CHAPTER 7
Cal
“You good?” I look over and see that she’s sitting with her back straight and her chin high as she stares straight ahead.
“Fabulous. You?”
I chuckle softly as I pull up to the stop sign. “I am doing mighty fine, ma’am, thank you. Where are we headed?”
She has a glamorous profile, with striking bone structure, though it’s obvious she’s angry with me.
Maybe she has a right to be.
She pulls her phone from her bag and swipes up and down a few times. “I’d like to go into the town of Sweetbriar first, please. I want to get settled before I head to my meeting. Hopefully, I’ll have a car by then.”
“So, you have an appointment out of town?”
She turns her head to look out the passenger side window and doesn’t answer.
This is one tightly wound woman.
We’re silent most of the fifteen-minute drive to town.
I figure I’ve had enough fun for one day and decide to cut her some slack.
She's clearly out of her element, and things haven’t gone to plan for her on this trip.
She texts back and forth with someone, but only when the signal is strong enough.
Eventually, she gets frustrated and throws her phone into her bag.
I notice that she’s suddenly gazing out the window in earnest. “Oh,” she says, her voice brighter than I’ve heard it up till now. “Wow. It’s really pretty around here.”
“It is.”
I'm the first to admit that the MacLaines picked a spectacular part of the country to settle in 1865, and I'm proud our family has managed to hang on to it ever since. That’s saying something too, since Dad’s come close to losing it on several occasions since Mom died.
If it weren’t for my brilliant brothers and the inventions that led to StellaR Tech, the ranch would be in foreclosure, no question about it.
She looks at me, puzzled. “It's spectacular, really. I mean, I don't know exactly what I expected, but I thought it was almost all desert here.”
“There's plenty of that,” I tell her, taking a left onto the state highway that leads to town. “But in addition to the high desert, we’ve got a couple different rivers and several lakes. We've got rocky mountains, meadows and grasslands, and high-elevation alpine forest. It’s as diverse as it is beautiful.”
“Hmm,” she says.
When I pull onto Main Street, I wonder what the town looks like to her, someone who’s never been here before.
The word “town” may be a misnomer. Sweetbriar was never much to look at, even in its Gold Rush prime, and these days it’s a skeleton of its former self.
There's a five and dime, a hardware store, a car repair shop, two diners, a few bars, and several churches. That’s about it.
“Anywhere in particular?” I ask.
Her eyes widen as she looks around. “The Sweetbriar Hotel. It’s supposed to be on Main Street. But this can’t be Main Street, right?”
“It can and it is.” I put on my signal and do a U-turn, then pull up to the curb. “Here we are.”
The giant vinyl tarp that’s draped across the front of the three-story building also covers the sidewalk. It snaps in the light breeze.
“What the hell is this?” She rolls her window all the way down and cranes her neck to get a good look.
“That’s the hotel under a termite tent. This is dry country.”
“Termites?” When she ducks back inside the Jeep, her eyes look like they’re going to pop from her face.
I don’t laugh, though it takes some effort. I point to the bright yellow sign taped to the tarp. “Says it’s closed for pest treatment.”
Her mouth falls open, then snaps shut. “Are you kidding me?”
I shake my head, glad that I didn’t have much on my schedule today, since this is becoming far more than a friendly ride to town.
“Fine.” She regroups. “Then you’re just going to have to take me to another hotel.”
I tilt my head, starting to feel a bit sorry for her. “The next closest hotel is about ninety miles away in Carson City.”
“What?” Her face flushes red with impatience. She is fucking pissed off. Clearly, my traveling companion is a woman who is used to having things go her way. She gets what she wants when she wants it, and in just the way she prefers to get it.
Her arms cross tight over her chest. She crosses her legs at the knee with force enough to cut off her circulation.
“Hey,” I say. “It’s all good. And I just now realized I haven’t introduced myself properly—my name is Cal.”
She swivels her neck and glares at me. “Victoria,” she says, that little crinkle appearing between her brows again.
“Where to next, Victoria?”
She shakes her head, her lips tight. She might be on the verge of tears, which is something I’d rather not deal with.
“I have an idea. It’s a beautiful day.” I unlatch the roof locks and tap on the Jeep’s power top-down button.
It whirs as it folds down the roof, then clicks it into place over the trunk.
She peers at me, like she’s trying to figure me out.
“But only if you don’t mind getting your hair a little messy. ”
“I don’t mind.”
I pull away from the curb and head back to the state highway.
True, I’d rather have a destination plugged into my navigation screen.
I’m the kind of man who always has a clear objective, a planned route, and an estimated travel time.
It’s a habit from my SEAL days. But this situation requires me to be a bit more flexible, so that’s what I’ll try to do.
It could be a lot worse, right? The top’s down. The weather’s perfect. And there’s a gorgeous woman riding shotgun.
I might as well enjoy it.