The Things She Says

“Lost, huh?” Her gaze raked over him from top to toe. “Lucky for me I found you, then. Does that put you in my debt?”

Everything spilled out of her mouth with veiled insinuation. When combined with her guileless demeanor and fresh face, the punch was forceful. “Well, you haven’t done anything for me. Yet.”

Slim eyebrows jerked up in fascination. “What would you like for me to do?”

He leaned in close enough to catch a whiff of her hair. Coconut and grease, a combination he would have sworn wasn’t the least bit arousing before now. Same for the big T-shirt with the cracked Texas Christian University Horned Frogs emblem and cheap jeans. On her, haute couture.

He crooked a finger and she crowded into his space, which felt mysteriously natural, as if they’d often conspired together.

“Right now, there’s only one thing I’d like for you to do,” he said.

His gaze slid to her lips and what had started as a flirtatious game veered into dangerous territory as he anticipated kissing this nameless desert mirage, sliding against those pink lips, delving into her hot mouth. Her laugh pulsing against his skin.

Kissing strangers was so not his style, and he was suddenly sad it wasn’t.

“Yeah? What would you like me to do?” She wet her lips with the very tip of her tongue, heating his blood all the way to his toes.

“Tell me where I am.”

Her musical laugh poleaxed him again. “Little Crooked Creek Road. Also known as the middle of nowhere.”

“There’s a creek somewhere in all this sand?” Water—wet, cool and perfect for skinny dipping.

No. No naked strangers. What was wrong with him?

“Nah.” Her nose wrinkled, screwing up her features in a charming way. “It dried up in the 1800s. We lack the imagination to rename the road.”

“So tell me, since you’re local. Is it always this hot?” Truthfully, he’d long stopped caring about his sticky, damp clothes, but the urge to keep her talking wouldn’t go away.

“No, not at all. Usually it’s hotter. That’s why we don’t wear all black when it’s a hundred and ten,” she said, scrutinizing him with a gaze as sizzling as the concrete. “Though I like it on you. What brought you so far off the beaten path, anyway?”

“I wish the story was more interesting than a wrong turn. But it’s not.” He grinned and tried to be sorry he’d veered from the interstate but couldn’t conjure up a shred of regret. Surprisingly, being in the middle of this scene wasn’t so bad. “I left El Paso pretty sure I was headed in the right direction, but I haven’t seen a sign for Dallas in a long time.”

“Yeah. You’re lost. This road winds south to the Rio Grande. It’s really not grand or even much of a rio. Can’t recommend it as a sightseeing venture, so I’d head back to Van Horn and take the 10 east.”

“Van Horn. I vaguely remember passing through it.”

“Not much to remember. I was just in town, and it hasn’t changed since the last time I came in March. Speaking of which, I need to get a move on. The part I picked up isn’t going to magically install itself in Gus’s truck.” She sighed and stuck a thumb over her shoulder. “Van Horn’s that way. Good luck and watch for state troopers. They live to pull over fast cars.

“Or,” she continued brightly, “you can go thataway and take your first right. That’ll put you on the road to the center of Little Crooked Creek and the best fried chicken in the county.”

He wasn’t nearly sated enough on the harmony of her voice. Or the charming way she rambled about nothing but piqued his interest anyway. Real life loomed on the horizon, and even if it took him a month to arrive to Dallas, he’d still be unhappy with the creative financing deal for Visions of Black. Kyla would still be Kyla—unfaithful, selfish and artificial—and he’d have to expend way too much energy not caring.

But, he reminded himself again, it was worth it. If he wanted to make Visions, he had to generate plenty of free publicity with an engagement to his beloved-by-the-masses, Oscar-winning ex-girlfriend. A fake engagement.

“Fried chicken is my favorite.” And he was starving. What could a couple of hours hurt? After all, he’d driven on purpose so it would take as long as possible to reach Dallas. “What’s Little Crooked Creek?”

“The poorest excuse for a small town you’ll ever have the misfortune to visit in your life,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. “It’s where I live.”

The Greek god was following her. VJ sneaked another glance in the rearview mirror. Yup. The muy amarilla Ferrari kept pace with Daddy’s truck. God had dropped off a fantasy on the side of the road in a place where nothing had happened for a millennium and he was following her.

