Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
W hy did I have to open my big mouth and let all that truth fall out? Sunny gripped her Styrofoam box of pie and brisk-walked into the motel lobby, her boots clomping on the tile. Anything to get away from Gabe, who knew too much now. She’d never told anyone about the blowup with Cade. Ever. Not any of her friends in New York. Not Cata. Certainly not her parents. To anyone who asked, she’d just said they’d broken up. And that she’d deleted her Instagram account out of boredom. She’d certainly told no one else that the hideous necklace had made her feel like a cornered animal.
The way Gabe had lowered his eyes to his plate of meatloaf proved he agreed with Cade that she was a psychotic bitch. And she hadn’t even told him about her tantrum on the set of New York Bomb Squad. Or ripping off her badge at DN-YAY. Well, at least he’d have no regrets when they parted ways in Vegas.
Especially since she’d managed to remind him of his dead parents yet again. She was the tongue that couldn’t stop touching the sore tooth. She was usually better than this. But being stuck in Ohio had messed everything up until she hardly knew who she was anymore.
The front desk was straight ahead. Shit, she didn’t even know where she was going. Elevators. She swerved left, toward the sign.
But her left foot accelerated faster than her right. Like it was on ball bearings, it swept out in front of her, upsetting her balance. Her spine wrenched, right at her lower back. She flung out her arms— save the pie!— to offset her out-of-control left leg, but it was too late. She was headed for the hard tile floor. She braced herself for the impact.
An enormous hand gripped her biceps, hard, and she jerked upright. When her boots met the floor, the left one slipped again, but this time she stayed vertical, held by the upper arm like a kitten scruffed by its mama. She wobbled and set her left foot down. There was a tiny splash.
Gabe slowly eased his grip but didn’t release her. “I’ve got you,” he growled.
Tingles swept up her spine. And then a pinch. She grimaced and stepped toward Gabe, out of the puddle of water.
“Okay?” he asked, ducking down to gaze into her eyes.
Her cheeks burned. She wasn’t normally clumsy, but she hadn’t been watching, too focused on her own dark thoughts. And pie. She nodded.
Gabe led her to the front desk. He only released her when he stood in front of it and pointed back at the puddle. “There’s water over there. She almost fell.”
“Oh,” said the young receptionist. “Sorry ’bout that.” His eyes drifted down to his screen.
Gabe waited. Three beats. Five. “You’re going to clean it up, right? And put a sign there.”
“Yeah. Just a minute.” The guy’s attention was still focused on his screen.
“No. Now. That’s a slip hazard. I’ll wait.” Gabe’s gaze raked over Sunny, and she barely held back another shiver. That stern growl made muscles clench inside her. He turned back toward the receptionist, who’d finally gone through the door behind the desk. He returned with a mop bucket and a yellow caution sign.
Gabe waited until the guy made a halfhearted pass of the mop over the puddle and then propped the sign over it. Then he nodded to Sunny. She shivered again. Was sternness a kink? If so, she had it. Bad.
She forced her feet toward the elevators. When the doors slid open, she stepped in, gripping her slightly mashed box of pie. Gabe pressed the button for the third floor.
“Thanks for that. I thought I was going to hit the deck.” Her nervous giggle surprised her, and she winced. Grown women didn’t giggle.
“You okay?” He watched her face.
She rubbed her arm with the hand holding the pie box. “That’s some grip you’ve got. I might have a bruise.”
“Sorry,” he muttered and dropped his gaze to her boots.
The door slid open, and when Sunny took a step, pain in her back took her breath. Gabe must have heard her gasp. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a twinge in my back. Must’ve happened when I slipped.”
“Can you walk?”
Was he offering to carry her to her door? “Of course I can.” She bit her lip to distract herself from the throb in her back and brushed past him into the hallway. Right or left?
“This way.” He turned left and walked halfway down the hallway. He slid a card into a slot in the door and pushed it open. “Yours.” He handed her the card.
Sunny stepped inside and spotted her suitcase on the dresser. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Need anything?”
“No, I’m fine.” She still had the ibuprofen from their first day on the road.
“I’m next door if you change your mind.”
Change her mind? What was he offering? But when she turned, he was already gone, the neighboring door clicking shut behind him.
That was best. She hadn’t wanted a one-night stand with that blond dude, and she certainly didn’t want a complicated week-long whatever with Gabe. Mr. Most-Likely-to-Stay-Married-for-Fifty-Years was a poor match for Ms. Three-Months-Max. Ms. Never-Repeat-Her-Parents’-Mistake.
