Claustrophobic Christmas (10 page)

Knock knock knock.

“Everything okay in there?” called a loud voice.

Chapter Eight

“Shit!” James cursed, leaping off Darcy as he groped for the blanket. He shoved it at her and stared around the cab frantically, looking for his clothes.

“I can’t believe this.” Darcy struggled to sit up and cover herself, spitting hair out of her mouth. A beam of light illuminated the steam on the windows. “Can we get in trouble?”

“Darce, it’s okay.” James kept his voice low. He didn’t want to panic her. Giving up on his pants, he jammed his arms into his parka. He lifted Darcy bodily across him and slid to the driver’s side where the voice’s owner could be seen, an anonymous shadow beyond the foggy glass. “What’s he gonna do, make a citizen’s arrest?”

“Where’s my shirt? My glasses? Where are my panties? Oh my God.” She dove over the front seat into the back, thumping and bitching.

Their regrettable Good Samaritan tapped the window with the flashlight. He’d better not break the glass. “Is somebody hurt in there? You need help? My friend here’s a doctor.”

“I’m opening the window,” James warned Darcy. She let out a muffled, squeaky curse. He hit the window switch and allowed the glass to slide down a few inches.

“Son, what’s going on in there?” A large, grizzled man glowered at James through the crack. Two more hovered behind him, all three suited up against the snow.

“Nothing.” James smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring instead of pissed. He hadn’t been ready to dismount. Talk about a mood killer. Not only was it unromantic, but the condom could have whipped free and splatted everywhere. That would really have put a damper on the afterglow.

“Didn’t sound like nothing,” the man said.

The flashlight glared straight into James’s eyes. He squinted. “That’s a bit bright, don’t you think?”

“It’s dark out here.” But he did direct the beam toward the ground.

James hoped they didn’t ask him to get out of the car. His parka was warm, but it barely covered his nuts.

“Which one of you is the doctor?” he asked. If somebody went into labor in the traffic jam, the location of a doctor would be good to know.

“Why, you need one?” The man tried to see over the glass, so James leaned closer to the window to block him.

“Actually I’m a vet,” the man on the right said. He had a flashlight too, which he was using to inspect the truck bed. “I can still help.”

“Exercises,” Darcy hissed at him. “Car yoga. September issue.”

Good call, Darce
. She might not like surprises, but she was better on the spot than she realized.

“I was stretching my legs.” That story had been one of her comical ones. “It’s called car, uh…” What was that term she’d used? “Car calisthenics. We’ve been sitting here a long time.”

“I don’t know. Sounded like you were murdering a cat,” the vet said. “I know what cats in pain sound like, buddy.” He peered over his friend’s shoulder into the cab for evidence of evil-doing. Or a yoga mat.

“They think I’m a cat?” Darcy squeaked.

James nearly choked. This shouldn’t be funny. Darcy didn’t sound like she thought it was funny. He absolutely couldn’t laugh.

“Somebody in there with ya?” the first man said. He angled the light so it fell on a few articles of discarded clothing on the passenger’s side.

“My wife,” James answered. “She’s napping in the back seat.”

“She can sleep through that racket?”

“She can sleep through a fire alarm.”

“How about you roll down this window so we can be sure your wife is okay?” the man suggested. “Not all men know how to treat a woman.”

“You think I was hurting her?” James asked, aghast. “Fellas, you’re really misreading the situation. This is nothing to concern you.”

“Don’t tell us it was nothing, son.” The door handle creaked, and James was very glad he’d locked it. “We heard the screams.”

In the rear-view mirror, he saw Darcy wave a bare arm above the seat. “I’m okay. I’m not a cat.”

The men behind Grizzly Adams exchanged a glance. “Thought she was asleep.”

“Guess you woke her up.”

“Were you playing violin music? Maybe some of that techno?” the first man asked. “Your car was shaking. You sure your wife’s okay? Maybe you need to step out of the vehicle.”

James pinched the bridge of his nose. What was it going to take to get these guys off his and Darcy’s case? “I’m not getting out of my damn truck.”

“We don’t want any trouble, son.” The man cracked his knuckles, obviously intending to follow his statement with some trouble.

