Fortune's Cinderella (12 page)

stirred up all the weird, unsettled feelings that had plagued her off and on for the past couple of days—even before that bizarre conversation—and killing her appetite.

When she set down the muffin, Scott reached over and touched her knee. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to smack his hand or grab it. “Hey. What’s wrong—”

“I think about how scared everybody must be for him, and about that poor flight attendant…” Who he’d finally told her about a couple days before. “And here I sit, having the gall to feel sorry for myself because I’m laid up for a few weeks. It kinda puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

He gave her a strange look. “I suppose it does.”

Picking up the muffin again, she took a bite, fed a piece to the dog. “Still. It’s driving me bats, that I have to let people wait on me.

Do stuff I’m supposed to be doing for myself. It feels all…backwards.” She sighed. “Not to mention dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Yeah. Because…”

“Because you don’t like being waited on.”

“No, I don’t. I’m used to being the one doing the caring. Like with Enid. Or babysitting the neighbors’ kids sometimes. That makes me feel good. This makes me feel…weird.”

“And would you feel the same way if, say, it was Enid waiting on you? Or your mother?”

“Oh, honey—if it was my mother waiting on me I’d feel like I’d been warped to an alternate universe. This was the woman who’d leave the box of cereal and a cup of juice where I could reach it so she wouldn’t have to get up to make me breakfast. When I was three.”

“That’s harsh.”

“Whatever. It toughened me up.”

“I don’t think three-year-olds are supposed to be tough,” he said gently, his eyes all sympathetic and whatnot, and feelings she never, ever indulged tried to do a number on her head. So she changed the subject.

“Do you have flashbacks? About what happened?”

That got another strange, pensive look, one that sent heat racing up her neck. Oh, for pity’s sake, it was just a kiss. Snap out of it!

Never mind that was the first kiss she’d had in…a long time. Hence the hot neck. Among other things.

“No,” he finally said. “Actually, it all feels pretty much like a dream.”

Doesn’t it just? she thought, then said, “It felt like that for me then, too,” she said, shifting to get comfortable. Like that was even possible. “So I didn’t realize it would come back to haunt me like this later. I think I was a lot more afraid than I realized.” She smirked. “Or wanted to admit.”

“You know what your problem is?”

Yeah. You.

“I’m borderline psychotic?”

“I’ll take that into consideration. But I was thinking more along the lines that you need to get out of here.”

“Now that’s just mean.”

“I’m serious.” He got to his feet, a man with a plan. Eyes all lit up and everything. “Where would you like to go?”

“Anywhere but this house,” she said, then shut her eyes and released a breath. “And there I go sounding bitchy again—”

“Honey, believe me. You’ve got many, many miles to go before you reach bitchy.”

“Not as many miles as you might think,” she muttered, then directed a baleful glance at her foot. “But this thing…”

“You can ride in the back of the SUV with your foot on the seat, how’s that? And I’ll play chauffeur—”

Terror streaked through her. That he was being too nice, that she’d get too attached, that he would snap out of it and/or leave…

and then where would she be? “Scott, seriously, you don’t have to do this—”

“Yes, I do. Now can you make it on your own or do you want me to carry you?”

She actually had to think about that for a second. Until reason returned, bless its little heart, and she said, “I’ll walk. But can Gumbo come?”

Still on his back, the dog lifted his head to give Scott what Christina knew was the Starving Orphan face. “If he wants to, sure. So where do you want to go?”

“Not shoe shopping, obviously. But…how about the airport.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Gotta face the demons sometime, right? Besides, my car’s still there. Or what’s left of it. I need to say goodbye.”

With Gumbo as his copilot, Scott navigated the meandering country highway as it sliced through miles of winter brown pasture, then Red Rock proper, before stretching out again on the other side of town and toward the airport. Since his arrival, he’d driven this road maybe a couple dozen times at the outside, but it had already become as comfortably familiar as his ten-year-old leather jacket.

As had the chatty blonde in his back seat, he thought with a grin as she prattled on about how it felt like months since she’d been farther than her front porch.

“Oh, my…I knew I’d missed the open space, but I had no idea how much I missed it.”

