It Must Have Been the Mistletoe... (14 page)

Not luggage, Tyler noted as his gut tightened. Boxes. Like she was moving back home.

Home, where his brother was. The brother who still talked about Rita as if she was the lost love of his life. Who claimed he'd never find true love because Rita had broken his heart. Who had laid blame for all his dating failures and almost bombing medical school at Rita's feet.

Tyler knew his little brother had a tendency to overreact. Half the time, he swore the kid would do better on the stage than in the hospital. But…he'd promised when their dad ran out twenty years back, that he'd always protect and look out for his family.

So no matter how overdramatic he might think Randy was, Tyler was still driving home the woman who'd caused all his little brother's misery.

Wasn't this going to be a merry freaking Christmas.

“L
ET'S SET A FEW GROUND
rules before we hit the road,” Tyler decided, desperately needing to get the upper hand. He had no idea what rules to set, though.
Don't seduce me
sounded a little pathetic.

“Haven't you heard? I don't do rules.” Her anger was clear, even though her words were slurry with exhaustion. “And since I've spent the entire night packing because your cute little trick lost me not only my job, but my ability to pay rent, I am now going to take a nap.”

Cute little trick? It took Tyler thirty whole seconds to realize she was referring to his kiss. Was she crazy? That lip-lock had been incendiary. The kind of stuff that burned down good intentions and leveled resistance. A move every guy in that bar had been fantasizing he could pull off.

Cute, his ass. He directed a glare her way before he realized it was pointless.

She'd tugged a pair of sunglasses over half her face and curled her body away from him, burrowing into the puffy red fabric of her coat. From the slow, even tenor of her breath, Tyler could tell she was already asleep.

Well, hell. Nothing to do but leave, he realized, pulling away from the curb. The GPS on his dash flashed the route,
marking it fourteen hours and twelve minutes until they arrived in Ponder Hill.

Fourteen hours until Rita was in the same town as Randy. Randy who would throw a fit and ruin their mother's holiday.

Tyler glanced at the woman he'd always called a diva. She looked more like a worn-out waif, her bright red jacket contrasting her black hair and pale skin. She appeared to be out for a few hours, at least.

Good. That would give him time to come up with a plan. Something. Anything.

Maybe first, though, he should figure out how to get rid of this vague wish to curl up next to her, wrap her in his arms and bury his face in that silky hair.

 

T
HE SMELL OF FOOD SLOWLY
seeped through the cozy blanket of sleep wrapped around Rita. She had a brief, lethargic mental debate about diving back into her dreams, but nothing grabbed her attention faster than deep-fried cooking.

With a little moan, she stretched her arms overhead, the cold glass of the passenger window sending shivers up her fingers. Uncurling her legs, she yawned and forced her eyes open. Even with sunglasses on, the overbright sunshine screamed
morning
. Squinting behind the dark lenses, she took in the view.

They were parked outside a truck stop, surrounded by chrome and steel. Tyler had shifted, so his back was against the door and one knee drawn up on the bench seat. The food, glorious greasy goodness, was spread on a takeout tray between them. Fries and onion rings, a couple burgers, hot pie, some fruit and even a green salad. Obviously Tyler wasn't an only-breakfast-in-the-morning kind of guy.

She wished that didn't add so much to his appeal.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he drawled around a bite of
what looked like a double-bacon cheeseburger. “I didn't know what you liked, so I got a bit of everything.” Everything, indeed.

Overwhelmed and blaming her vulnerability on being fresh from sleep, she pulled her gaze away from the hypnotic depths of his blue eyes and glanced around.

Frowning, she looked at the clock on the dash. It was after eight and they weren't even out of New Jersey?

“What's up?” she asked, feeling a little defensive with her face naked and still soft from sleep. “You too busy watching me nap to put in the mileage?”

“What makes you think I was watching you?”

Rita gave him a wink and ran her fingers through her hair to wind it into a ponytail. “Because sleeping with me is a goal of men far and wide,” she teased.

“How d'ya know you don't drool?” he asked.

Rita couldn't tell if he was flirting or not. Tyler came across as this laconic, rough-edged bad boy with a wicked sense of humor and an even more wicked right hook. But for all his good-ol'-boy charm, he was impossible to read.

