Playing For Keeps (24 page)

"No, we're just fighting. You love me
and you damn well know it."

She opened her mouth to deny it, but
she couldn't. She did love him. More than anything on this earth,
but he'd hurt her last night and she wasn't so sure that she could
trust him not to do it again.

When she didn't say anything he
settled back in his seat and said, "I'm coming with you so you
might as well get used to it. The sooner we get the fight over with
the sooner we can move onto the next phase."

"What phase?" she asked
cautiously.

"Makeup sex," he said, grinning hugely
as he wiggled his eyebrows.

***************

"What are we doing here?" Jason asked
as he climbed out of the car, but not before Haley did. He wasn't
an idiot after all. She was still pissed off at him and was
probably still looking for a way to ditch his ass. In retrospect,
he probably shouldn't have made that makeup sex comment.

The hour they spent at the rest stop
had definitely proved that. She'd tried everything she could to get
him out of her car, but he refused to budge. Finally when she was
out of breath and exhausted from trying to drag him out of the car,
it was a sad attempt, she gave up, slammed the door shut and drove
off, ignoring him for the next two hours.

"I need groceries," she muttered
unhappily, throwing another glare in his direction. When her eyes
shot between the Super Wal-Mart center and her car he snagged the
keys out of her hand.

"Hey!" She tried to grab them away
from him.

"Sorry, my little grasshopper, you're
not ditching me at Wally World," he said, pocketing her keys and
heading for the store, leaving her to either fume at him or follow.
He didn't bother looking back since he knew she wasn't going
anywhere.

Although Wal-Mart wouldn't be his
first choice, this solved one problem. He didn't have any clothes
since he'd been in a bit of a rush to hide in Haley's car before
she spotted him. But this would work out rather nicely for him and
since he could smell the salt in the air he knew exactly what to
buy.

"I hate you," Haley mumbled, storming
past him to grab a carriage.

"You love and adore me," Jason
informed her as he deftly snagged her carriage away from her and
headed towards the men's department.

Along the way he stopped at the
women's department when a little black bikini caught his eye,
deciding that it would look great on Haley he threw it into the
carriage as well as the red one behind it. He wasn't too worried
when Haley didn't follow him. He figured she was somewhere in the
store trying to calm down or buy a baseball to beat his ass into
submission.

That was fine. They had a whole week
to work their problems out whether she wanted to or not. She was
his, plain and simple and the sooner she realized they'd be
together forever the sooner he could correct the mistake he made
last night and show her how good it could be between
them.

After he grabbed swim trunks, enough
clothes for the week and a few toiletries he headed for the grocery
section. When he spotted Haley's carriage he couldn't help but
snort in disbelief. Did she really think buying single servings of
food was going to feed them for a week? Clearly their fight had
addled her brain.

He paused near her carriage ignoring
her cute little glare and dumped all his things into her
basket.

"Hey!" she said, trying to stop him.
"What the hell are you doing?"

"I need more room in my carriage for
food," he simply said. He headed towards the dairy section, hoping
she wouldn't just ditch his shit to get back at him. Then again she
should know that if she did he would take it as an invitation to
walk around naked the entire week.

"Why do you need bubble bath?" she
asked as she came up next to him in front of the dairy
coolers.

He placed two gallons of milk in the
carriage. "It's for you," he said in a tone that let her know it
should be more than obvious. His little grasshopper loved taking
long hot bubble baths to relax and he really needed her to relax if
he was going to convince her to forgive him and forget about that
breakup nonsense.

"O-kay," she said slowly, picking up a
familiar black cardboard box. "And what about these? A twenty pack
and magnum size no less, someone thinks awfully highly of
himself."

Sighing, Jason reached over and
snatched the box of condoms out of her hands. "Only one box? I
thought I grabbed three," he murmured, making a show of looking in
her carriage for the other boxes. Finally with a resigned sigh he
threw the box back. "Remind me to grab a few boxes on the way
out."

With that he headed over to the cookie
section, knowing she was definitely going to follow this
time.

"Why the hell would I remind you?
We're not going need one box, never mind three!"

Jason really couldn't help but smile
at that little announcement. "Okay," he said, grabbing the box of
condoms and sticking it on the top shelf between some figs and
jelly cookies. "I was hoping you'd say that."

The damage had already been done last
night. Granted if it had been any other woman he would have dragged
her ass to the emergency room for the morning after pill, but with
Haley he felt oddly calm about the whole thing. Actually, he felt a
little excited at the idea of Haley having his child.

Up until a few hours ago he hadn't
given much thought to the consequences of last night. He'd been too
scared that he'd lost Haley for good to really give it some
thought, but once he found himself squeezed into his little hiding
place he hadn't had much to do but think.

When he allowed himself to consider
having a kid he may have freaked out just a little. Thankfully
Haley had been blasting the radio so she probably didn't hear him
hyperventilating. After he finally managed to calm down he allowed
himself to think about Haley pregnant with his child. He'd been a
little shocked when the idea didn't freak him out.

Soon he was picturing little girls
with mischievous green eyes and pigtails asking him to play tea. Of
course he'd bring real food to the tea party. None of that pretend
food bullshit for his little girls.

By the time Haley had stopped for
breakfast he'd been calmer about everything. He'd already decided
to ignore that breakup nonsense. It was just ridiculous and he knew
sooner or later Haley would realize that so they could get started
on making their all girl baseball team.