“I can understand that.”

She paused. “I doubt it, Mr. City Boy.”

He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, then refocused on the road while he was still able to tear his gaze away from her bemused grin. The impish gleam in those sky blue eyes. Ten points to him, for getting her out of that damn apartment. “It’s true.

Although I fought it tooth and nail that first week I was here. But now…” He paused. “Where other people might see nothing and nowhere, I see…possibilities. Freedom.”

That apparently shut her up. If for only a second.

“We might make an honorary Texan out of you yet—oh, no,” she said, twisting to look behind her.

“What?”

“There used to be the neatest old barn right in front of that stand of trees,” she said on a sigh. “Judging from the chewed-up look of the land, I’m guessing the tornado got it. It hadn’t been used in years, but it was like some sweet old man you get used to seeing every day.” Another breath left her lungs. “That’s so sad. That it’s gone forever, never to be replaced.”

The old barn, maybe not. But every couple of miles, it seemed, they passed a cleanup or building crew, like beavers in hard hats, setting things to rights. Because, by and large, human beings were an optimistic lot. Or at least Texans were, Scott thought with another smile.

When they passed the spa where Scott and his family had stayed, Christina said, “I always wondered what that place is like inside.”

“Quite nice.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Yes.”

“Luck-y,” she said lightly. A few minutes later the airport—or what was left of it—came into view, and Christina sucked in a breath. “I know I was there, but…holy moly.”

They pulled into the parking lot, mostly cleared of debris but now filled with assorted construction vehicles. He helped Christina out of the car, leaving a woefully disappointed Gumbo inside. The still, clear air reverberated with the off-sync banging of hammers and nail guns, a drill’s high-pitched squeal. The ear-splitting “pop” of a power riveter. Sounds of hope and optimism and determination. In the distance he spotted Tanner Redmond, who acknowledged Scott with a wave of his hand.

Then, beside him, he heard Christina’s low moan.

She hobbled over to what apparently had once been her car, now a mangled hunk of metal. Leaning on one crutch, she let go of the other long enough to lovingly stroke a brutal dent in the left fender.

“I’m so sorry,” Scott said behind her.

Christina sniffed. “She lived a long, happy life. At least she was happy once I rescued her from the idiot teenager who’d abused her. Poor gal already had more than 200,000 miles on her at that point and her shocks were shot. But I nursed her back to health and she served me well for going on four years.” She laid a cheek on the roof. “What an awful way to go. I’m so sorry, Ellie Mae.”

Scott came up and put an arm around her shoulders. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think she suffered,” he said, and she gave a short laugh, then clamped her quivering lips together.

“What do you want to do? With the car, I mean?”

“I…I honestly don’t know. Have it towed somewhere, I suppose…” Then, on a soft, strangled cry, she turned and buried her face in his chest.

“Hey…hey…” Wrapping her in his arms, he said, “It’s okay, really…”

“Oh, yeah?” she mumbled into his jacket. “I didn’t have comprehensive insurance. Couldn’t afford it. And didn’t figure the insurance company would give me more than a buck fifty for her, anyway.” Watery eyes lifted to his. “So right now I have no job, no car and no way to get a car to get to a job.” She pulled away, angrily swatting at her cheek with the heel of one hand. “Or any way to drive if I did have a car. So my usually upbeat outlook is sorta struggling right now.”

His hands on her shoulders, Scott bent to look into her eyes. “You have your dog.”

She looked over at Gumbo, doing his sad-sack look at her from the car window. “Not sure I’d get much for him as a trade-in, though—”

“And you have me,” he said, and her eyes swung sharply back to his.

“Oh, no,” she said, hooking her crutches under her arms and doing her Monster Mash lurch back to the Escalade. “I let you pay my E.R. bill, and pick up my dog’s poop, but you are not buying me a car, no sir.”

Scott easily caught up to her, opening the car door and helping her get settled inside. Then he stood with one hand on the door, the other propped on the roof.

“Actually, that hadn’t occurred to me. I’d only meant I’d take care of the car so you wouldn’t have to. But thanks for giving me the idea—”

“And you might not want to provoke an already aggravated woman with crutches at her disposal.”

