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“Not for anything less than the price of my firstborn.”
She was as boxed in as he was.
A part of Vince was intrigued, the way he was always captivated by things not working how they should. The saw wouldn’t be easy to fix. No telling what kind of damage was inside until he took off the outer casing.
Another part of Vince was reminded that he enjoyed Harley’s company, their quick banter, their obvious chemistry. The bargain wasn’t completely out of the question.
He ran a hand through his hair, wondering what their relationship would be like today if they’d never talked about higher education and college degrees.
“Well,” he said gruffly, “we can’t have you selling off your firstborn.”
Harley’s cheeks pinkened from more than the sun and she looked away. “I’d need the saw before we leave on Saturday.”
“That might be a stretch.” It was Tuesday. “What if I need to order parts?”
She considered this with the same deliberation with which she ordered from a menu. “Could they arrive while we’re gone, so you could fix it first thing when we return?”
Again, the feeling that he shouldn’t take her to Joe’s wedding gripped him. Vince fiddled with the screw on the auger motor hood, not looking at her. “Can you really afford to miss a week of work?” That seemed unlikely given she couldn’t afford to repair or replace her saw.
“Jerry owes me a couple days off and I’ve lined up some side jobs.” She’d put thought into this. She hadn’t asked him on a whim.
Unless he had a good reason to retract his offer, he felt honor-bound to take her.
Vince held out his hand for her to shake because he had to keep this on a platonic footing. “I’m paying for transportation, the hotel and food.”
“Okay, but...” Harley hesitated, offering a question in those blue eyes, not a handshake. “Why do you want a wedding date?”
He returned his hand to the auger, unwilling to tell her the truth and latching on to the first idea that came to mind. “There’s this girl, Sarah, from high school—”
“And you broke her heart.” Harley tsked.
He let her assumption stand. “Having a beautiful woman on my arm will keep my visit simple.” On so many levels.
Harley leaned back and surveyed him as if he was a blouse she was considering from the bargain rack. “And you’ll fix my saw?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Fair enough.” Harley stood and sealed the deal with a businesslike handshake.
Her going complicated things for him.
He just knew it. So it made no sense that he felt like smiling.
CHAPTER THREE (#u997cc1ae-8b72-5849-a261-c339932b624b)
VINCE BOUGHT HARLEY a plane ticket.
He packed a bag that included a dark blue suit, matching socks and tie, dress shoes, and an overly starched white shirt.
He took apart Harley’s tile saw.
Like his head, it was a mess. Bushings. Armature. Casing. All ruined. He spent a lot of time searching online for parts and thinking about the week ahead.
But a little voice kept whispering that this trip was as disastrous as Harley’s tile saw. He didn’t just want her to sell the idea that they were dating. He wanted her to sell the idea that they’d been dating for months. And that would require more than a businesslike handshake. That would require more fence-mending between them. That would require answers to questions she hadn’t asked and hadn’t thought of; ones he didn’t want to deal with.
Intending to get her on board with his plan before they left, Vince picked Harley up at her apartment complex on the east side of Houston. She was waiting out front in a yellow tank top and blue jeans, a small duffel bag and a backpack at her feet. Her hair was in its usual long, blond braid and her blue eyes were covered by sunglasses.
She hopped into the truck with a simple, “Hi,” setting her things on the floorboard and making herself comfortable.
He’d expected at least one suitcase, if not two. And maybe a dress or something a bit more feminine for the trip. It was her day off. Usually on her day off or nights out when she had time to change, Harley wore bright colors, interesting patterns, and often skirts and flouncy dresses. They were on their way to a wedding. It was early, but it was already nearly eighty degrees outside and with the humidity, it felt hotter. Why were her legs covered up? And why was she acting as if they were going to a job site?
“Is there a problem?” Harley asked when he didn’t immediately drive away.
“I was thinking how weird this is.” And he didn’t mean his thoughts dwelling on her legs.
“I don’t have to go.” Her voice was very small and very un-Harley like.
It tugged at him, that voice. She didn’t want to go and he didn’t want to take her. He should offer to buy her a saw and leave her in Houston. He drew a deep breath. “I should have told you I asked you to go to this thing because of my family, who are—”
“Nuts,” she finished for him, shrugging.
Vince’s jaw dropped. An image of his dad leapt to mind.
“Isn’t that what everyone says?” Harley shrugged again and turned her gaze toward the Houston skyline, visible through the smoggy haze.
