“Not exactly.
“Why don’t you release them yourself, prove what really happened and then move on?”
“Any other time, I’d agree with you, but there’s more at stake than my career. There’s this organization that has taken a chance on me and staked their reputation on my word that I’ve changed. It’s called Back To School or B.T.S. for short. They help kids get back on the right track.” He changed lanes and blew past a silver minivan. “I’m supposed to start doing PSA’s for them in the fall, but if this gets out—not only will I look bad, they will look worse.”
“What made you do something illegal in the first place?”
She sounded a like a journalist asking him these questions, but it felt good to confess his sins to her. “Got in with the wrong crowd, tried to be a badass. Whatever my brother did that pleased my father, I made certain to do the exact opposite. Eventually it caught up with me when I decided to join the real thing.”
“What happened?”
He flicked his eyes in her direction. There was no sign of judgment on her face. Yet. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I’ll give you the highlights. There was this guy, Giles, and he never liked me. He was always trying to pick a fight or just fu— er, mess with me. Usually, I shrugged it off, but that night it was my birthday and not one person in my family called. Not one. ” His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. His jaw tightened and he had to breathe in a couple of times before he was able to speak again. “Can’t actually blame them since I was a complete ass to be around.”
“They still should have called,” she said, her voice so firm that it felt like she was on his side.
“Thanks, sweetheart.” He opened the moon roof with the press of a button. “So this piece of work is calling me out. Telling me I’m just playing at being like them. That I didn’t belong. Of course by this time, I’m pissed – drunk—and tired of putting up with him. I wanted to prove him wrong. So, it made complete sense to snort half of Columbia up my nose and off of some rather unusual surfaces. If it hadn’t been for Sasha, my cousin, getting me out of there, I don’t know what would have happened.”
“Oh.”
That was it? He glanced at her again. There was a furrow between her brows and her teeth nibbled on her bottom lip.
“I warned you about the whole answering truthfully thing.” Wind blew into the interior, whipping her ponytail around and obscuring her face. “Look, I get it that a woman from your background doesn’t want to be with someone like me. My past isn’t –”
She laced her fingers through his and squeezed. His heart tripled its beats at the small gesture.
“We all make mistakes. And you can trust me to keep all your secrets.” She placed his hand back on his thigh, but he wouldn’t let go when she tried to pull away.
Desire and comfort warred with each other. He really should take her back to the hotel. It wasn’t fair to foist the consequences of his bad decisions on her. She’d already done her part to make him look good.
With a heavy sigh, he did a U-turn on the mostly empty interstate.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “I thought we were going to spend the day together.”
“After what happened on the plane and what I’ve admitted?”
“My turn to be truthful.” She shifted in her seat, facing him. “I want to spend the day with you.”
A grin found its way to his face and he couldn’t stop smiling. It was as if the albatross hanging from his neck had been cut loose by her kiss and words. After pulling off his earpiece, he turned the car around and handed her his phone. “How about you turn off my phone and chunk it in the backseat. Today, it’s just Christian and Zoe, two people who are visiting the town of, ” He scanned the road sign, reading the list of upcoming town exits, “Coyote Hallow.”
“Oh my God.”
He checked his side mirror, eyes widening in disbelief as his phone crashed to the asphalt. “What the—”
“I’m so sorry. I overdid it and your phone went through the moon roof,” she said as he braked hard and reached for his seatbelt. “I’ll pay for a new one, with an indestructible cover.”
“Don’t worry. It might have survived.”
A semi in the opposite lane barreled by, decimating it.
“I don’t think it survived,” she said, her voice thin.
He blinked a couple of times, then got out to collect the remains.
There were tears in her eyes when he returned with the carcass of his phone. The sound of ‘Angry Birds’ gave one last hurrah and he chuckled. Then full blown laughter came rushing out. She stared at him like he’d just lost his mind.
“What the hell? Now, we’re really free,” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
Coyote Hallow was a one of everything town. One beauty shop, one general store, one police station, one diner and one gas station/taxidermy shop with the motto: ‘We stuff while you pump. Road-kill welcome.’ all crammed on one street.
Christian parked near the diner, then rushed over to open the door for Zoe.
She gave him a grin and her hand as he helped her out. “Thank you kind sir.”
“The lady is most welcome.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close to whisper in her ear, “Tell me when I get too handsy. Wouldn’t want to break the boundaries you’ve set.”
She pushed him away, but grabbed his hand in her familiar fashion of interlacing her fingers through his. “The lady is very hungry.”
Heads swiveled as they entered the restaurant, but for once Zoe seemed unfazed by it all and headed over to the nearest booth.
“Customer service,” someone yelled as they sat across from each other.
He plucked a menu from behind a mini-jukebox and handed it to her before snagging another.
A gum-smacking waitress with big hair meandered over to their booth. “What can I get ya?” Her gum snapped, crackled and popped like the cereal.
Nodding at Zoe, he said, “Go on, love.”
“I’ll have a cheeseburger, well-done, fries and a chocolate shake. Hold the pickles, onions and tomatoes and can I have mayo?”
“Black cow, frog legs, hockey puck and walk it,” the waitress shouted, then raised her brows at him. “What about you, sweet cheeks?”
He perused the menu while the waitress, whose name tag proclaimed her to be Betty, waited with one hand on her hip. She was wearing orthopedic shoes and had fluffy pink hair that reminded him of cotton candy.
Zoe looked under her brows at him and covered her mouth.
“Make it two. No lettuce.”
Betty shouted out another slew of diner lingo and walked away without another word. The noise level in the diner returned to normal.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said.
