Fortune's Cinderella (15 page)

“The owner’s in New Mexico. Has been for twenty years. I doubt she’d care.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I make it my business to know these things. What is it they say about nature abhorring a vacuum? So does my brain.”

“You do realize how scary that sounds?”

“Does it scare you?”

After a moment’s apparent contemplation, she shook her head. “Not especially.”

This time he didn’t call her on the fib. Especially since, this time, he wasn’t amused. Odd, how all his adult life he’d worked the intimidation factor, figuring if a little fear got him where he wanted to go, it was all well and good. Even in his personal life—the minute he felt a woman was getting too comfortable, felt his control of the relationship slipping, she was history. But it was different with Christina. He was different. The idea of her being afraid of him, even a little, made him sick to his stomach. Sure, he still wanted what he wanted, but what he wanted…

Was for her to want him, too. Every bit as badly as he did her.

On her terms. Not his.

He drove the SUV to the end of the dirt road, Gumbo bursting from the backseat the instant Scott opened the door to bound across the field like the jackrabbits he probably hoped to find. Then, an old blanket purloined from Marcos’s car in hand, he helped Christina out. Her eyes grazed his for a moment, questioning, before she turned away. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she scanned the landscape, bright gold under a clear, cloudless sky. And let out a long, slow breath.

“Now this is what you call pure Texas,” she said. “Standing here, with all this sky and sun…it’s like being reborn.”

He couldn’t have said it better himself. Smiling, Scott let his gaze wander further west, over the sweet seven hundred or so acres nobody but he—and his Realtor—knew he had an eye on. And until it was a done deal nobody else was going to know he’d finally made the decision that would change everything.

“Come on, sit,” he said, shaking out the blanket and smoothing it over a bed of needles underneath one of the pines. Christina sat, folding up one leg to hug her knee while Scott stretched out beside her on his side, propped up on one elbow. In the distance, Gumbo let out a happy bark, bounced into view as if to say I’m okay, Mom, see? then bounced off again.

“So you gonna tell me the real reason why you brought me here?”

“Just thought you’d like it. That’s all.”

“Apparently I’m not the only one who’s a lousy liar.”

Scott plucked at a pine needle that had blown onto the blanket, twirling it in his fingers. “If I told you how much I’d like to kiss you right now,” he said, “would you be a, flattered, b, annoyed or c, ambivalent?”

“What is this, one of those questions on OkCupid?”

He looked up at her. “You’ve been on a dating site?” To his immense delight, she blushed.

“Never you mind about that—”

“Answer the question.”

“What’s annoying is that I can’t simply get up and stomp off right now.”

He grinned. “Yeah. I know.”

On a groan, she dropped her head onto her folded-up hands, then lifted it again, staring off into the distance. “Scott…you don’t want to kiss me.”

“I sure don’t want to kiss Gumbo.”

She laughed softly, then said, “No, I mean…you want to kiss who you think I am. Or who you think I could be. Take your pick.”

“And you think my brain is scary?” He reached up to curl his fingers around her hand. “Honey, I—”

“Now, see?” she said, pulling her hand from his. “You can stop right there with your ‘honeys’ and ‘sweethearts’ and ‘trust mes.’

Because they’re nothing more than words a man uses to make a woman think things she has no business thinking.”

Scott felt his forehead pinch. “And what is it you’re so sure you have no business thinking?”

“Not important,” she said, even as Scott thought, Says who? “But…but your sister said she thinks everything that happened with the tornado and the aftermath, it all messed with your head, somehow. That you’re acting different from what she’s used to. No, wait, let me finish.”

After a little rustling around she stretched out next to him, mirroring his position, eyes locked in his. Her hair had worked loose, tumbling in soft waves around her shoulder. “I’m not saying it didn’t. In fact, I have no business saying otherwise, seeing as it messed with my head, too. Big-time. But if anything it made me see things more clearly. Made me more sure of what I wanted.

What I needed. But you…”

Sighing, she rolled onto her back, her hands resting on her stomach. “From everything your sister tells me, it sounds like you’ve been focused so hard on your work all these years that you lost sight of you somewhere along the way.”

