Double Down (11 page)

It was their turn to buy tickets. Cassandra almost groaned at the price. The expense didn’t seem to faze Ryan, who dragged a credit card out of his wallet.

“Please, please tell me you aren’t going into debt for this weekend,” she whispered.

He shrugged. “I’d been saving for a hiking trip this summer with Jon and Leah—my friends from at the restaurant. We thought heading into the mountains might be a nice break from the heat come July.”

“Camping’s not so expensive.”

“Not with normal people. Jon comes from money, and Leah has expensive tastes. I’m sure a spa or a villa would be involved eventually. It takes a bit of prep to keep up with them.”

“You’re giving that up for me?”

He signed the receipt then grabbed the tickets and her hand. “If I’d bought you diamonds, you could argue it was for you alone.” He eased in close to her ear. “Unless you wore
only
diamonds. And you were on top. That would be for me too.”

Cass kissed him before swatting him away. The gallery seemed too intellectual, too exotic for their teasing. She loved it. Everything was golden. The lighting, the walls, the gilded chandeliers. Huge colorful Persian rugs covered floors polished to a gleaming shine. She’d never been able to decide if the effect was elegant or gaudy. Probably both—the best of Vegas. The gallery was the only reason she ever came down to the Strip.

They presented their tickets and waited to enter the main exhibit. “Are Jon and Leah a couple?”

Ryan snorted. “Hell no. They’d cannibalize each other first.”

Hesitating, knowing it was probably against the unspoken rules of their weekend, Cass asked, “You and Leah? Maybe before?”

“Yeah, for a while.” His expression had sobered slightly, his gaze intent. “That was a long time ago.”

“What happened?”

Shoot. Shut up, Cass.

“It was like two wolverines in a burlap sack. You can’t have a relationship based on a constant game of chicken. We couldn’t even compromise on our choice of bottled water.”

“Generic all the way, baby,” Cass said, trying for levity.

He winked. “Now stop asking questions. We’re having a torrid affair, remember?”

“While edifying ourselves. Multitasking!”

They had just reached the threshold of the exhibit when Cass’s cell phone chirped. The guard on duty gave her a stern look. “Not in the gallery, please, ma’am.”

She checked the caller ID. “Dang. It’s my mom. I have to take this.”

Ducking out of the queue, with Ryan shooting the evil eye at the guard, Leah answered. “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

“Oh, it’s just terrible, honey.”

Her mother’s reedy voice was higher pitched than usual. She was in full-fledged panic mode. Already the hairs on Cass’s arms had prickled. This wasn’t going to be fun.

“I need you to take a tour tomorrow. Your father’s arthritis is bad this month, and Emily has some family thing with Robert’s parents.”

“Mom, why didn’t you tell me in advance? You know I can’t do last minute.”

“It wasn’t my fault. You know how flighty Robert can be. I’m not knocking him, really. He’s a great son-in-law and he loves little Claire something fierce. But he forgets.”

Cass ground her back teeth together. Emily, her sister, had married a geology Ph.D who led tours for their family business. He knew the Grand Canyon like the back of his hand, but remembering to put important events on the company calendar always slipped his mind.

“Honey, where are you? It sounds busy there.”

“Grocery store. Hold on. I’m just buying my stuff.” She hit mute and leaned against the wall.

“Trouble?” Ryan asked.

“What are we doing tomorrow?”

He shrugged those godlike shoulders as if the fate of future relations with her family didn’t hang in the balance. “Building houses for the homeless?”

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” she said. “Yet very noble of us.”

“How about eating breakfast off one another?”

“Much better.”

“Spending hours by the pool until I need to drag you back to the room and strip off your bikini?”

Cass grinned. “You assume I have a bikini.”

“With a body like yours,
not
owning a bikini is a crime against mankind.”

“Mmm.” She shifted her legs, loving the sudden rush of arousal. “You’re merciless.”

“Cassandra, I really don’t care. I’m having too much fun to stop now.” He nodded to the phone in her hand. “If you need to do family things, I’ll understand. Honest. This isn’t the only weekend ever.”

Oh, she liked the sound of that. It was the first time either of them had suggested that their good time might not end come Sunday evening.