“Get used to what, sweet cheeks?” Her eyebrows wiggled.
“Very funny.” He tapped her on the nose. “People staring when we walked in.”
She drew back and scooped up their menus, dropping them into place behind the mini-juke box. “They’re not staring at us because of who you are.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s what people in a small town do. They stare at people who are new in town. Heck, I’ve done it.”
He stretched his arms along the back of the booth, wishing he’d sat on the same side as her, but it was easier this way. Easier to keep his hands to himself. Tapping her nose didn’t count. Her eyes met his and she gave him a sweet smile.
His heart stopped. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t make out the words.
“What?” he asked, snapping out of his daze.
“Why don’t you get along with Sebastian?” she repeated.
Betty brought their food to the table. Zoe grabbed a couple of fries while he gulped down a good portion of his shake.
“You kids enjoy.” Their waitress didn’t wait to see if they needed anything else and shuffled off, her cotton candy hair barely moving.
Setting his milkshake down, he tilted his head and shook it, waiting for his brain freeze to thaw before he answered. “Because he’s the serious one, the golden child, etcetera,” Christian said, “I don’t think I’ve had a polite conversation with him beyond ‘hello’ and ‘nice to see you’ in years.”
“To sum it up: Christian, bad. Sebastian, good,” he said. “Who’s your favorite sibling?”
She finished chewing the bite of her cheeseburger. “They’re all my favorites.”
“Liar.”
Smiling she took another bite of her burger. A small dab of ketchup accented the corner of her mouth.
“You’ve got something right here.” He swiped a finger at the corner of his.
After watching her attempt to wipe it off and somehow missing it, he leaned over and wiped it away with the pad of his thumb. She turned at the last second and kissed it.
“Thank you,” she murmured before her pink tongue licked at her full lips.
His gut clenched in response. “Anytime. Speaking of time, can’t you extend your stay?” There. He’d put it out in the open. “Or you could come out to LA and stay…with me. I’ve got plenty of room.”
“That sounds fun.”
“But…”
She shifted in her seat. “I don’t think you and I are on the same page when it comes to relationships. And I’m not trying to start a fight or argue. I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, like you were with me. I need a man who’s going to support my career, wants to settle down and have kids with me.”
“And you seem to be at, ah, a different point in your life,” she added.
Honest or not, Zoe was trying to scare him away. He was sure of it. No woman in her right mind would talk marriage to a man she’d just met. “I fail to see how your ultimate goals could be derailed by spending time with me.” His jaw hurt from clenching it so tightly.
She grabbed his hand. A pleading look came into her eyes. “How long would I stay with you in L.A? Until the novelty of us wore off? I’m not emotionally equipped for that kind of arrangement. I need permanent, not temporary.”
“Like that worked with Gabriel.” He pushed his plate away, his appetite gone.
“I didn’t love him, not like—”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Ah, the man-child that broke your heart. Gabriel had to pay for his sins as well.”
She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “The only person that had to pay was me. And your attitude is exactly why we’d never work out. Anytime you don’t get your way, you fall back on insults. Grow up, Christian.”
“While you punish every man who dares to scale your wall of perfection. So you got screwed over, we all have.” He shook his head. “At least when it happens to you, the entire world doesn’t know. People don’t go around writing shit about you and making money off of your misery.”
Her face turned pale, her dark eyes rounding and standing out in stark contrast to her skin. Good. He hoped to God he‘d given her something to think about.
Betty shuffled over with the bill, her gum still snapping, crackling and popping. “There you go, sweet cheeks. Thanks for coming by. Why don’t you take the wife on down to the general store and check it out?”
Zoe only nodded, her lips pressed tightly together.
“Thanks, we’ll keep that in mind.”
After paying the bill and leaving Betty a tip, they exited the diner. Zoe paused in front of the restaurant, her hands coming to rest on his chest.
“Let’s not argue anymore, okay?” The vulnerability on her face was his undoing.
Tugging her closer, he kissed her on the forehead. “Whatever you want.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You two looking for a place to stay the night?” the cashier asked with a twinkle in his eye. “Every store in town closes in five minutes. Well, everything, but Fred’s, that is.”
“Hadn’t planned on it,” he said, knowing full well Zoe wasn’t planning on it.
Christian paid for their purchases, which consisted of old fashioned peppermint sticks, a lacy fan for Zoe’s niece, a PEZ dispenser in the shape of a certain infamous coyote, and a pound of fudge.
When they’d first walked in Zoe had informed him that the items in here would put Cracker Barrel to shame. When he confessed that he had no idea what that was, she’d looked at him with undisguised pity.
Christian heard a crash and craned his neck, finding Zoe in a corner of the store. She knelt in the floor, picking up apples and placing them back in the bowl she’d obviously tipped over. “Add that to my bill.”
The cashier smiled as the total grew.
“Seventy-five dollars?” Christian might be obscenely rich, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be ripped off.
“Handmade bowl.”
“And the apples?”
“That’ll be another twenty.”
“Who pays four dollars a bloody apple?”
Taking Christian’s money, the cashier’s smile grew Cheshire Cat proportions. “Looks like you just did. Anyway, the Starlight Motel is right up the street, past the jail.”
He grabbed the bag and Zoe before she could knock over something else. “Thanks for the information.”
As soon as they were outside, he unlocked the car and opened the door for her.
“What information?” she asked, sliding inside.
Shutting the door, he quickly made his way to the driver’s side and got inside. “They’ve a hotel if we need one.” Buckling his seat belt, he gave her a wicked smile and her cheeks grew rosy. “How on earth can one woman blush so much?”