"You were?" Haley asked, looking so
damn confused and adorable.

"Damn straight," he said, grabbing
several cookie packages and tossing them into his carriage.
"Nothing should come between us when we're making love," he
explained, loving the way her little face went bright
red.

"We're not doing that again!" she
hissed quietly.

Not doing it again? Puhlease. If there
was one thing he knew about his little grasshopper it was that she
was as insatiable in the bedroom as he was. He'd have her in his
bed by the end of the day, guaranteed.

Chapter 21

"Can I have my keys back?" Haley
asked, holding out her hand expectantly just as Jason placed the
last bag in the back seat.

"Nope," he said, making the word pop,
stepping past her and climbing into the driver's seat.

Sighing, Haley climbed into the
passenger side, knowing there was no point in arguing with him and
she really didn't have the energy. All she wanted to do was find
the cottage, take a bath and sleep for the next day or
two.

She pulled her hand away when Jason
tried to hold it. Instead of arguing he acted like nothing happened
and focused on the printed driving directions. After a few minutes
he took her hand into his again.

After a two minute tug of war Haley
gave up and let him have his sad little victory, mentally promising
herself all kinds of revenge when he smiled smugly. She was too
tired to argue so she sat back against the cool leather seat and
tried not to doze off.

Her eyes darted to the rearview mirror
and narrowed on the large pile of grocery bags. She turned her
glare onto Jason. "I hope you don't expect me to cook for you." She
decided that if he so much as pouted over that announcement she was
going to break out the fists of fury on his ass.

He shook his head. "You're not allowed
to cook this week," he said, surprising the hell out of
her.

"What?"

"You're on vacation. I don't want you
to lift a finger," he said, raising their entwined hands and
pressing a sweet kiss to the back of her hand. When she felt
herself starting to melt she reminded herself what he did last
night and why.

After one last useless attempt to tug
her hand back, Haley sighed and sat back in her seat, watching as
they passed small houses, apartment complexes, small business. Ten
minutes later they passed through a quaint downtown shopping area
and onto a scenic road that took them past several large hotels
along the beachfront.

Haley was just about to drift off when
Jason said, "I think this is it."

She forced her eyes open and watched
as they drove past several small cottages. A minute later they were
pulling onto the long driveway of a small one level
cottage.

"Do you have a key?" Jason asked,
throwing the car into park and shutting it off.

Biting back a yawn, she nodded.
Without a word she climbed out of the car and trudged up the short
crushed sea shell walkway and let herself into the house, deciding
she'd handle Jason later. Right now she was too tired to do
anything more than take a bath and nap. She looked around the
cottage and noted that it was cuter than the pictures her
grandmother's realtor sent her.

The wicker furniture in the living
room was small, but looked surprisingly comfortable, she noted as
she walked through the open doorway into the small eat-in kitchen
and looked out the double glass doors. She frowned as she watched
the waves crash against the smooth sandy beach. There was no way a
cottage on a private beach was only a thousand dollars to rent for
a week.

"Damn it," Haley cursed, stomping her
foot. Once again her grandmother had tricked her. When Haley asked
Grandma to see if her realtor could look into rental properties for
her, she should have known Grandma wouldn't be able to stop herself
from swooping in and taking care of it.

No one in her family understood why
she wanted to make it on her own, least of all Grandma. Haley knew
her grandmother meant well and that she was worried about her, but
she really wished she'd stop pulling stunts like this one. There
was absolutely no doubt in Haley's mind that her grandmother had
paid for more than half the rental price.

Well, there was nothing she could do
about it right now. More importantly, she was too damn tired to be
pissed. Sometime this week she'd go into town and ask around to
find out what a rental property in this area went for. Then she'd
send her grandmother the difference.

"Are you sure this place only cost a
thousand?" Jason asked, placing a half dozen grocery bags on the
table.

Haley looked over her shoulder and
sighed. One more problem to deal with. She pushed her glasses back
up her nose and pulled her cell phone out of her front pocket.
"Look, why don't you call one of the guys to come pick you up?" It
would take a good five hours for someone to get here. Hopefully
she'd sleep through Jason's wait.

"Why would I do that?" Jason asked as
he emptied the bags and started to put the food away.

"Because you're not staying here," she
said bluntly.

He snorted.

"I'm serious, Jason," she said,
stepping forward, blocking him from putting the ice cream away. He
simply sidestepped her and put it away.

"I'm not going anywhere,
Haley."

"Look," she said, taking in a deep
calming breath, "I'll give you a ride right now to one of the
hotels we passed along the way. You can stay there until someone
can come get you."

"I'm staying right here, Haley, until
we work this out," Jason said firmly.

"You're not staying here. First of
all, I paid for-"

"Here," Jason said, cutting her of, as
he slapped a check onto the white oak kitchen table. "I'm paying
for the cottage so there shouldn't be any problems."

Jason was the only person besides her
grandmother she knew that still carried checks in his wallet. She
picked up the check and frowned when she saw that he intended to
pay the entire amount.

She held the check out to him. "I'm
not taking this."

"Yes, you are," he simply said as he
headed back into the living room. "If you tear that up I'll just
write you another one when we get home."

Haley folded the check and stuck it in
her back pocket. One more argument to have later, she thought
miserably. Right now she was too tired to care. She walked into the
living room and headed for the small hallway to the right, deciding
she'd get her bags after her nap that would hopefully give her the
energy to deal with this nonsense.