She scuffed to the bed, lowered herself gingerly, and zipped out of her boots. It was only eight-thirty. Too early for sleep. Still, she changed into pajamas and cuddled into the laundry-softened sheets with her phone.
She was texting with Cata when a soft knock sounded on her door. Who’d be knocking in a strange city after nine at night? She held her breath.
“It’s me, Gabe.”
Oh.
She eased out of the bed and padded toward the door. She opened it to find Gabe, still wearing his coat, his cheeks flushed. Was it because he’d been outside in the cold or because Sunny was standing there, braless, in a tank top and pajama pants?
He shoved a plastic drugstore sack at her. “Here.”
She took it from him and peeked inside. “A heating pad? And Tylenol PM?”
“For your back. Do you need anything for your arm?” He gazed at it. “Ice?”
Between text messages with Cata, she’d touched the fingerprints he’d left on her skin. Caressed, more like. They were red now and might turn purple tomorrow. “No, it doesn’t hurt.” She held up the sack. “Thanks for this.”
“Anyti—”
She closed the door before he could finish. It was rude, and she was sorry. But she couldn’t let him see the tears that had sprung up in her eyes.
She’d danced since she was five. And never, not in all those years, had anyone brought her as much as a bandage. Through broken blisters, lost toenails, sprains, and bruises, she’d carried her own first-aid kit. She’d bandaged, iced, and wrapped her own injuries—and others’—without a second thought. Until today. Until Gabe had brought her a stupid heating pad.
And she was not about to let him know how his caretaking had wormed its way into her blackened heart.
* * *
Pale gray light stabbed through the gap between the motel’s curtains directly into Sunny’s face. She groaned and stretched against the soft sheets. The heating pad crinkled under her. It had turned off—of course Gabe had bought the kind with an auto-shutoff safety feature—but sweat had adhered it to her skin. She sat up and pulled it away. No more sharp pain, just a dull ache, barely there under the waistband of her sleep pants.
She’d had worse. Driving all day wouldn’t be an issue. Not even with grumpy Gabe. When her lips quirked upward, she covered her mouth with her hand.
Stop it. He’s not for you.
Although… They had to ride together. Enjoying his company wouldn’t hurt anyone.
She rotated and swung her feet over the side of the bed. After a brief pause, she slid off the bed and headed into the shower.
Gabe had shared only a couple of truths at the diner last night, but she already understood him better than she had after sixteen hours on the road. His quick hands saving her from falling on her ass and then bringing her a freaking care package revealed the gooey center under his grumpy outer crust. The way he’d wanted to protect her from Blondie McFlirtyPants, the way he’d blushed when he’d admitted how “boring” he was, had given away even more. Gabe was one loyal dude, and those ex-girlfriends of his were idiots. If her parents’ example hadn’t proved love was a farce, she’d have made a move, sore back or no.
She turned off the water and patted her skin with the threadbare towel. Gabe was too smart for her moves. He’d be way too cautious to start something when she’d all but guaranteed she’d leave him broken-hearted.
She was a limited engagement, like Bernadette Peters’ one-week show that she’d pulled every string she had to score a ticket to. Gabe was looking for Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running show on Broadway. God, how she hated Phantom. So creepy.
In the car, she played the original cast recording of Into the Woods and couldn’t help singing along. Gabe didn’t seem to mind. And when she sang, he didn’t watch her speedometer. Still, a couple of hours later, she was squirming in the driver’s seat. A fresh pain had erupted between her shoulder blades. Her lower back twinged again, too.
“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked. She felt the weight of his dark-eyed stare.
“Nothing. Just a little stiff.”
“Why don’t we stop in the next town for coffee and a stretch?”
As much as she wanted to press on, her back needed a rest. “Okay. In the meantime, want to distract me with some mus?—”
His phone rang, interrupting her.
“Sorry, it’s work. I’ll just be a minute,” he said, already pressing the answer button. “Hi, Darlene.”
She tried to sing in her head to avoid eavesdropping on Gabe’s conversation with his assistant, but his normally calm voice rose, alarmed.
“I’ll get Ramirez to call an ambulance.”
Ambulance? Sunny glanced at him. His thick eyebrows hunched over his eyes, and his other hand clenched into a fist on his knee. He listened for a minute.