“Hellfire.” Darcy popped up beside James, leaning over the seat to address the men. The blanket was wrapped around her torso, but her shoulders were bare. “Have you never heard the saying, if the truck’s a rocking, don’t come a knocking?” she asked, her Southern accent thickening in her annoyance.

The man frowned. “So you’re all right? He ain’t hurting you?”

“Yes, I’m all right. We were having sex. Thank you for your concern, but we don’t need any help to have sex.”

The men gaped at Darcy a minute before the one in front raised his hands in a classic placating gesture. “Sorry, ma’am. We thought—”

“That I sounded like a dying cat,” she said. “I know. Thank you for that. I’ll never live it down.”

“You can’t blame us for worrying,” the man argued. “People gotta look out for each other at times like this.”

“Come on, boys. Some people got no
couth
.” The third man stalked off into the blizzard. Their flashlights glinted on cars and snow as they tromped into the night.

Darcy sank into the back seat. James watched in the rear view mirror as her shadowy form pushed at her hair. “I can’t believe complete strangers would knock on somebody’s vehicle door and ask if somebody was killing a cat.”

James didn’t trust himself to do anything but sympathize nonverbally. He passed her glasses to her and nodded.

“I don’t sound anything like a cat. I mean, I was enjoying myself, and maybe the truck wobbled, but I wasn’t screaming like a violin.” She polished her lenses on the blanket before sliding them on. “There’s something wrong with their ears. They probably heard the wind.”

James shook his head no, but his throat was as tight as a…violin string, trying to keep from laughing.

“I’m not even that loud.”

She’d been pretty loud. And it had been extremely sexy. She could scream in his ear anytime she wanted.

“This is humiliating. I knew this was a bad idea. I’ve never been so embarrassed.”

He almost nodded yes, thought better of it, and shook his head no. This hadn’t been a bad idea, just sloppily executed.

She paused mid-rant. “You aren’t embarrassed?”

“That we had sex? Hell no. That was awesome.”

“But those men.”

“Who cares about those men, Darcy?” James cleaned himself up and located his drawers.

She whumped against the seat back. “I guess I do.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I’ll ever see them again, right? Except when I walk back to my car.” She started rustling around, bundling herself into her clothes. “Oh, this bites ass.”

“It’s okay, honey. I’ll walk you back when the time comes. Nobody will say a word.” He finished dressing and contemplated his boots. Sock feet were a lot more comfortable.

She flapped her hand. “Not that. I have to pee and I can’t find my underpants.”

“That does bite.” Crap, he had to pee too. He sighed and put on the heavy, damp boots.

“Any suggestions?” She slithered into the front seat, her shirt and pants intact.

“Don’t worry about peeing, either. You’ll never see any of these people again.” James corrected himself. “Except me.”

“Well, I hope so.” She laughed. “I guess that means you still respect me.”

“It’s not morning yet,” he teased. “Hey, would this be a good time to ask if you want to take a long weekend in February to go to Colorado with me? I have to let them know if I’m bringing a plus one on my assignment.”

“Colorado? Oh dear.” Her eyes were two pools of shadow in the darkened cab. But there was enough light to see her lips twist downward.

“Come on, you know you’re not my only client.”

“It’s not that.” She sighed. “I think we need to talk.”

He didn’t like the sound of that, and told her so.

“When I get back, we need to talk,” she repeated. “I have to be sure you understand something.”

He knew that look. She was going to break up with him. After one fuck? Jesus. He hadn’t been that bad. She’d certainly enjoyed herself. If there was something he hadn’t done the way she wanted it done, it wasn’t a dumping offense yet.

He didn’t say anything as she shoved her feet in her shoes, vaulted out of the truck, did her business, and made it back into the cab in less time than he figured it was going to take him to do the same thing. Where he’d parked, the guard rail was far enough away to give all the urinators clearance. He went next, glad nobody around them had their headlights on. The wind buffeted him and stray snowflakes pinked his face like needles, but the precipitation was letting up.

“Your gas is down to third of a tank,” Darcy informed him after he relocked the doors.

“I have more in back.”

She rubbed her hands together and blew on them. “I’m never ignoring the Weather Channel again.”

