Wrong Side of the Tracks: a Hope Valley novel

by Prince, Jessica

  An arrogant smirk lit his handsome face. “I haven’t had any complaints so far.”

  “Maybe not to your face,” I muttered indignantly.

  He moved in closer. My brain screamed, Retreat! Retreat! but my pride kept me rooted in place. His throaty chuckle caused a rush of arousal to flood between my thighs. “Maybe you should try me out and see for yourself.”

  That was just the reminder of how far beneath Marco’s station I really was that I needed. “I don’t need to try you out to see for myself,” I said with a sneer. “And contrary to popular belief, just because I take my clothes off for a roomful of men doesn’t mean I’m a whore.”

  Regret instantly flashed across his features, but I was too entrenched in my anger to care.

  The music cut off, indicating this private show was over. “Looks like your time’s up,” I chirped with a saccharine smile. “Hope it was good for you, baby.”

  And with that, I turned on my stripper shoes and flounced out of the room with a dramatic flip of my hair. I didn’t give a shit about the money. He could keep it. Holding my chin high, I was determined not to let him see just how much that scene hurt as I headed back to the dressing room to get ready for my next performance.

  I didn’t see Marco for the rest of my shift, but that didn’t mean he’d left. I could feel his presence like a tangible thing. Those piercing hazel eyes were like lasers on my skin every time I stepped from behind that curtain. And when I finally called it a night, he was in the parking lot, leaning against his shiny red Jeep Cherokee, his arms crossed over his chest and one ankle propped in front of the other, watching me like a hawk as I climbed into my crappy van.

  And as hard as it was—and it was really freaking hard—I succeeded in pretending he didn’t exist as I started the thing up and drove out of the parking lot, squealing brake pads and all.

  Chapter Five

  Gypsy

  I brushed the hair back from Holly’s forehead, my stomach pitching as I took in the rosiness in her cheeks and her glassy eyes. “How you feeling, doodlebug?”

  I’d been in the middle of my shift at Fresh Foods when the school called to tell me Holly had come down with a fever and I needed to come get her. Unfortunately, I’d already used up all my sick days when each of the kids was hit with the flu during the winter, so I was out the rest of the money I’d pull in from that shift. My manager might’ve have been a clueless kid, but at least he was nice enough to let me off work without so much as batting an eye.

  Holly’s bottom lip poked out in a pout. “Yucky,” she answered, breaking my heart.

  “I know, honey, and I’m sorry. I’m gonna try and make you feel better, okay?”

  She squeezed the stuffed teddy bear I gave her for her second birthday tighter. That bear had seen a lot over the years—so much, in fact, that I’d had to reattach multiple limbs, and none of the stuffing inside of it was original. It was missing an eye that I hadn’t been able to sew back on because, unbeknownst to me, Holly had swallowed it, and it was never seen again. It was matted with stains that no amount of washing could get rid of, but she loved that damn thing and wouldn’t go anywhere without it.

  “Okay,” she whimpered pitifully, and I climbed from her bed to go in search of some children’s Tylenol to hopefully bring down her fever.

  I dosed her with medicine and tucked her tight into her bed so she could sleep, hoping and praying she’d be better when she woke up. I always stressed when one of the kids got sick. Mostly because I hated seeing them in pain, but also because it meant time off work, which meant lost wages, which meant they had to do without even more than they already did.

  With unexpected free time on my hands—a rarity in my life—I decided to get a little house work done while occasionally ducking in to check on Holly. I was in the middle of handwashing the breakfast dishes stacked in the sink since our dishwasher broke months ago when a knock sounded on the front door.

  Figuring it was Odette bringing Raleigh back, I called out, “Come on in, honey. My hands are covered in dish soap.”

  The door opened, but the clomp of footsteps was far too heavy to be Odette’s. That telltale prickling started at the base of my neck and moved across my scalp, the pins-and-needles sensation causing goose bumps to spread across my skin.

  “Well, that’s a much warmer greeting than I got from you the other night.”