“Me? Drool? No way.” Sucking up the sweet punch of carbonated caffeine, she gave him an arch look. “I have plenty of references who'll swear otherwise.”

Tyler's blue eyes narrowed, then took on a deliciously languorous look. The kind of look she figured he gave his bedmates just before a little morning tumble. Her stomach dipped down to her toes as she imagined waking up next to him. Beside him. On top of him.

He'd never given her that look before. She warned herself not to let it go to her head.

“I'm not the kind of guy who relies much on references. I'd rather decide for myself.”

“Is that an invitation?” she asked in a low, wicked tone.

His grin was a slow work of art. She knew better than to
tumble at the sight of a wicked smile and sexy eyes, but man, oh man, her breath still hitched a little.

“If I issue an invitation, sweetheart, you won't have to clarify.”

Taking a moment to replenish the breath in her lungs, Rita tried to calm her racing pulse and eject from her head the vivid images of the two of them sliding together in a naked dance.

“I'll make note of that,” she murmured, pretending she wasn't cowed by reaching for some fruit instead of pursuing that intriguing line of thought.

“So, what's up?” she asked after she'd finished an orange and half the French fries. A balanced breakfast if she did say so herself. “I'm not criticizing, but why aren't we farther along?”

Something flickered in his eyes. Rita didn't know what, or why, but she felt her defenses rise.

“I've got a few stops to make on my way home. Some bike shops, a couple buddies who're interested in new rides.”

Rita knew he was talking about the motorcycles he customized. He'd always been into bikes. It must be nice, she mused, to find a niche that fit so perfectly.

“Okay,” she said, as if her agreement mattered. They both knew it didn't, since she'd basically shanghaied this ride home. “How much longer? A few hours? Half a day?”

Not that anybody would be worrying. She hadn't told her parents when she'd be home, since she'd been hoping to talk Benny into waiting a few extra days so she could stockpile a little more cash.

“Two, maybe three days,” Tyler said, dropping the bomb in an easy drawl.

“Two or three…”

“Extra days,” he finished with a nod, gathering their breakfast leftovers onto the tray to return to the diner.

“Days,” she echoed faintly. She grabbed the remaining
apples and salad from the tray, tucked them into her bag. She'd only budgeted enough for one day's worth of travel food, knowing she'd be well fed as soon as she got home. How the hell was she going to stretch her funds to three days?

Rita did a quick mental count of the cash tucked away in her bag. Still a few hundred shy for the payment on the victrola.

She was so screwed. Pressing her hand to her stomach, she tried to quell the panic. Somehow, some way, she had to salvage this. Because Rita Mae Cole had learned the hard way not to let herself get screwed unless she knew the pleasure was worth the price.

 

T
HEY'D BEEN ON THE ROAD
awhile and Tyler was still grinning. His plan was brilliant. He'd called a few buddies to spread the word while he'd been waiting for the food. He'd delay enough to keep Rita away from Randy, who was leaving Christmas evening. If Tyler played it right, they'd get home for Christmas Eve without her catching a clue.

So what if it meant he spent a few more days in her company? It wouldn't be a major hardship. He glanced over, his smile dimming a notch at the glum look on her face. Her forehead resting on the window, she stared out like the answer to every question in the world was written on the side of the freeway.

Should he ask what was wrong? He wasn't supposed to care, he reminded himself. She was a big girl, well able to take care of herself. But the dejected droop of her shoulders was really getting to him.

“Hey—”

“What town are we going to?” she interrupted. She didn't look so dejected now, thanks to the slightly manic gleam in her big green eyes. “Do you know about when we'll get there?”

“Um…” He gauged the expression on her face, wondering if she was about to throw a monkey wrench in his plans.
“Chatsworth. We'll be there in an hour, hour and a half, I'd guess. Why?”

She just shrugged, bending over to dig into the huge tote bag she'd plopped at her feet. Resurfacing with a cell phone that looked as if it could run complex algebraic formulas, she sent her fingers flying over the tiny keys.

“What're you doing?”

“Just…I'm not sure,” she admitted, her fingers freezing for a second as she stared out the window again. Tyler leaned forward to glance past her, trying to figure out what the hell she was staring at.