She angled her head to look at him. “Then this crazy storm comes along and shakes you up. Throws everything out of whack. But the thing about storms is, eventually they end. And when they do, you look around and realize…everything’s messed up. Not new.

Not better. Just…messed up. Maybe I’m different from every other woman you’ve ever known, but that doesn’t mean our getting stuck together was some kind of sign. All of this…it’s a novelty to you, Scott. I’m a novelty. Or a project, I haven’t quite decided which yet. So I meant what I said, about you not really wanting to kiss me. Because you’re only seeing who you want to see. Not who I really am.”

Scott looked at her for a long time, then said, “You could have just said ‘no.’”

She blinked. “About what?”

“This,” he said, then closed the few inches between them and lowered his mouth to hers.

There were, Christina knew, hot kisses and mediocre kisses and kisses so boring you found yourself contemplating what was on TV that night. But never, not even during that period of her life she thought about as little as possible, had she ever experienced a kiss like this.

Oh, my, yes, she thought, as Scott wrapped his hand around her neck, possessive and gentle and warm, angling their mouths to go deeper, this kiss was in a category all its own.

This kiss was Ferris wheels and warm summer breezes and spinning around and around with your arms held wide until you fell over, dizzy and laughing. Bubbles of delight scurried along her skin, through her blood, making things tingle and curl and sweetly ache and her brain feel like it’d exploded into a thousand sparkly bits underneath her skull.

Scott broke the kiss and eased away, his fingers toying with the hair at her temple, the lopsided grin on his face making her want to smack him. And/or kiss him all over again.

And she thought she’d been in trouble before.

“I never did answer your question, you know,” she said, her heart whomping so hard against her sternum it almost hurt.

“I took a gamble,” he said, still grinning. “And I think I can safely say that first kiss? Wasn’t a fluke. Or terror-driven.”

Apparently worn out from his exploits, Gumbo trotted up and wedged himself between them, exhilarated and panting. Scott let go of Christina to scratch the dog’s head.

“The kiss was okay,” she said, sitting up again. Frantically searching for her composure. If not her common sense.

“Like hell.” Scott sat up as well, cupping her jaw to bring her face back around to his. Thinking he was gonna kiss her again—

and not at all sure how she felt about that—Christina sucked in a breath. But all he did was stroke his thumb across her cheek, over and over, and stare into her eyes like he all but knew she was hiding something in there.

She looked away. “Don’t.”

Because she was. All kinds of things she didn’t talk about, ever, because they hurt too much. Made her feel weak and vulnerable and dumb all over again. Or worse, would make him feel sorrier for her than she suspected he already did. And that was one card she refused to play.

He dropped his hand. “I have no intention of hurting you, Christina.”

“I’m sure you don’t. Doesn’t mean you won’t.” She grabbed her crutches. “Can we leave now? My foot’s beginning to give me fits.”

Another lie. And he probably knew it. But she desperately needed to get back to reality, to what she knew. What she could control.

Nodding, Scott helped her up.

Neither said a single word the whole way back to her place. Until, when they turned into the complex’s parking lot, Christina spotted her mother’s bright red Ford Fiesta parked next to her new car. And, on her porch, the woman herself, all decked out in a too-low top, too-tight pants and too-big hair.

“Your mother?” Scott said beside her as he pulled up.

“None else. Although why she’s here I couldn’t tell you.”

“To make sure you’re okay?”

Christina reached around to grab her crutches from the back seat, briefly meeting Scott’s eyes. “After two weeks? The saying ‘day late and a dollar short’ comes to mind.”

She waited until he’d come around to help her out. Pride was one thing. Making herself look like a blamed fool was something else again. But before he offered her his hand, he leaned close enough to say, “You don’t have to face this alone. Not if you don’t want to.”

Gumbo leapt out and waggled over to her mother, who jumped up with her hands in the air, screeching. “Call your dog, Christina

—oh, for heaven’s sake, get down!”

“I can handle my mother, Scott. And besides…”

“You want me to leave.”

Once again, their eyes met. And, oh, dear God in heaven, did she want to believe what she saw in them. But how could she when she doubted he truly believed it, either? “I need you to leave. Red Rock, if at all possible.”