She rambled on about nothing, crammed against the passenger door like she’d developed an allergy to him in the past ten minutes, while James waited for the bomb to drop. Finally he couldn’t take it anymore.

“You said we needed to talk about something, Darce. Out with it.”

“Ugh.” She tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling. He noticed she had one hand stuck out the crack in the window, her fingers dancing in the cold. “I don’t quite know how to say this.”

“Generally people say, ‘It’s not you, baby, it’s me.’” James flicked a jelly bean into the floor.

Darcy’s head jerked around. “That’s not… Actually, it is. It is me. It’s always me.” She flung herself forward and groaned.

“What do you mean?”

“James, my claustrophobia…” She straightened, rubbing her eyes. “Do you understand what it means that I have claustrophobia?”

“Yeah,” he said, but by the tone of her voice he realized he was missing something, as suspected. Nothing was ever easy, was it? “I don’t think you’re nuts. I told you that already.”

“I don’t go on airplanes.”

“You don’t?” James paused to let that sink in. “How do you go overseas?”

“I don’t.”

He flicked on the cabin lights so he could see her expression. He didn’t know if her cheeks were red because she’d been whipped by a blizzard or because she was embarrassed. “Do you go on cruise ships?”

“I, uh, tried once. Out of Galveston. The cabins and hallways set me off. There’s only so many drugs a girl can take.”

“Europe?”

“Never been there.”

“Alaska?”

“That car trip is way more than I can handle.”

“Well, where
have
you been?” The woman recommended all sorts of locations in her newsletters. She was a jet-setter. A world traveler. She made a living doing that very thing and telling people about it. How could she not have been any of those places?

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“You haven’t been anywhere.”

“I go to Galveston once a year.”

“That’s in Texas,” James said. “You live in Texas.”

“Texas is a big state.” She crossed her arms. “Did you know there are four distinct geographical regions in Texas? Not counting geographical regions that extend into Texas. You can cover a lot of ground without driving more than a few hours.”

“You’re a damn liar,” he realized. “Those stories you write are fabrications.”

“I never pretended the stories were anything but fiction,” she said. “It’s called creative writing. The one in September had time travel in it. That’s not real, you know.”

“That’s not what I mean. You write like you’re the one who did those things. Visited those places.”

“No, I don’t. I print a disclaimer with every story and a bibliography whenever needed. Before I started this, I consulted a lawyer about using sources besides my own experience. Fiction writers have to use their imaginations.”

Her voice had risen with every defensive statement. “Darcy, you’re quibbling. You’re not a writer, you’re a travel agent.”

She shook a finger at him. “I am too a writer, and I have never ever out-and-out lied about this to anybody. If people make assumptions because I happen to know a lot about travel, which I can research any way I please, that’s—”

“Dishonest,” he interrupted. Had she ever out-and-out lied? He’d have to go back over old emails and newsletters. He’d have to think about this and how it changed things—like his expectations. His feelings.

Darcy’s mouth opened and closed before she buried her face in her hands. “Oh God. I was completely wrong. You didn’t realize.” She let out something that might have been a cough and might have been a sob.

James suddenly wondered if he was being an ass. At the same time, he couldn’t deny how betrayed he felt. Darcy was not at all who he thought she was.

She choked out another noise—definitely a sob—so James said, “I didn’t realize what?”

“The implications.” She released a shuddering sigh. “You have every right to hate me. I should never have let things go this far.”

She
let things go this far? He was the one who’d shown up at her office unannounced. Who’d shown up at her car unannounced. Who’d put the moves on her. He knew now surprising her had been a mistake, but it didn’t change what had happened.

What did it change? He wasn’t sure yet. But one thing he knew. “I don’t hate you.”

“I hate myself sometimes. I can’t go where I want. I can’t see what I want. And I pretend to be somebody I’m not.”

He shoved a hand into his hair. “You don’t have to hate yourself because you’re a liar. You just have to quit lying.”

“I’m not a liar!” she yelled.

James opened his mouth to respond, but a foghorn sounded behind them as a police car leading a large construction vehicle trundled along the shoulder, headlamps bursting through the gloom. They watched the truck forge past to the presumed trouble spot on the bridge ahead.