Apparently she didn't see it either, because she dove into the bag again. This time she pulled out a thick stack of papers, puffing out her cheeks as she flipped through them. She nodded and tucked them under her thigh, then resumed tapping on the phone.

“Rita?”

“Hmm?” She stopped tapping long enough to glance over. “Oh, I'm just, well, working on a little Christmas project. It's for my parents.”

As soon as the words cleared her lush lips, she winced and wrinkled her nose. “Sort of. In a roundabout way.”

And those confusing words were all she'd say about it. For the next forty-five minutes, over the Christmas carols belting out of the radio, Tyler peppered Rita with questions.

She was polite. She was even sweet. She texted like a maniac. She scanned the pages, somehow not getting nauseous, which made Tyler a little jealous. He couldn't read in a moving car without tossing his lunch.

But by the time she'd settled down with the papers, a red pen and a blank notebook, he'd gotten no more out of her than when he'd started. When she began humming along to “Silent Night,” he gave up.

Thirty minutes later he left the freeway. Taking that as some kind of signal, Rita hit the bag once again, pulling out
a cosmetic bag and going to work. In the ten minutes it took Tyler to reach the small bike shop on the far side of a strip mall, she'd transformed her face from naked to sultry.

He told himself he was feeling antsy because he needed to get out and stretch his legs. But since his third leg was stretching quite nicely on its own, he had to cop to self-delusion.

Killing the engine, he kept his gaze on the shop instead of looking at Rita again. “You want to come in?”

“Nah, I've got some things to do still,” she said distractedly. “I need to get into my stuff in the back, though. Okay?”

“Sure,” he agreed, jumping out of the truck in unseemly haste and hobbling toward the safety of men, bikes and the scent of motor oil.

After twenty minutes of BSing with his buddy, Roy, and a few biker pals, guilt set in. He'd thought Rita would have joined him by now. It was pretty damned cold out there. Telling the guys he'd be back, he headed toward the truck. Within a few feet he could see she wasn't in the cab, so he rounded the bed.

He could barely pick her out in the crowd. Bikers were shoulder to shoulder with what looked like bankers from the S and L on the corner. Mixed in were a few gals with huge hair that he suspected worked at the beauty salon in the mall.

“What the hell…” He stared, slack-jawed, as Rita waved her hand, all game-show hostess like, over the array of vividly colored items spread across the tailgate of his truck.

“What the hell are these?” she clarified, stepping around two blondes to greet him.

Even knowing he was no better than one of Pavlov's pups, Tyler swept his gaze over her face, now pinup-girl exotic. Her hair was still in a ponytail, but she'd done something to make it look all fifties' movie-star flirty. She was still in the same jeans she'd worn earlier, but she'd replaced her red puffy jacket with a black studded leather one.

Tyler's mouth watered.

“These are toys,” she said. It took him five seconds and the direction of her pointing finger to remember the question.

“Toys.”

“Sex toys.”

“I realize they're sex toys. Why are they here? Now? On my truck?” He stared, fixated, at a foot-long, neon-green monstrosity with the head—and face—of a dinosaur.

Her laugh was all it took to rip his attention from the freakish dildo back to her. She ran her tongue over her upper teeth to hide a smirk, he was sure.

“I see you're interested in the T-Sex—the dinosaur of dildos,” she explained, sounding like a TV commercial hawking a new model car. “Guaranteed to make your woman roar with pleasure.”

“What…”

“What am I doing with them? Selling them, of course.” She indicated the little slips of paper she'd tucked underneath each toy. He squinted, seeing she'd not only written up descriptions, but detailed suggestions for ways to use them, along with the asking price.

Tyler was grateful the icy wind was there to cool his cheeks before the heat became apparent.

Didn't matter, though. Rita, probably having a special radar for that kind of thing, laughed.

She leaned forward and gave his cheek a soft pat. The smooth touch of her fingers made him want to grab her wrist and nibble his way up her arm.

“Don't worry, big boy,” she purred. “You can have first dibs. I'll even give you a good-driver discount.”

The only thing that kept Tyler from grabbing her by that tiny waist, tossing her in the bed of the truck and showing her just exactly
how
good he could drive was the six-and-a-half-foot biker in studded leather who'd tapped her on the shoulder and asked the price of a set of candy-cane-styled nipple rings.