“I suppose.” Although he never said it. Not even in jest.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.” She said the words forcefully, as if trying to convince herself.
Vince let the truck idle, his plan stuck in neutral. He felt obligated to let her know what she was walking into. “Before we go, I need to tell you something.”
“If you want to get back together, I’m going to stay here.” She drew herself up and glared at him.
There. That was more like the Harley he knew.
“You’ve been friend-zoned,” she continued. “I don’t think about you that way anymore.”
Ouch. He hadn’t expected that statement to sting. Not even if it was a good thing. “I’m not looking for a commitment with you or anyone else.”
Down the block, a motorcycle accelerated, winding through the gears quickly, as if there was fun to be had ahead.
Vince held on to the truck’s steering wheel with both hands. He hadn’t ridden a bike in ages. “In fact, I’m not the marrying kind.”
His brother Joe was the Messina intent upon promising “till death do we part.”
“Interesting.” Harley crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze cutting from Vince to the skyline once more. “Are we going to the airport or not?”
The motorcycle revved, calling all listeners to the freedom of the open road.
Vince couldn’t remember a time free of responsibilities, even when he was a kid. “Before we go, I need one thing to be clear. My family will expect us—”
“We’re not sleeping together.” Harley moved her hand to the door, as if preparing to jump out.
Ouch. Vince hadn’t expected that to hurt, either.
“The friend-zone isn’t a deal-breaker, so be it.” Her eyes were glued to the skyscrapers downtown, as if she longed to return to her former life as an architect, where everything had been rosy until she’d encountered one bump in the road.
If she thought being an architect was hard, she was learning that construction could be just as demoralizing. There was a price to be paid for every decision you made in life. Best if she learned that now, before she hit thirty.
The motorcycle came into view. One of those colorful Japanese models young guys rode to pop wheelies and do spin-outs and cheat death.
“It’s not a deal-breaker. But this might be.” Vince waited until Harley met his gaze, waited an extra few moments for the feeling that he shouldn’t take her to materialize, but it didn’t. “I was expected to bring a plus-one to the wedding.”
“You say that as if you told your family who to expect.” Her eyes narrowed. “Who was supposed to go with you?”
He couldn’t tell if there was resentment or jealousy in her voice. “They’re expecting the woman I’ve been dating...or, rather the woman who broke up with me last month.”
“I broke up with you last month.” The corner of her mouth twitched up and then just as quickly turned down. “And you never told me you weren’t interested in marriage.”
“It never came up.” And it had never come to mind. They’d had fun together, seemingly without strings. She’d made no mention of settling down. “I like women, but I’m not going to have kids, which means most women either don’t want to date me or date me with the hopes of changing my mind. And when they realize my mind’s made up, they tend to leave. Promptly.”
“It’s a moot point now.” Her words had an impersonal quality, which gave everything away—her desire for a picket fence, her longing for children, her expectation that he might have shared either dream.
But she didn’t get out of the truck.
So far, so good. “Unfortunately my brothers don’t agree with my decision to stay single and childless.”
“Ah, here’s where the nutty part comes in,” she surmised.
“There’s no nutty. Forget the nutty!” Vince took a deep breath and forced himself to speak calmly. “Over the years, I’ve told my brothers I was too busy to come home, citing long hours on the job or an intense relationship” To keep them from delving too deeply into why he stayed in Texas and to discourage them from coming to visit. “Each time they press, I fend them off, this time with a relationship.”
Her slender brows drew together. “Are you telling me you aren’t man enough to confess to your brothers you don’t have a girlfriend?”
She made it sound so cowardly.
He rejected cowardice in favor of practicality and shook his head. “I’m telling you...” His tongue slowed and tried to spin her a lie. “I’m telling you...” Usually, he never stumbled over words, or anything, for that matter. This whole trip was like looking under the hood of a foreign, high-end electric car and not recognizing anything. “I’m telling you that I don’t want my brothers to know I’m single. Everyone is happy with how things are. Your job is to help me keep it that way.”
“You’re such a girl, Messina.” She grinned and slugged his shoulder.
It took Vince a moment for the meaning of her words to sink in. Even then, he wasn’t sure and had to ask, “So you’ll go?”
“I’ll go.” She stretched her legs and put her elbow on the windowsill. “This should be fun.”
Fun? Not hardly. This was survival.
Vince put the truck in gear and headed toward the airport and the wedding, which he was now convinced was as disaster-laden as the combustible oil rig he’d once worked on.
