2. Chapter 2
T abby took one look at what qualified as a halfway house in this tiny little town of Starvation and judged it instantly. It wasn’t even a half-step up from prison.
Leaning all the way back in his chair, the dark-haired man lowered the newspaper crossword puzzle he had been filling in. With pen, no less. He must be good at them.
If he assessed her, it was only for the span of mere seconds.
Then, dropping the folded newspaper onto his desk, he lowered his feet to the floor and stood up.
The family resemblance between him and the sheriff wasn’t hard to find.
Significantly taller than she was, he towered over her as he held out his hand, waiting until she put her card into it.
She couldn’t see his eyes, they were shaded by sunglasses so silver and shiny that they mirrored her and completely hid his gaze.
The chord that struck inside her as she stood staring at her reflection while a corner of his handsome mouth curled slightly in response felt dangerous.
He was a cowboy in black—black long-sleeved shirt, black jeans, his only splash of color being the white of his hat and the brown of his boots and the engraved belt around his waist, the shiny horse buckle being almost as reflective as his sunglasses.
She shifted on her feet, trying not to let him intensify her already out of control nerves while he read her card. It took far longer than the slight information she knew was written on it.
Was he still reading, or was he looking at her? She couldn’t tell.
“Tabitha Markle,” he finally drawled, in a tone as smooth as honey and every bit as sexy as his build suggested he could be, beneath the stretch of his form-fitting navy blue button-down shirt. His shoulders were broad, his chest was too. “I was starting to wonder when you might get here.”
He flashed her a smile. If he meant to put her at ease, he didn’t. Her stomach was as tight now as it had been when she’d forced herself to walk up to Sheriff Barnes. That man had been dangerous, too.
As if in afterthought, he offered his hand over the high desk. “Travis. I’m your probation officer. Let me show you to your room and I’ll explain the rules of the house as we go.”
Her stomach tightened that much more. “Okay.”
He strolled around the dividing desk, vanishing briefly behind a crisp white wall before the door on her side of it opened and he stepped out into her half of his office.
Small as the space was, she backed up into an old-fashioned gumball machine, nearly knocking it over when he reached for the door leading out.
He held it open for her. “After you.”
She didn’t like him. But then, she didn’t have to. She just had to do whatever he said.
Back outside she went, into the full heat of the desert evening. The breeze that tousled her dark auburn hair carried the coolness of night with it. She actually shivered when Travis stepped out behind her, following her down the single step onto the gravel and hard clay parking lot.
“I am not your mother or your father,” he began.
“I am the man who will send your ass back to prison for another three years if you misbehave.” Taking the lead, he walked her down the line of hotel rooms until they came to the second from the end.
The black sticker letters on the door read, 21 . “Home sweet home away from home.”
He didn’t unlock the door. He just pushed it open, holding this one for her too while he gestured her in ahead of him.
“There are no locks. You may not block me from coming in. You will submit to all impromptu inspections that might be required to make sure you’re following all the rules. My judgment in all matters is absolute and final.”
That pretty much went without saying. She slipped past him into the incredibly small motel room, staring from the twin bed, to the chest of drawers along one wall, and the tiny table and single chair placed in front of the only window.
That was it for furniture. No TV, no refrigerator or coffee maker.
The closet had no door. Neither did the bathroom.
The whole place smelled like dust and mold. It needed to be aired out.
“The Utah taxpayers are not responsible for your upkeep anymore. That means you will get a job and you will pay rent on the lap of luxury you have just been given.” He paused, arms spread to encompass the whole of the room, as if expecting a response although he hadn’t asked a question.
She answered him anyway. “Yes, sir.”
“The room is $250 every week, plus extras. If you’ve got a problem with that, I honestly don’t care. My house, my rules. Period.” He paused again.
Wandering as far as the little bathroom, she said another dutiful, “Yes, sir,” as she glanced inside.
The toilet, sink, tub, and both floor and wall tiles were all 1970s avocado green. The tub was small enough to win a Guinness world record. There was no shower curtain, but there was a slightly rusted mirror and medicine cabinet on the wall above the sink.
