Chapter 1 #2
“Big of you,” she said, grabbing a handful of her chips and shoving a couple in her mouth. “On the drive over, you can start figuring out your ‘I destroyed her livelihood’ discount.”
Clay followed Andie out to his truck and couldn’t help watching the way her hips swayed and her worn jeans hugged her curves.
The burgundy T-shirt fit her slender body as if she’d been born in it.
Her usually straight brown hair hung just past her shoulders, tousled and tangled, he assumed from her helmet and ride into town.
She had a hint of mystery about her, never one to talk about herself as far as he’d experienced. Restless. According to Macey, she drifted around the country, never settling in any one place for more than a few weeks at a time.
Clay was well acquainted with that kind of restlessness, or had been in a past life. He’d never given in to it like Andie did, but he’d felt it. Let it get him into plenty of trouble as a teen. He knew what he’d been trying to get away from. What, he wondered, haunted this woman?
She stopped beside her motorcycle and Clay frowned.
“Let’s get it loaded in the truck and I’ll find a place to take it in the next day or so.”
She nodded sadly as if she’d lost her best friend, her feistiness gone.
He opened the tailgate and pulled out a ramp, then they turned the bike around and tried to roll it toward the back of the truck. The damage made it difficult.
When they got to the ramp, they inched it along until, finally, it was loaded.
Clay secured the bike in the bed of the truck, brushed his hands on his jeans, and went to the passenger side to open her door. He checked his instinct to help her up, clenching his fist. He went around and climbed in his side.
“Bike means a lot to you, huh?” he said as he started the truck.
She snapped her head toward him, her eyes narrowed. “It and the three bags you knocked off the back of it…that’s pretty much everything I own.”
“Takes guts to live like that.”
She stared at him. “Maybe,” she said finally. “Or maybe a lack of guts.”
He studied her in his peripheral vision.
He was drawn to her. Lured by the need to know more about her, to figure her out. What made her doubt herself?
What made her run?
Andie exhaled her relief when Clay pulled up at his place. She could normally hold her own with anyone, but riding in the truck with him made her clam up. He’d seemed to fill up the whole space with muscles and testosterone, and she’d been hyperaware of everything about him.
The duplex looked fine from the outside. It was a narrow, sand-colored, three-story building built on stilts and a carport. Instead of side-by-side units, they were stacked on top of each other. Clay lived in the top two floors, he explained.
They climbed the flight of stairs to the main door on the side of the lower unit. He unlocked it for her.
The place had more than enough room for her, though she imagined most people would consider it small. The living room was to her left when she walked in, and a compact kitchen was to the right. The rooms were semi-furnished.
“Love the vintage look,” she said, running her hand over a circa seventies Formica dinette with an olive-green plastic chair at each end. There was a futon in the living room, mismatched coffee and end tables, and a low shelf on cement blocks that could act as a TV stand but no TV.
“It serves the purpose,” he said, almost apologetically.
“Oh, I was serious. It’s perfect for the space.”
“There’s an in-ground pool in the back you can use when you want.”
Andie went to the other door and looked out at a tiny balcony. Below, she could see the blue of the pool. Not bad.
She wandered farther in and poked her head into a narrow bathroom—as long as it had running water, she couldn’t care less.
Across from the bathroom was the bedroom. She flipped on the light. A full-size bed and a nightstand were the only furniture that could fit in the room, leaving about a foot between the bed and each wall.
“Closet’s decent,” Clay said.
She glanced at it but wasn’t worried. Her bag of clothes would fit just about anywhere.
What she was more worried about was the man standing inches behind her, looking over her shoulder. His scent, a mix of subtle spice and male, made her step away. Unfortunately, there wasn’t far to step. “How much per week?” she asked, her jaw stiff.
“Despite what Macey said, I had put some thought into renting this out—except I was going to lease by the month. A thousand.”
“I can’t pay that much,” she said, banking on the suspicion that he was at least a little desperate for money if he planned to rent.
He studied her too closely, unblinking, making her squirm. Finally he nodded. “That discount you mentioned…for you, I’ll go down to eight hundred.”
Andie crossed her arms and inched forward. Eight hundred would be as far as she could stretch. “I have to pay by the week but I’ll be here for four.”
He stared down at her with those disarming eyes but she held her ground. “Two hundred a week. And one other thing…unload the gun.”
“What?”
“I don’t want a loaded firearm in my house.”
“Your house is upstairs.”
“I won’t bend on it.”
She sized him up. She could take the ammo out while he watched if that would make him happy. And then she could put it right back in once he left. What was he going to do—a nightly inspection?
Bad choice of words, she thought, as she pictured him in her bedroom at lights-out.
She closed her eyes briefly. Ultimately she wouldn’t bend either, but she could fake it. She doubted she could find another rental this size, this close to work, for as low a price. She didn’t have wheels to get around to look at a bunch of places anyway.
Andie was about to offer her hand to seal the deal when the door in the other room squeaked open slowly. She figured the wind had caught it—until she heard the small, unsure voice.
“Daddy?”