  I shot around so fast that I slung soapy water across the kitchen. “Marco,” I squeaked in astonishment.

  “Gypsy,” he returned with a crooked grin and a wicked glint in his eyes.

  “What, uh….” I couldn’t think straight. It was as if the space shrank when he was standing inside of it. Our house had a lot of problems—dingy, cheap countertops, threadbare carpets with questionable soft spots beneath—but the kids and I did everything we could to make it feel comfortable. The furniture might not have been nice or new, but at least it was comfortable. As crappy as the place was, I wanted it to feel like home for all of us. It was important to me that our home reflected our personality; that was why the walls were painted purple instead of a nice, neutral color and it looked like a rainbow vomited on the gazillion throw pillows and blankets scattered about.

  And at that very moment, with Marco standing inside my front door, I was seeing my home through his eyes. And as much as I hated it, I couldn’t stop wondering what he thought of it.

  “You’re here. Why… how… why?”

  He ducked his head in an attempt to hide his amusement, taking a few seconds to school his features before looking back up at me. “Well, babe, the how of it’s easy. I just got in my car and drove here. And the why is because you were complaining about your water heater, so I’m here to take a look at it.” My mouth fell open in shock. “Oh, and your brakes.”

  A nice, subtle warmth started spreading through my chest. Then the confrontation between the two of us from a few days ago popped into my head, and that warmth shriveled up like an old lemon.

  “I didn’t ask for your help,” I replied bitterly, turning back toward the sink.

  “Gypsy.” The tone in that one word made me stop and forced my attention back to him. Our eyes locked, and I felt a zing shoot through my body so strong it winded me. “You might not have asked, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna help anyway.”

  “Fine. Then what if I said I don’t want your help, huh?”

  He shrugged lazily, closing even more of the distance between us and hitting me with a cocky smirk. “Same outcome.”

  “You’re an insufferable ass,” I clipped, even though the smell of his cologne had penetrated my senses and was making my head fuzzy.

  “Well, being the insufferable ass that I am,” he started, his voice low and bewitching, “I’m going to help you.” He lifted his hand, toying with a strand of my hair before tucking it behind my ear. His fingers traced along my jawline and down my neck, sending a ripple of want straight to my core. “Whether you like it or not.”

  I pasted on a mask of indifference in spite of the eruption of butterflies deep in my belly. “You know, you might have been swaying me—and that’s a really big might—but then you had to go and ruin it by being a bossy, arrogant jerk.”

  A voice in my head screamed, Danger! at the intensity in his eyes, and gut instinct told me that my mouth had just gotten me in big trouble.

  “You wanna think I’m a jerk, I’m okay with that. But I held a beautiful woman in my arms the other night while she lost it because she has too much on her plate. If I can help you, I’m going to.”

  God, I didn’t want that to have the impact on me that it did. “Why—” I had to clear the lump suddenly forming in my throat. “Why do you care?”

  Marco’s heat soaked into my skin as he placed his palms on the counter on either side of me, leaning in so close that he was all I could see. “Because the attraction you’re feeling right now isn’t one-sided.” I sucked in a gasp so hard my chest expanded. “Not even close, girasol.”

  I co
uld have sworn he was about to kiss me, and in that moment I really, really wanted it. Then Holly’s tiny voice said, “Gypsy?” and the bubble around us cracked and splintered, crashing around my feet in a million tiny pieces.

  Sidestepping Marco, I put some much-needed distance between us. It was impossible to think straight when he was so damn close.

  Hurrying over to Holly, I crouched down and brushed her damp, sweat-matted hair from her forehead. “Hey, doodlebug. You okay?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  The flush had faded from her cheeks, and her skin was cool and clammy now that her fever broke. But that didn’t mean she was totally out of the woods yet. “Okay, honey. Let’s get you some water.”

  I stood, took her hand, and turned toward the kitchen only to meet resistance when she tugged me back.

  “Holly?”