She wasn’t going to bank on that. Maybe this was all they’d have. Cass didn’t want to give it up before she absolutely had to.

“Hey, Mom?”

“I’m here, honey.”

“I’m really sorry, but I can’t. I have plans.”

A telling silence hissed over the line. Cass never had plans. She either had work or she was in a gallery. That had been especially true since breaking up with Tommy.

“Plans?”

“That’s right,” she said, reaching out to grab Ryan’s hand. She needed to stay strong. Her mom, no matter how wonderful, could wield guilt like a medieval knight swinging a sword. Cass wasn’t still living in her bizarre hometown by accident. “You know I don’t duck out on you often. This is…this is important.”

“It’s not that guy Tommy, is it? I thought you broke up.”

“No, not Tommy. Mom, I gotta go. My ice cream’s starting to melt. Call Phillip. You know he’s always ready to take a tour.”

“He just about pushed a couple into the Canyon last time, trying to take their picture. Dad doesn’t like how much of a liability he is.”

“That’s what insurance is for, which you have plenty of. I really gotta go. Talk to you later.”

She barely heard her mom’s “I love you” before closing the phone.

Ryan had crossed his arms, leaning against the wall next to her. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She let out a heavy breath, feeling as if she’d dodged a bullet. “My parents run a small company, Vision Tours.”

“I’ve heard of it. Some of the guys on base have used them. Tours out to the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon, right?”

“That’s right. I’ve been a tour guide since I was about fifteen. My sister and her husband practically run it now, but I still fill in when they have emergencies.” She forced herself to stop nibbling at a rough cuticle. A short laugh escaped her. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever told her no when I wasn’t scheduled to work.”

“Feel selfish?”

“Yeah.”

He kissed her neck. “Naughty?”

She giggled as he found a ticklish spot. “You’re hopeless.” Blinking, straightening, she put the phone back in her purse. “I guess sometimes you just need to say no to family. It’s not something I’ve ever been good at.”

A frown pinched between his strong brows. “I wouldn’t know.”

“No?”

Despite the subtlety of Cass’s prompting, he’d already gone into lockdown. She was getting to know his smiles better now. Most were genuine. This one was forced. “Not from experience, no,” he said. “C’mon. That guard keeps giving me the evil eye.”

“Then quit trying to stare him down.”

The atmosphere between them, however, took time to ease, even after they’d joined the gallery throng. Cass couldn’t concentrate. The gilt looked gauche, the lighting artificially posh. Her affair with Ryan wasn’t even twenty-four hours old and already they’d hit pesky barriers. Dratted human beings with their
feelings
. They’d be having a much better time if they could just turn off all that squishy nonsense. She was hanging out with a piece of one hundred percent prime All-American beef, but her brain wouldn’t be quiet.

She knew so little about him, and maybe that was part of the problem. She wanted to know everything.
Now
. Even if that might end their fascination with one another. In a bizarre way she envied his friends, those other pilots. They probably knew what he wasn’t saying about his family. Maybe they could navigate around the weird wall he threw up at a moment’s notice. Cass didn’t have anything like that inside knowledge at her disposal.

She swallowed a sinking feeling. What if she’d done a terrible thing by indulging, even encouraging his roleplaying? What if that set them up for disappointment? After all she hadn’t been, until very recently, the kind of daredevil who had sex in public and donned frilly costumes. She was a waitress without the slightest speck of ambition, one who spent her free time studying art books and browsing the internet for gallery jobs she never applied for. He’d figure that out eventually, and that would be the end of them.

“Hey,” he called softly.

Cass shook free of her doubts, only to have them redouble when she grabbed another glance at Ryan. The golden lighting made him into a modern-day bronze sculpture, all jagged angles and curved muscle. Short sunny brown locks curled onto his forehead. Bright hazel eyes regarded her with his full attention. He always did that, as if he couldn’t look at her closely enough.

A
fighter pilot
, for gosh sake.

Whereas Cass Whitman was about as exotic as a shrub. He made her want to keep up, but she didn’t have any practice at hard-charging. It sounded worse than difficult. It sounded scary.

He held out his hand. “Come tell me about this one.”

