it to escape him if she had to.

  “Wait, did you say I’m too big?”

  Her comment landed in his mind a few seconds after the crisis had passed. He stayed in good shape. Ran, swam a few times a week, and he had even started taking a martial arts class.

  And pottery. He’d always wondered about using one of those wheel things. It was kind of girly, and Reid was the only guy in the class, but he liked it. He was expanding his horizons, something he’d thought a lot about over his six months of recuperation from three gunshot wounds. Two hit the vest, one didn’t. It made a guy reconsider his priorities.

  But he was back in form, a trim six-three, two-oh-five. Not too big.

  She pointed to the door.

  “Out.”

  His eyebrows rose, arms crossed.

  “No way. We leave together, sweetheart, or I stay here and we can call the passenger director to come here and help.”

  “Brenna,” she said shakily.

  “What?”

  “Brenna. Not sweetheart.”

  She was clearly annoyed, but also less panicked. Reid took that as a win.

  “Brenna,” he repeated, trying it out. “Nice. So what will it be? You let go of the wall and come with me, or we wait here for someone to come help?”

  Her mouth flattened, and she took one arm away from the wall, then the other.

  She was a sexy little thing, with her colorful dress swishing around a very nice pair of legs, her labored breathing drawing attention to a great rack. Short, shiny, dark hair. He liked that too.

  But it was her face that got him.

  There was something odd about her features, a tilt of her nose, which was slightly crooked, and a slant to her lips that seemed perpetually disapproving. It made him feel like doing something to earn her censure. As if reading his mind, the slant deepened as she watched him.

  He put his hands up. “Listen, honestly, I’m harmless. I really just want to get the room situation figured out, that’s all.”

  There was a cute mole at the base of her throat. She was different pretty. Sexy pretty, though not in the way that would ever be seen on the covers of fashion magazines.

  She was real pretty.

  Reid took a breath, refocusing. It had been a while for him, clearly. Recovery and retirement had put a big dent in his love life, and it seemed his timing was still way off.

  “Okay, I’ll go,” she muttered. The rather than be stuck in here with you was silent.

  It took her another few minutes to actually move from her spot. Reid went first out the door but stood holding it until she joined him. Brenna insisted he go ahead of her, and she kept several feet behind.

  “Harmless, right,” he thought he heard her say under her breath.

  Crazy. Or afraid, he realized, all too familiar with the things that could make a woman that worried about a man, although she hadn’t seemed afraid of him in particular.

  Finally, they reached the office to find several other irate people in line. The train was getting ready to leave, and the poor woman fielding the complaints looked like she wished she could jump from it.

  Brenna eyed him warily, still standing a good distance away from the group.

  “Hi,” he said pleasantly to the passenger director, hoping to provide some contrast to the angry folks she had been dealing with. “We have a problem.”

  The woman looked directly to Brenna. “Brenna, are you okay? Do you need to exit the train? Because we’re about to get underway.”

  Reid blinked. The passenger director apparently knew Brenna personally, and looked past him like he wasn’t even there.

  “No, I’m fine, but we have a problem, Trina,” Brenna said.

  As Brenna explained about the double-booking, Reid waited patiently.

  “You know I reserved that room and why I need it,” Brenna said meaningfully, and the two women shared a look.

  Reid wondered what that was about. Was Brenna up to something? Meeting someone else?

  “Well, it also appears that I reserved the room,” Reid interjected, trying to sound as pleasant and unthreatening as possible.

  “Let me check,” Trina said.

  A few minutes later, she looked up from the computer. “Oh, this is a mess. There have been several double bookings. I have no idea how this happened, but there are limited options, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry. The train is full, so the best option is that one of you should reschedule. Mr. Cooper did reserve the room first, online, but for some reason, it didn’t show up when we booked you in person, Brenna. If one of you wants to reschedule for another time, we’ll do so at half price. We’ll be leaving the station in fifteen minutes, though, so you have to decide now.”

  Reid looked at Brenna. She looked at him.

  “I’m not leaving,” he told her flatly.

  “Me, either.” There was a spark in her eye now that she had stopped hyperventilating. “Why should I go?”

  “Because you’re the one with the issue. I’m too big, remember?” He couldn’t repress his grin as color heated her face. “And I booked first. Trina said so.”

  “If he won’t leave, I’m afraid you’ll have to reschedule, Brenna. I’m so sorry, but he reserved the room first.”

  “If you were a gentleman, you’d let me have the room,” Brenna hissed.

  He tilted his head in acknowledgement. “That may be, but the best I can do is offer to share. I’m willing to do that if we get fifty percent off of our tickets.”

  “I can do that.” Trina clearly wanted to solve the problem, and quickly.

  Some barely repressed, frustrated noise escaped Brenna’s lips, which made him fight hard to stifle a grin.

  “It’s— It’s not safe for a woman to be in a room with a strange man,” she sputtered.

  “I can understand that. Maybe Trina could find us same-gendered passengers we could pair up with?” he suggested.

  “I can check, but—”

  “I can’t share that berth with anyone,” Brenna cut Trina off, sounding slightly hysterical.

  “So it’s not just me? I’m flattered.” Reid pinched the bridge of his nose for a second. “Listen, I can understand your reservations, but I promise, I’m a safe bet. I was a cop, you can check with my captain, the NYPD, my father, whoever—I’ll
give you a list of references. We might not even see each other that much. I don’t plan to spend a lot of time in the room.”

  The whistle blew, signaling their imminent departure.

  “Fine,” Brenna bit out. “We can share, and maybe we can work out a schedule or something. Rules.”

  “Sure.” He tried again to repress a smile. “We’ll get right on that.”

  She turned red again and spun in the other direction to walk quickly back to their room.

  Reid decided to let her be for a while and located an empty seat in the dining car to relax as the train pulled away from the station. He’d get some breakfast, enjoy the view and deal with his new roommate later.

  Chapter Two

  Brenna had it all figured out.

  It had taken her a few hours, but she’d come up with the perfect system for sharing the space. She’d made notes they could stick to the outside of the door to make sure no one walked in and interrupted any personal time. It had helped her refocus as the train pulled away from the platform and she knew there was no going back.

  If she and Reid Cooper didn’t find a way to get along, the trip would be a waste of time for both of them, and she had other things to focus on besides him. Not that he wasn’t very nice to focus on. After she’d calmed down, she could admit he was a hottie, and he seemed nice, more or less. There were probably worse men to be stuck with, if she had to be stuck with a man. At least he was a cop, and he hadn’t made her feel wary at all. Not personally, anyway.

  He had a nice smile, even when he was chuckling at her in that annoying way. And kind eyes. And really, really cool hair. She wondered what those waves and curls would feel like tangled in her fingers, and then caught her train of thought.

  Ha, train of thought. She smiled at her pun, feeling more relaxed.

  Making her way through the cars, Brenna scanned the space and found Reid reclining with a book and a beer. The beer she would have expected, but the book surprised her, especially since she knew it.

  “Oh, I loved that book,” she commented, helping herself to the seat across from his. The book would make it easier to break the ice.