“No. You need to go to the hospital.” He listened again. “Fine. Your doctor. And I don’t care that no one’s in the office. I’ll ask Pat to go in.”
Sunny shivered at the authoritative tone in his voice. Why did that turn her on? She stared hard at the road, trying to mind her own business, until he shocked her with his next words.
“I’m the goddamn CEO. If I say to go home, you leave and lock up the office. I’ll close the whole damn park and have security come drag you out if I have to.”
Whoa. She’d known Gabe’s last name was Armstrong, but it was a common name, and she hadn’t connected the dots. During the four weeks she’d worked at Beach Island, she’d discovered the peaceful little garden on the west side of the grounds, the one dedicated to Luke and Lucille Armstrong, from their loving family. A coworker had told Sunny the Armstrongs had died in an accident on the roller coaster that used to be there. Their son, who was now the CEO, had torn it down and installed the garden in their memory. How old had he been when they’d died? Had he witnessed the accident? Her chest squeezed, and she forgot all about her sore back.
He was still arguing with Darlene when signs warned of the reduced speed limit. Sunny slowed as a small town opened up around them. Seeing a storefront that advertised hot coffee, she pulled into the parking lot.
Gabe ended the call, scowling.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“I wish—never mind. I need to call Ramirez to make sure she’s going to the doctor.” He finally looked at her. “My assistant has multiple sclerosis. MS. Sometimes she experiences numbness, and I hate it that she’s alone in the office where she could fall and no one would know.”
“I hope she’s okay.” The guy had a lot to worry about.
“I’ve had my maintenance crew chief keeping an eye out. He’ll make sure she sees her doctor.” He tapped his phone.
“I’ll get us some coffee. Be back in a few.”
He nodded, and Sunny got out, shivering in the shocking cold. Even with the buildings around them, the wind blew in from the plains, hard and chill.
She popped a couple of ibuprofen tablets while she waited for the coffee. By the time she turned to leave, cups in hand, Gabe was there to open the door and take one of the drinks.
“Is she all right?” Sunny asked when they were enclosed again inside the warm car.
“Ramirez is taking her to her doctor,” he said. “He’ll call me later with an update. How’s your back?”
She shook her head. He went straight from worrying about Darlene to worrying about her. “It’s fine. The stretch did me good.”
After one more sip of coffee, she pulled back onto the rural highway. Once they’d left the town behind and she was up to speed, she glanced at Gabe. Unlike yesterday, he stared out the window, but she didn’t think he saw the barren fields they passed.
“I, uh, didn’t know you were one of those Armstrongs.” She didn’t normally hesitate, but it wasn’t every day you found out you’d been driving your former boss across the country.
“Which—? Oh.” He deflated beside her.
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
“Me, too.”
“You had to’ve been pretty young when you took over.” The trees in Founders’ Park weren’t fully mature, but they weren’t saplings, either.
“I’d just turned twenty-one.”
When Sunny turned twenty-one, she went on a three-day drinking spree with her college roommates. She still couldn’t stand the smell of rum. “That’s a lot. Were you even done with school?”
“No. I dropped out. There was a lot to do at the park.”
“Like rip out that coaster.” As soon as she’d said it, she full-body flinched. God, was she ever going to develop a filter around Gabe?
He shifted away, toward the door. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Sometimes my mouth gets away from me.”
“It’s okay. It’s true.” He rubbed his hands over his thighs, making a rough scratching sound against the cotton. “It was my fault.”
Sunny glanced at him. “I heard it was an accident.”
“Even accidents have causes.” His shoulders shifted. “Ramirez wanted to take the train apart for an inspection. But I okayed the test run.”
God, how she wished her coworker had told her that so she wouldn’t have gone and stepped in Gabe’s guilt and tracked it all over the car. “You didn’t make them get on the ride, did you?”
“No.” His voice echoed off the window glass.
Then she remembered how anxious highway driving made him. That he no longer drove. She winced. “Were you on the ride, too?”
“Yeah. But I was in the last car. Only the first two went off the track. Listen, can we not talk about this anymore?”
“I’m sorry. Really. Want me to turn on some music?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
She switched on Mamma Mia! because it was the peppiest soundtrack she could think of. Then she placed her right hand over his left. He didn’t flinch away like she half-expected him to do. Instead, he rested his thumb on the back of her fingers. They drove that way on the long, flat road until it was time to stop for lunch, Gabe wrapped in his sad memories and Sunny gripping the hand of the strongest man she’d ever met.