Taking a deep breath, she joined him in front of a painting of an isolated French commune. He didn’t hold her hand for long, instead cupping her hip, fingers slightly splayed.

“It’s by Corot,” she said. “He was the leading painter at the French Barbizon school in the mid-19
^th
century.” She pointed to the buildings in the background nestled behind a clear blue stream. “See here? His structures are almost classical, but the trees and the grasses use early impressionistic techniques. He was the bridge between those two styles. People like Monet, Degas, Van Gogh—none of them would’ve been the same without Corot to come first.”

Only after speaking did she realize that Ryan was no longer looking at her, but at the painting. That frown was back—his expression of concentration. “It’s great. I like how cool it looks. Me and a couple guys, during that leave in France, we took a train from Paris to Marseilles. The countryside was just like this.”

“I remember that, how strange and lush it was compared to here in the desert.”

“Ah,” he said. “So you were telling the truth last night too.”

She smiled softly. “A little.”

“You had the nerve to head off to Paris for a year. That’s something.”

“Once. Years ago. But coming back home… I kind of got out of the habit of taking chances.”

He cupped her cheek. She wanted to nibble his lower lip, if only to distract him from being so damn perceptive. “Seems a shame, Cassandra. Being bold looks good on you.”

Chapter Thirteen

The parking garage was sweltering. Even the dim shadows didn’t help break the warmth. Ryan tossed Cassandra’s scant possessions in the trunk of her car then swiped at a trickle of sweat sneaking beyond his hairline.

She already sat in the driver’s seat, cranking up the air in order to blow out forty-eight hours worth of heat.

For almost two days, they’d hidden from the world.

It was the best weekend he’d had in a seriously long time. He didn’t want it to end, but they both had real lives to get back to. Days to prepare for.

He propped a forearm on the roof of her car and leaned down. “Do you have to work next Friday?”

She wore a light green tank top that left her shoulders bare. He couldn’t help but run his knuckles over her soft skin. It was insane to think she’d allowed him to touch her so casually after meeting him just two nights ago. More than that, she’d indulged—no,
welcomed
his weird games Friday night.

Cold slithered over him despite how the parking garage could roast a Thanksgiving turkey. Shutting that part of him down once again would be hard as hell, but he’d manage. He was rapidly starting to suspect Cassandra was a woman worth knowing. That meant treating her with the respect she deserved. No more weird stuff.

Besides, sex had been fantastic no matter what they did. He didn’t need seamed stockings and French accents. Wouldn’t
let
himself need them.

“I’ve got a Saturday night shift, but I’m free Friday.” Her smile lit up her whole face. “Are you asking for a reason?”

“I sure am,” he said. “Would you like to go out with me?”

“Go out? You mean on a real, honest-to-goodness date?”

He kissed away her laugh, taking it into his mouth. Her zest for life had been wonderful all weekend, making it even more odd that what she’d mentioned about her jobs and her goals sounded so stuck. He didn’t like thinking of her that way, not after the initiative she’d shown with him.

“Yes. A date. I hear people do that when they like someone of the opposite sex.”

“Or the same, if they like.”

“Yeah, that too.” He sank to balance on the balls of his feet, the better to see her eyes. The concrete beneath him was dark and slick with old oil. Not somewhere he’d like to have this conversation, but he’d take the cards he was dealt.

“Does this mean you like me, Major Haverty?” Her eyes sparkled. She angled her shoulders toward him.

“Yes. Is that surprising at this point?”

“No, not really.” She leaned forward to brush a kiss over his lips. “Because I like you too.”

“Are you going to write my name with flowers drawn around it?”

“No,” she said with a fake sour look. “But I will expect you to call this week. We can firm up details then?”

“Sounds good.” He stroked his thumb down the slender column of her throat. She was so goddamned soft. He could barely keep his hands off her, even now, even after two days of being glued to her. He’d touched her at every opportunity, and it still wasn’t enough. “Will you do one thing for me before then?”

“Is it sexy? Because then I’m all in.”

She made him laugh like hell. “No, not so much. Well, I suppose it
could
be, but I’m feeling kind of greedy. I’d like you to keep your sexy stuff for me, at least for the foreseeable future.”