* * *
HARLEY WANTED TO make sure a week spent with Vince would not be fun.
For one thing, she’d packed clothes that were practical, ones she could dress up or dress down. Today, she wore jeans and a tank top because she wanted to reinforce a boundary with Vince—this was a deal, not a date. She shouldn’t have worried. He didn’t talk to Harley much on the flight to California.
She took some of the blame for that. She’d had several restless nights leading up to the trip, worried about bills, her career, and Dan. She’d slept nearly the entire plane ride, as if the farther she went from her old boss and her old life, the more relaxed she became. And when they landed, she’d been in awe. She’d never been out of the South. And California wasn’t the South. Not by a long shot.
In Houston, the buildings were tall and spaced far enough apart you could appreciate their architecture. In San Francisco, the buildings were crammed together and the roads were narrow. She had to crane her neck to see anything.
In the South, you’d leave the city and see miles of rolling hills, towering pines, scrub oak and wide, muddy rivers. In California, you’d barely leave one city, catch a glimpse of a narrow river, a random sheep pasture, or a field of wild grass, and then reach another city.
There were mountains in California and big rolling hills covered with brown grass or green vineyards. Billboards proclaimed wine tasting at the next exit. And the next. And the next. They could have tasted wine all the way to his hometown.
And they might have if they’d been a real couple. If she hadn’t bragged that she had two degrees, they might still be dating. Or not, if Vince had told her he wasn’t interested in having kids. Harley would have considered that as much of a red flag as him assuming a lack of maturity on her part for quitting her profession.
They’d separated before their relationship had had a chance to blossom. It’d been a disappointment to let Vince go and it’d been awkward a time or two at work, but her heart hadn’t broken.
Unfortunately it hadn’t moved on completely, either. This pretense was ridiculous, but it would bring home the fact that she and Vince weren’t destined to be together. Their everyday lives would diverge, just as soon as Harley figured out an acceptable fix to delicate balconies or her four-year clause lapsed. Whichever came first.
They reached Cloverdale and stopped to top off the tank before they drove to Harmony Valley, or what Vince kept calling the middle of nowhere.
“I’ll be right back.” Harley hurried inside the gas station and returned a short time later waving a lottery ticket. “My mother always says you never know when luck is going to find you.” She’d scrounged change from beneath the seat of her truck before they’d left Houston for just such a chance at fortune.
Vince looked as if he thought she should have put her spare change in a bank account. “What does your father say to that?”
“That he got lucky when he found Mom.” Her father may be balding, but he was a true prince. “Do your parents have any funny sayings?”
“Not that I remember.” He steered the rented SUV toward a two-lane road lined with tall eucalyptus. “My dad died when I was in high school.”
“I’m so sorry.” Why hadn’t she known this? The answer lay somewhere between she’d been too busy being flattered that he was interested in her and she hadn’t been curious about his past while she was in his arms. “That must have been hard on everyone. How did your mom take it?”
Vince spared her a hooded glance. “My mom left us before that.”
“Oh, Vince. That’s sad.” She couldn’t imagine her mom leaving the family. “Did she remarry? Did you ever see her again?”
“I found her a couple of years ago.” His voice was flat, as if he was imparting driving directions to the local morgue. “She lives outside Houston. She seems happy.”
Harley angled her knees toward him, prepared to hear all the details. “What did she say when you faced her?”
“I didn’t pursue it. I just found out where she’d been all those years and that was enough.” If Harley had expected him to express hurt or anger with that statement, she’d have been disappointed. There was nothing, not so much as a too rapid eye-blink to indicate his mother’s leaving or location or lack of contact bothered him.
“But...weren’t you curious about why she left? Or why she never looked back?”
“No.” He fell silent, leaving Harley to wonder about his past, his brothers, and what kind of greeting she’d receive as Vince’s girlfriend.
“I’ve been thinking about our relationship,” Harley said. At Vince’s blank look, she added, “You know, our pretend relationship and how we’re going to act in front of others. I say, you can hold my hand every once in a while.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Vince took his foot off the gas. “I need more than handholding to throw my brothers a curve ball when they try to get too personal. Besides, no one’s going to believe we’re a couple if there’s no PDA.”
“Why do we need public displays of affection?” Harley crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to be distracted by the cumulus clouds above a hundred-year-old, two-story farmhouse in the middle of a vineyard, or the contrast of straight lines and flowing curves. “People who date have personal boundaries.”