  She tipped her little chin in Marco’s direction, her big, honey-colored eyes wide with curiosity. “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, uh….” My attention ping-ponged back and forth between the two of them. “This is my friend, Marco. Marco, this is my little sister. Holly.”

  “What’s a gear asshole?”

  At her question, my eyes bugged out, and Marco let out a loud snort. “What?”

  “That’s what he called you,” she said. She shot Marco a steely glare that I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at. “You called her bad word. That’s not nice.”

  “Oh, no! Sweetie, he didn’t call me a bad word,” I hurried to explain. “It was just—”

  “Girasol, sweetheart,” Marco answered for me, moving close to my baby sister and lowering to her height. “It means ‘sunflower’ in Spanish. It’s a compliment.”

  Holly’s head tipped to the side in adorable confusion. “Why do you call her that?”

  “Because of all that gorgeous blonde hair and those pretty eyes. She reminds me of a sunflower, and don’t you think sunflowers are beautiful?” His answer made white-hot sparks of lust shoot through me.

  She nodded, her lips parted and her eyes wide like she was in awe. “Yuh-huh.”

  “Well, I think they’re beautiful too. Just like your big sister.” He tapped the tip of her nose with his finger. “And you.”

  Oh my god.

  I couldn’t do this. My world felt like it was spinning out of control. My belly dipped and rolled like I was mid-drop on a roller coaster.

  “Come on. Let’s get you that water and get you back to bed. You need to be resting. Marco, the water heater is tucked back in my closet, just through there.” I pointed to my bedroom at the end of the hall.

  Those hazel eyes were so dark with lust they glued my feet to the floor. “All right, babe.” He reached up and caressed my chin. “You need me, you know where to find me.” Then he disappeared down the hall and into my bedroom.

  Shaking off the jittery, flustered mess Marco reduced me to, I looked down to Holly with an overly bright smile and tugged on her hand again. “Come on, doodlebug. Let’s get you taken care of.”

  After getting Holly her drink and getting her back to bed, I walked out into the hallway, pausing to take a bracing breath and trying to drum up my courage to head into my bedroom where Marco currently was.

  I moved forward like my feet were mired down in thick mud. Stopping just outside the threshold to my closet, I looked down at Marco as he crouched in front of my shitty water heater. “How’s it looking?”

  He slowly rose to his full height, the muscles in his back flexing and stretching his tee as he turned to meet my eye. I was quickly starting to realize there wasn’t anything this man did that wasn’t sexy. Even him standing up made me swoon. I was so screwed.

  “Turned out to be an issue with the pilot light igniter. It was an easy fix.”

  “Oh my god! Are you serious?” I squealed. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in weeks.”

  Something moved over his face. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it rendered me immobile as he stepped in front of me and placed his fingers beneath my chin, forcing me to tip my head back to maintain eye contact. “You know, I love this smile on your face. But it pisses me off that a goddamn functioning water heater’s the best news you’ve had.”

  It was then I realized he was looking at me with a barely banked fury. I’d temporarily forgotten myself at the news about the water heater and let my cool, unaffected mask slip.

  Needing to break his touch and the heavy moment, I took a couple steps back out of the closet and spoke like I hadn’t heard him. “Well, um, I really appreciate you fixing it for me. I’ve been taking icy showers for days now. It’ll be a relief not to risk hypothermia just to bathe.”

  Propping his shoulder against the jamb of the closet door, he stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, regarding me way more closely than I was comfortable with. “Holly okay?”

  The genuine concern in his eyes moved me more than I was willing to admit. “Yeah. Yeah, she should be. I’m hoping it’s just a bug. She doesn’t get sick often, so when she does, it always makes me feel terrible.”

  “She’s really important to you, isn’t she?”

  My brows pulled together, an incredulous frown taking over my face. “Of course she is. She’s my sister. My brothers and sisters are the most important things in my life.”

  “And you have five of them?”