“Your first rent and expense payment is due—” he checked the date on his wristwatch.
“This Friday. Now I know you just got here, but I’m not a man to make exceptions for anyone.
If you can’t pay all of what you owe at the end of each week, then I’ll start a tab for you, but you will pay it all eventually.
Your paychecks automatically come to me, and I’ll make sure of it. Got it?”
Her tense stomach sank. She tried to do the math, but two-fifty a week, plus four weeks in a month, divided by forty-hours if she was lucky to get a full-time job…
She couldn’t do it in her head, but she was sure that was more money than she was going to make, considering she’d been in jail while the rest of her senior class graduated.
Being in prison had given her a chance to get her GED, but how many times had her father told her that all GEDs were good for was flipping burgers and waiting tables?
Was Rosie’s Café and Cantina open? There might be a deli in Starvation’s one and only gas station, but the town was too small even for a McDonald’s. Would minimum wage be too little for her to meet Travis’s requirements? She didn’t have a resume or any way to make one. How was she going to do this?
“Got it?” Travis said again, a steely undertone creeping into what was no longer a sexy or honeyed voice.
She nodded, fisting her hands to stop their shaking. “Yes, sir.”
She didn’t have a choice. She would just have to figure it out.
“There’s my girl,” he praised, but the compliment—if it even was one—just made her that much more nervous. “Now, I assume you’ve got money in your wallet from whatever job you did while in the prison employment program, right?”
Was he going to take it from her?
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“Best buy food with it, because meals are not served on me. I might, upon occasion, be persuaded to scrounge up something if you don’t have anything… and you ask nicely, but there will be a cost and I don’t think you want to be indebted to me. Do you?”
She shook her head.
A corner of his mouth lifted as he eased a step closer. “Use your words, darlin’. I want to hear you say it.”
Her throat was almost too tight to swallow. “No, sir.”
“Do you have any questions?” he asked, his tone silken, soft and all-knowing.
More than nervous, he made her feel small. And when she was small like this, wanting to talk was nearly impossible. The practical part of her, however, was frantically trying to figure out how she was supposed to survive this. “Do… do you know who in town might be hiring?”
“I might. You got a problem helping work a farm?”
With only fourteen dollars in her pocket, she didn’t have the luxury to be picky. “No, sir. How much does it pay?”
“Do I look like a farmer to you?”
Her fists squeezed tighter. “No, sir.”
He cocked an eyebrow, slipping another step closer. He was near enough now to reach out and take her arm, if he wanted to. On trembling knees, she watched him close that distance by yet another few inches, and now they were toe-to-toe. “What do I look like?”
“A probation officer, sir.”
“Yes, I do.” He turned and headed for the door that was still standing open behind them, lighting up the interior of the tiny room and unapologetically letting in the flies. “Follow me.”
He disappeared out of the door, the crunch of his boots in the gravel heading back to his office.
Shutting the door behind her, her head down, she followed him back into the cool air conditioning. She tried not to shiver when his arm brushed hers as he held open the door, then came in behind her.
“I’ve got heaters should it get too cold in winter, and I’ve got window units if it's too hot for you now. It’s ten dollars a day if you want either one.
” He slipped through the employees-only door that held his desk separate from the rest of the room, picked up a rolodex and flipped through it. “Let’s see…”
Plucking his cellphone out of his back jeans pocket, he dialed and when the line picked up on the other end, his voice brightened although his expression, hidden by those sunglasses, never did.
“Hey, Bobby… I’ve got a young lady here, fresh off the bus and lookin’ for work. You hiring?... Uh huh… Right…”
Picking up a pen, he shifted his unfinished crossword aside and pulled a manila folder with her name on the table out onto the top of the pile. Opening it, he began to write. “You got it, Bobby… Same pay as the last one?”
She leaned forward far enough to see him jot six dollars down on top of a mostly blank page.
He circled it, and her stomach sank all over again.
Would that be enough to pay whatever she was going to owe each week, plus food?
Would it be enough for her to slip a little into savings for when her time on probation ended?