Page 4 of Edge of Ruin
Oh, for Christ’s sake, I needed a vacation. Or at the very least, a night’s sleep.
“Your van’s not going anywhere today,” he remarked.
I suppressed a snarky comment and wiped my hands on the hem of my drenched t-shirt. Good grief. He could see everything through that shirt. I hadn’t worn a bra, being all alone, and I wasn’t wearing a jacket. And oh, shit, now I was blushing again.
“I figured that out all by myself,” I said. “Can you tell me how I might get a tow around here?”
He prodded the mud with his stick once again, looked up at the lowering clouds. “That isn’t going to happen for a while,” he said calmly. “See how steep that hill is? No one can pull you out until this dries up.” He stroked Edna’s head. “What possessed you to drive a beat-up old vehicle like this out onto an old logging road in the middle of a thunderstorm?”
“This beat-up old vehicle is the only one I have,” I shot back. “It’s been my home for years, and it’s a perfectly fine machine that’s served me very well. It’s the damn road that’s the problem!”
A frown appeared between the man’s brows. “You live in this thing?” His tone was faintly incredulous.
“Yes, actually,” I said. “I’m a craftswoman. I work the craft fair circuit, so I often end up living on the road. Up till now, that is.”
“Interesting, but this road goes nowhere that’s relevant to you and your crafts fair circuit, so it doesn’t explain what you’re doing on my land.”
Why, that arrogant dickhead. “That’s none of your business,” I told him.
“It is now,” he said. “Since this thing is blocking my road.”
I lifted my chin. “Wait a second,” I said. “Didn’t you just say that nobody’s going to be driving on it until it’s dry anyhow? Ergo, I’m not blocking anything, buddy.”
His eyes looked me thoughtfully up and down. “True enough, I guess,” he said. “But it’s still my land.” He wasn’t ogling me, but my body still shivered, as if he were checking me out, inch by inch.
I suppressed an urge to cross my arms across my breasts. I would remain nonchalant or die in the attempt. “Besides, I’m not trespassing,” I said, with all the bravado I could muster. “I’m on my way to my new landlord’s place. Can you tell me how far it is to Jack Kendrick’s house?”
The man’s face went blank. His brow furrowed as he stared at me, and then at the mud-splattered, fantastical painting on the side of my van. “Wait,” he said slowly. “Hold on. Don’t tell me you’re Vivien D’Onofrio.”
Tension started to tighten, in my belly, my neck. “Why shouldn’t I tell you that?”
“You’re not what I expected,” he said. “I have to talk to Duncan.”
“Oh, my God. You mean, you’re Jack Kendrick?” I was appalled. I’d been expecting a stolid jarhead type, older, thicker, with a paunch, balding graying hair buzzed off. Maybe a long, bushy mountain man kind of beard.
Not a foxy silver-eyed sex god who loved to walk in the rain.
“You’re early.” There was an accusing note in his voice. “Duncan texted me last night saying you were still in Idaho, so I expected you late this evening, or tomorrow. Otherwise, I would have texted you alternate directions so you could have avoided driving on this road in the rain. What, did you drive all night?”
“Uh, yes.” He didn’t need to know what a cowering scaredy-cat I was, so I skipped the explanations, while running our entire conversation through my mind at the same time, trying to assess just how rude and in-his-face I had been to him.
Hmmph. Pretty bad, I concluded. No ruder than he deserved, but still … yikes.
Well, I guess I had to make an effort to fix it now. He was doing me a big, fat favor, after all. If he was still willing to do it at all, at this point.
“So,” I said. “Seems like we got off to a weird start.” I tried to sound conciliatory.
“Yeah, it does,” he said blandly.
I kept my voice carefully light. “What do you mean, not what you expected? What were you expecting?”
“Duncan told me you were a professional designer with a stalker problem who needed to drop out of sight for a while. He did not tell me that you were an itinerant, tattooed, wild child neo-hippy.”
All thoughts of conciliation vanished. “That’s ridiculous!” I said hotly. “And rude! I’m not a neo-hippy, or a wild child. And I am a professional, itinerant or not! Tattoos or not! You owe me an apology!”
“We’ll see.” Jack’s face was blatantly unapologetic.
Wild child? My brain stuck on that like a hook. It was not how I’d describe my muddy, strung-out, sleep-deprived, what-the-cat-dragged-in self, but holy crap, who did this guy think he was? How dare he?