  His question made me pause. Sure, we ran in the same circles, and because of some trouble Tempie and Eden had found themselves in a while back, they’d gotten somewhat close to Marco, but he and I had never been particularly social. We were cordial toward each other whenever we were all in a group together, but we’d never really talked.

  “They were with you at Eden and Lincoln’s engagement party a couple weeks ago,” he answered my unasked question.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right.”

  “And you raise them yourself?” At the bewildered expression on my face, he explained, “Been asking around about you, babe.”

  My heart began thundering in my chest. He pushed off the doorjamb, and all of a sudden I was very aware that I was standing alone with Marco Castillo in my bedroom. With my big comfy bed less than two feet away. “You’ve been asking about me?”

  “I have.”

  “But… why?”

  Arrogance and humor floated across his features, making him look even sexier—if that were even possible. “Were you not listening earlier when I told you I was attracted to you?”

  Of course I’d been listening. That statement had been stuck in my head on repeat for the past fifteen minutes. “Marco—”

  “You’re unbelievably sexy, Gypsy,” he stated bluntly. “One of the sexiest women I’ve ever laid eyes on. And when you smile? Christ, that just ramps it up to a thousand.”

  Hearing that was like having a bucket of ice water dumped right over my head. “I’m so flattered,” I deadpanned, the skin around my mouth tightening with unhappiness.

  I knew my harsh comment caught him off guard when his chin jerked back and he frowned in bemusement. “What?”

  “For months you’ve barely looked in my direction. Now all of a sudden you’re interested?” I let loose a bark of caustic laughter. “Let me guess. You caught a glimpse of me up on that stage the other night, and now you’re itching to bang a stripper, right?”

  I could practically see the storm clouds forming in his eyes. He moved faster than any man his size should have been able to, crowding me between him and the foot of the bed. “The first time I saw you, you were coming through the door of Evergreen Diner. You were picking up lunch on your break from the grocery store and were wearing a shapeless polo shirt and khaki pants, but it was your hair that caught my attention. A mass of gold that shined in the sunlight, it took my breath away.” I stared up at him, completely shell-shocked as he continued rocking my world. “Then I noticed your eyes. I’d never seen such a unique color before. But it was the shield I could see behind that sweet honey brown that drew me in, made me want to get to know you.”
/>   “Marco—”

  “The first time I saw you smile was at The Tap Room,” he kept on, ignoring that I’d spoken his name. “Eden said something that made you laugh, and for just a second, that shield lowered. Swear to Christ, the beauty in that smile made it hard to breathe.” I felt raw and completely exposed, but he wasn’t nearly done. “You were wearing shorts at Trick and Nona’s barbeque the first time I noticed your legs, how goddamn long and smooth they were. I wondered what it would feel like to have them wrapped around my waist while I was inside you, or my head when I had my face buried between your thighs. So yeah, babe, the other night just solidified everything I was feeling, but that wasn’t when my interest started. I don’t want to fuck a stripper, Gypsy. I want to fuck you. I want to look into those eyes when I’m buried deep inside you and see that shield fall. I want that smile pointed at me. I want all that hair spread out across my pillow. I’ve wanted all that for months, and I intend to work my ass off to get it. And I promise you, when you finally give all of that to me, I’ll make sure you know it was worth it.”

  Before I had a chance to respond—not that I could—my front door opened, and Odette’s loud voice carried down the hall into my bedroom. “Yoohoo! Gypsy girl. You here?”

  My legs unlocked and I skirted around Marco, heading down the hall. “Right here, Detty.”

  “Oh, good.” She bounced my baby brother in her arms as she said, “Lee here was starting to get antsy, so I thought I’d swing by so we could check on Holly together.” My sister came shuffling out of her room at that and nuzzled up to my friend’s side. “Hey there, precious baby. How you feelin’?”

  “Better,” she mumbled.

  “That’s good. I was worried about you—dear sweet Mother Mary. Who is that?”

  I whipped my head around and found Marco had followed me from the bedroom and was standing only about a foot away.