Giddy. That was the word for the jumpy crickets in her stomach. She’d been waiting a long time for a knight in shining armor of her very own and never in a million years would she have expected to find one until she escaped Little Crooked Creek forever, amen. Yet, here he was, six feet of gorgeousness in the flesh and following her to Pearl’s. Shiver and a half.

She pulled into a parking place at the diner and curled her lip at the white flatbed in the next spot. Great. Lenny and Billy were here. Must be later than she thought. Her brothers never crawled out of bed until three o’clock and usually only then because she booted them awake, threatening them with no breakfast if they didn’t move their lazy butts.

Hopefully they weren’t on their second cup of coffee yet and wouldn’t notice the stranger strolling through Pearl’s. The last thing she wanted was to expose her precious knight to the two stupidest good ol’ boys in West Texas.

The Ferrari rolled into the spot on the other side of Daddy’s truck, and the Greek god flowed out of it like warm molasses. He was the most delicious thing in four states, and he was all hers. For now. She wasn’t deluded enough to think such an urbane, sophisticated specimen of a man would stick around, but it was no crime to bask in his gloriousness until he flowed back out of her life. Sigh. She grabbed her backpack and met him on the sidewalk.

Pearl’s was almost empty. Her stranger was as out of place as a June bug in January, and it only took fourteen seconds for all eight pairs of eyes in the place to focus on them as she led him past the scarred tables to the booth in the shadow of the kitchen—the one everyone understood was reserved for couples who wanted privacy. She plopped onto the bench, opting to take the side sloppily repaired with silver duct tape and giving him the mostly okay seat.

He slid onto the opposite bench and folded his pianist’s fingers into a neat crosshatch pattern right over the heart carved into the Formica tabletop, with the initials LT & SR in the center. Laurie and Steve had been married nearly twenty years now, a small-town staple completely in contrast to this man, who doubtlessly frequented chic sushi bars and classy nightclubs.

What had she been thinking when she invited him here?

“Interesting place,” he said.

Dilapidated, dark and smelling of rancid grease maybe, but interesting wasn’t a descriptor of Pearl’s. “Best cooking you’ll find for miles. And the only cooking.”

He laughed and she scoured her memory for something else funny to say so she could hear that deep rumble again. Then she abandoned that idea as he pierced her with those incredible melty-brown eyes. She settled for drinking him in. He was finely sculpted, as if carved from marble and deemed so perfect that his creator had breathed life into his statue and set it free to live amongst mere mortals.

“My name’s Kris.” He held out a hand and raised his eyebrows expectantly. “From Los Angeles.”

Surreptitiously, she wiped the grime and sweat off her palm and clasped his smooth hand. Energy leaped between them, shocking her with a funny little zap.

“Sorry, static electricity. It’s dry this time of year.” She folded her hand into her lap, cradling it with the other. Was it too melodramatic to vow never to wash it again? “I’m VJ. From nowhere. And I’ll keep being from nowhere if I don’t get to work. I’m saving every dime to get out of here.”

She jumped up, hating to desert him, but it was almost four o’clock.

“You’re leaving me?” Kris cocked his head and a silky strand of his shoulder-length hair fell into his face. She knotted her fingers behind her back so she couldn’t indulge the urge to sweep it from his cheekbone. Touching the artwork was a no-no, even when it wasn’t behind glass.

“Not a chance,” she said. “I have to put my uniform on, then I’ll take your order.”

He glanced at the other customers, who weren’t ashamed to be caught in open inspection of the foreigner in their midst. “You work here?”

His accent was amazing. The words were English, a language she’d used her entire life, but every syllable sounded exotic and special. It was the difference between Detroit and Italy—both produced cars, but the end result had little in common other than tires and a steering wheel.

And it was way past time to stop rubbernecking. “Uh, yeah. Five days a week.”

Her brothers lumbered off their stools at the counter. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched them hulk over to the booth.

“Who’s the pansy?” Lenny sneered. VJ butted him in the chest with her shoulder until he glanced down.

“Back off,” she demanded. “He’s just passing through and no threat to you. Let him be.”

Lenny flicked her out of the way as if she weighed no more than a feather.

Before she’d fully regained her balance, Kris exploded from the booth and descended by her side, staring down Lenny and Billy without flinching. Okay, so maybe he didn’t actually need defending. Her heart tumbled to her knees as he angled his body, shielding her, unconcerned about the five hundred pounds of Lewis boys glaring at him. Nobody in Little Crooked Creek stood up to even one of her brothers, let alone two. He really was heroic.