The Devil Inside (18 page)
“Lucille, please explain.”
Lucy set her shoulders back and inhaled sharply. “Nothing to explain, Father. I have a date.”
Raymond raised a patrician brow and scanned Jake before frowning back at her. “A date.”
“Yes.”
“With him.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I think not.”
“I think so.”
“Lucille.”
“Father.”
Jake’s snort interrupted what easily could have been an hour long war of very short sentences.
“You find something amusing?” her father asked Jake.
“Yeah. You two are funny as hell. You should take this show on the road.”
Lucy hid the smirk that threatened to erupt. And despite the fact she’d had her reasons for canceling their date, her father’s arrogant attitude toward Jake had her making an about turn in her decision.
“Let’s go, Jake.”
“Lucille, you are
not
going out with this man. I forbid it!”
She turned to her father, carefully controlling the fierce anger that threatened to boil into a sure-to-be-regretted-later eruption. “You do not get to tell me what to do, whom to see, or how to live my life. I’m an adult and capable of making my own choices. Goodnight, Father.”
She grabbed Jake’s arm and literally hauled him out the front door.
Jake opened the door on what looked to be a new, cherry red Chevy truck. Even had the back seat with the extra doors. And, my, was it tall. He held out his hand while she stepped onto the side rail and hoisted herself up.
“Lucille?” Jake asked with a chuckle as he hopped in on the other side.
“Oh, shut up,” she said, the adrenaline rush brought about by the argument with her father still zinging through her nerve endings.
He gunned the engine loud enough for her father to hear. It roared in her ears and vibrated her seat. Massive, powerful, the truck was like barely contained testosterone on wheels.
Which pretty much described Jake Dalton. He slipped the car into gear and peeled away from the curb, burning rubber in his wake. Lucy hid the smile that lifted the corners of her mouth as she spied her father’s rigid stance at the front window.
“Fiancé, huh?” he asked.
“No. No fiancé.”
“I guess we’re lucky you got out of there when you did.”
“Why?”
“You might have been grounded and we’d have had to cancel our date tonight.”
“Very funny.” She was not in the mood for laughs made at her expense, since she was mortified at her father’s behavior, and Jake wasn’t making it any easier. “Can we just drop it?”
“Why? Don’t you think it’s funny?”
“Not in the least.” Now she wished she hadn’t agreed to the date after all. It was clear he was going to tease her all evening.
“Lighten up,
Lucille
,” he said, accentuating her name.
“My name is Lucy.”
“Is it?”
“All right. It’s Lucille.”
“After?”
She turned to him with a frown. “After?”
“Yeah. Surely your parents wouldn’t name you that on a whim.”
Now he hated her name. Lovely. “What’s wrong with Lucille?”
“Nothing. It’s just not…”
“Not what?”
“I dunno. Doesn’t seem to suit you, I guess.”
“I was named after my grandmother.”
“Ah. Figured it was something like that. But I like the name Lucy. It fits you.”
“Fits? How?”
When they stopped at a red light, he reached out and grasped an escaping tendril of her uncontrollable hair, letting it slide slowly through his fingers. She shivered at the brush of his knuckles against her cheek. “Short and sassy. Like you.”
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