“Just outside town. It’ll really be easiest if we just wait for you here, then we’ll get out of your hair.”
That was not good enough. I stepped in really close to her and leaned down, putting my mouth to her ear, and whispered, “Ellie, I’m going to ask just one last time. Where. Are. You. Staying?”
Several ominous moments beat the time in my ears like a drum. Her scent was filling my nose, right near her neck, and I think she swayed a little bit. Damn, I was getting hard just being this close to her, but I would not back down. She needed to know that.
I could feel her answer before I heard it, and I could barely hear it at all when she whispered back, “In the car.” Her head was hanging low, and I about saw red.
“No. The Fuck. Way.” I was glaring her down with anger and incredulity. How the hell did she think that was an okay place for her to be caring for her little baby—living in a goddamned piece of metal, parked on the edge of town? “No you’re not, not anymore, babe. Hand me your keys.”
Chapter 4
Ellie
I was so ashamed and embarrassed to tell Jack about my temporary living situation—if you could even call it that—that I didn’t see it coming when he suddenly had my keys in one hand, my arm in his other, and he was steering me toward my ugly, rusty, smelly car.
I put Peter down in his rear-facing car seat—and once again, like a daily mantra, wished blessings on the hospital and local police department for making sure I had one, gratis, before they would let me take him home. Once I had Peter tucked and belted in, Jack stood his ground by the opened driver’s side door and indicated that I should take the passenger side.
“I’m perfectly capable of driving my own car, thanks. You just direct me where I’m going.”
He deadpanned, “You’re cute.” Then he folded himself into the driver’s seat and shut the door, leaving me no other option without making a scene. I figured there were probably bigger battles to be won down the road, so I shook my head and went around the vehicle. He was such a man.
To my private chagrin, this turned me on even more. I mean, yeah, I’m a feminist. I’m an independent woman. I don’t know why Jack’s take-charge attitude turned me on so much, but it did. It said something about his confidence, his sureness. On him, I found it sexy.
Okay, truth: I was finding everything about him sexy. He defined the word.
Once I was in and belted up, he took off, with way more care than I would have expected. I looked at him in surprise when he pulled to a full stop at a stop sign that was completely lacking in convergent traffic. Considering his biker bad-ass looks and disposition, I’d have expected him to roll through the stop, at best. He caught my look.
“What? There’s a baby on board. Safety first. Always.”
Aw. I didn’t think he had it in him. I smirked at him with appreciation.
“So where are we going, then?” I asked, fidgeting with my sleeve.
“My place. It’s not huge, but I got a spare bedroom, so from now until further notice, it’s your place, too. No way do I let a new mama and baby sleep in a car, let alone a shit piece of junk like this. Where’d you even find this boat? It’s scrap metal.”
“It belonged to one of my grand-uncles. He babied this thing. Lucky me, I inherited it when he passed.”
“Grand-uncles? What is that?—No, don’t tell me. Sounds complicated. So he died in, what, 1989?”
I laughed. “Close, but no—more like 2005.”
He nodded. “Sorry for your loss. You do know, though, that you should’ve traded this in, in 2005, too, right?”
“Yeah, I’m aware. It’s just…it never really got high on the priorities list. It still runs. We do all right. And anyway, it’s not for much longer. I’m working on a way to get better sorted.”
It was true, but there were a lot of variables I was really not sure about—some of which may or may not have depended on Jack himself. But there was no way could I make a judgment call on that this very first day we met—so I’m not quite sure my voice rang with confidence when I laid out that claim.
He shook his head again. “Woman, from what you’ve shared so far, you do not do all right. Don’t pretend with me. Straight-up. Do not try to sell me any shit. I will not be buying it.”
And there went the humor from the car. The rest of the ride was silence.
After about a ten minutes’ drive, he pulled up to an adobe house with a Spanish tile roof. It wasn’t huge by any means, and the front yard was mostly red sandstone gravel and rocks divided up by cement drive- and walk-ways.