For the first time, she saw something like doubt flicker in his eyes. “Do you really mean that?”

“Does it matter? Scott,” she said quickly when he looked away, “I’m not deliberately trying to piss you off. I’m more grateful than I can say for everything you’ve done for me, but I have to be realistic. Why can’t you understand that?”

Several strained seconds passed before Scott walked around to the driver’s side, got in and drove off. If the universe had a shred of decency, that would be the last time she saw him.

Never mind that the thought of never experiencing another kiss like that made facing her mother sound delightful in comparison.

Speaking of whom…

“I wondered where you’d gotten off to,” Sandra said, patting down her thighs where Gumbo had left dusty footprints.

At her door, Christina dug her keys out of her jeans’ pocket. “Sorry. Were you waiting long?”

“Almost a half hour.”

The door opened, Christina let her mother inside first, then stomped in after her and shut the door, immediately feeling like all the air had been sucked out of the room. “You should’ve called. If I’d known you were coming I would’ve made sure I was here.”

“It wasn’t planned. I had to go into San Antonio and thought I may as well drop in, since it was on the way. Especially since I had to use the toilet and you now how I hate public restrooms.” Of course. And with that, Sandra vanished into Christina’s bathroom, emerging a scant two minutes later, glancing around the apartment without really looking at Christina. “So I guess you’re getting on okay?”

“Sure. Thanks for asking.”

Her mother’s lips pursed. “That the same young man who was at the hospital? The Fortune fella?”

“Scott. Yes. Would you like something to drink?”

“Sweet tea, if you have it. And I cannot believe you’re going down this path again.”

Ditching the crutches long enough to pull the tea pitcher out of the fridge, Christina felt her jaw clench. “I’m not going down any path, Mama. Scott’s been very kind to me, is all.” She poured her mother her tea, setting the tumbler on the tiny dining table.

“Kind enough to buy you that car?”

“Yes, if you must know.”

“Oh, Christina…”

“It wasn’t like I asked him. In fact, I told him not to. He insisted.”

“Because he’s trying to get into your pants, no doubt.”

“No, because he’s a kind, decent, generous man,” she said, turning so her mother wouldn’t see her blush. Not that she thought for a minute Scott’s motives were solely…that. But she’d be a fool to believe the subject hadn’t been hovering between them, especially after that kiss. What would frost her mother, though, was how little Christina would mind the prospect. Even knowing it would be—

or would have been—strictly one of those for-the-moment things.

“And I can’t believe you didn’t learn your lesson the first time—”

“Mama! Stop. Now.”

“I’m only saying—”

“I learned, okay?” Christina said, refusing to listen to her stinging eyes. Because while Enid’s lectures stemmed, she knew, from genuine concern, her mother’s hailed from that bottomless pit of self-interest that had motivated her every comment, her every action, for as long as Christina could remember. “Oh, boy, did I learn. So nothing’s happening between Scott and me. And it’s not going to.

And you know, you’ve got some nerve coming here and butting into my personal life when you couldn’t even be bothered to drive me home when I got out of the hospital.”

“You don’t get to talk to me like that,” Sandra said, pushing herself up from the table. “After everything I’ve done for you, raising you all alone—”

“Done for me? Are you serious? Here’s a newsflash, Mama—you don’t get to be a mother only when it’s convenient. Or when it suits your purpose.” On a roll now, Christina pointed to the door. “That man, who you’re so all-fired convinced is only after one thing? He’s paid more attention to me in the last two weeks than you have in the past five years. Frankly, if he did want to get in my pants? I’d let him, gladly. Because he’s earned it, dammit!”

Her mother looked like her hair was going to catch fire. Which would only be an improvement. “You don’t mean that.”

Christina blew out a long, rough sigh. “Fine, even if he were sticking around, I’m not going to jump the man’s bones. But everything else? Every single word.”

“He’s not staying?”

So much for making her point. “Of course not. His work, his whole life, is in Atlanta. So, see? The whole thing’s moot.”

Her mother looked at her for a long, hard moment. “I never realized how much you hated me.”