“I’ll take my chances. Look, Christina…if it’s so important to you, you can pick out whatever you feel comfortable with, then pay me back in installments when you do get a job. But we’re going to get you another car. But lunch first, dammit, because I’m hungry.” Then he slammed the door shut and stalked around to the driver’s side, slamming that one shut, too, after he got back behind the wheel.

Silence engulfed them as they drove back to town. Even knowing Christina as little as he did, something told him this was not a good thing.

She was still miffed, frankly, by the time Scott eased the SUV into a space between a Mercedes and something else big and fancy and shiny in Red’s parking lot. But more at herself than at him, for a boatload of conflicting reasons. For not knowing how to handle whatever this was between them with at least a modicum of grace. For realizing how easily she could let herself get sucked into the fairy tale. For liking the man even though she knew it was dumb and foolish and wrong, because he was caught up in the fairy tale, too, wasn’t he? Playing the Prince to her Cinderella.

Then again, maybe she should simply accept the blessing and shut the heck up. Seize the day—and the car—and be grateful.

Enjoy the moment while it lasted.

Scott opened her door, offered his hand. Glowered when she didn’t immediately take it.

“Christina—”

“Once again, I’m sorry I’m acting like…whatever I’m acting like. But…but your coming along, acting like some fairy godfather…it makes me feel like that tornado got inside my head somehow, making an awful mess in there. So you’re just going to have to be patient with me until everything settles down.” She angled her head to peer up at him. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he said after a moment. “Although I’m not sure I like the ‘fairy’ part of that description.” But she was too busy gawking at the beautiful hacienda-turned-restaurant to pay him any mind.

“I’m not exactly dressed for this place, you know. I was thinking more along the lines of a drive-through burger and fries.”

He hauled her to her good foot, his hand landing at the small of her back to steady her as his gaze took a leisurely stroll over her fitted pink hoodie, her ankle-length, tiered denim skirt, like she was wearing one of those fringed-and-sequined numbers from Dancing with the Stars. Oh, boy. Her foot might be broken, but everything else was apparently very much ready to rhumba.

“You’re dressed fine,” he said, his voice sounding a little raspy. “And I’d rather poke sharp sticks in my eyes than eat that crap.”

“Snob.”

“Not at all. But I would like to live past fifty.” He left the window cracked for Gumbo, then steered her and her crutches toward the door. “And I’d like you to live past fifty, too.”

It was a throwaway retort, she was sure. Didn’t mean anything. And yet, her eyes stung. Dammit. All this time she’d done fine on her own without some ding-dong muddying the waters. Then this ding-dong comes along, flinging both his money and his pheromones left and right, and there goes all her hard work right down the drain.

Finally, Scott got her inside. Precariously balanced on the crutches, Christina glanced around, willing her eyes to adjust to the darkened interior and feeling every bit the rube.

“Two?” the smartly dressed hostess asked.

“Yes. And my friend needs to keep her foot up as much as possible, so if we could have a booth, or a table with an extra chair…?”

“Not a problem. Follow me.”

The hostess led them to a table for four beside an arched window looking into a central courtyard anchored by several Mexican fan trees and dotted with pine tables and chairs, the brightly colored umbrellas over them mostly closed. Even in the sun it was a little chilly to dine outside, Christina guessed, but dormant vines still gracefully tangled around arbors, scrambled up support posts underneath the overhanging, clay-tiled roof. And in the center, an exquisite Mexican-tiled fountain softly gurgled and splashed, the soothing music audible even through the closed window.

Scott helped her get her foot propped up on the chair opposite, then sat at right angles to her, the ambient light glancing off his dark hair, his sharply defined jaw, as he studied the menu.

Terrific.

“This is very nice,” she said, forcing her eyes to her own menu. Trying not to gasp at the prices. Seize the moment, seize the—

“You’ve never been here?”

She shook her head, then looked around, grateful to see she wasn’t the only person dressed…casually. Then she giggled, pressing her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “but I can’t help it, I feel like I’m playing grown-up.”

Scott did that unsettling raking-her-with-his-eyes thing again—although not in a creepy way, at least—then said with a half smile,