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“I’m only asking because if you’re going to be quiet as a corpse the whole way, I want to dig out my earphones before we hit the road in the morning so I can listen to some tunes.”
“You’re not supposed to wear earbuds while you’re driving.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s only common courtesy to have a conversation with the person who’s driving you to Miami. I mean it’s miles and miles of driving. If you can’t at least talk to me, then you’re forcing me to break the law.”
“You don’t have to wear earbuds. You can play whatever you want on the radio.”
“So, in other words, you’re not going to talk to me.”
He heaved a sigh, swept the cap from his face and sat up in the seat. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Nothing now. We’re almost to the truck stop.” She sailed up the exit ramp.
“Why don’t you talk,” he said. “Tell me something about yourself. Your hopes, your dreams, your secrets.”
“Now you’re making fun of me.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to talk.”
“You’re impossible.” Peeved, Tara reached over and clicked on the radio. The Black Keys were singing “Howlin’ for You.” She turned up the volume. Loud.
Boone winced.
“Too loud?” She smiled sweetly.
“No.” He settled a hand on his knee.
“Is your knee hurting?” Contrite, she turned down the music.
“I don’t need your pity. Crank the damn music.” He reached over and turned the volume back up again.
“You’re a real sorehead, you know that?”
“I wasn’t always,” he mumbled.
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. She turned down the music. “What did you say?”
Silence settled over the car.
“I know you’re a wounded warrior and all that, but this dark and broody stuff isn’t working for me. Get some sleep tonight, but then tomorrow, I expect a complete attitude adjustment.”
One eyebrow shot up high on his forehead. “Oh, you do?”
“I do.” She pulled to a stop outside the bed-and-bath motel connected to the truck stop.
“You think it’s that easy to just turn your mood around?”
“Fake it till you make it, baby.” Okay, maybe she was being glib, but there was only so much gloom and doom she could handle and she’d noticed whenever she issued a challenge, he got feisty. “You know what I think?”
“How can anyone know what you think? Your mind jumps around like a spider monkey.” The blinking lights of the motel sign flashed across his face in green neon.
Vacancy.
“I think that maybe deep down, underneath the pain and grief and pissiness, you’re just plain bored.”
“Bored, huh?”
“Yep. You’re accustomed to lots of action and you’re not getting any.”
“Is that supposed to be a double entendre?” He lowered his eyelids, gave her a sultry look that sizzled her shorts.
Tara gulped, ignored that and trudged ahead. “From here on in, I want to see smiles, smiles, smiles.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll drive off and leave you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Just try me.”
He reached over and plucked the keys out of the ignition.
“Hey!”
“I’ll give them back to you in the morning.”
“You’re a pain in the butt,” she said. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
“All the time,” he said. Then, for the first time that day, he gave her a genuine smile. “All the damn time.”
EVEN IF BOONE didn’t want to admit it, Tara was right. He was a pain in the butt, he was bored and he hadn’t had any action in a very long time.
That included sex.
He lay on the narrow motel bed and stared up at the ceiling. He could hear the chuff of Jake brakes as eighteen-wheelers rolled in off the highway. He tried to sleep, but Tara crowded and clouded his mind. He had underestimated exactly how tough this was going to be—sitting beside her in the car, hour after hour, smelling her feminine scent, taking in the bare stretch of skin from the hem of her shorts to her sandals, hearing the sweet sound of her voice. It was all he could do to keep his hands off her. Now, he fully realized why he’d kept her at arm’s length all these months.
She was in the room next door. The walls were thin and when she’d taken her shower, he heard the water come on.
Instantly, he pictured her in those shorts that crept high on her thighs when she sat down. She had million-dollar legs and he imagined her sliding them over his. Her features were etched on the back of his eyelids and it was as real as if she were standing right in front of him—from the gentle arch of her sandy eyebrows to her determined little chin beneath those wide, luscious lips. Her face was shaped like a soft heart, wider across the forehead, smaller at her jawline. Her nose was short with a delicate tip.
He might want to deny it, but she was cuter than a basketful of puppies. Boone hated cute. Nothing could trip a guy up faster than cute.
An unwelcome stiffness gripped him.
Dammit. He did not want her starring in his X-rated fantasies, but his body had other ideas, his brain teasing his appendage with provocative images of her. Stepping out of the shower, naked, wet and slippery.
She turned him inside out and she wasn’t even in the same room.
“Stop thinking about her,” he commanded himself, but it was like telling a dieter to stay away from chocolate cake.
Goose bumps spread over him at the thought of what it would feel like to take her into his arms with those spectacular breasts pressed against his chest. Inhale the scent of her hair. Taste the sweetness of her lips.
His erection tightened, throbbed.
Ah, hell.
He flopped ungracefully over onto his side, dragging his injured knee after him and stared at the digital clock on the bedside table. Two in the morning. He was never going to get any sleep at this rate.
His shaft ached. He pulled in a deep breath.
Just do it and get it over with so you can get a few hours of sleep.
He didn’t want to give in. His body had betrayed him enough, but if he didn’t do something about this erection soon, he’d lie awake until dawn.
Once upon a time, he’d had an iron will, but these days? No such luck.
The persistent throbbing won out. Blowing out his breath, Boone reached down a hand, and with visions of Tara parading through his head, proceeded to take care of his problem in the most expedient way possible.
SUNLIGHT PUSHING through the dusty window jerked Boone awake sometime later. He sat up abruptly and immediately regretted it when his knee twinged. He gritted his teeth, shoved a hand through his hair. What in the hell time was it? His plan had been to get on the road at dawn. What he’d done last night had worked, but he’d slept far longer than he intended.
A glance over at the clock told him it was seventhirty—a good hour and a half later than he’d planned. He’d no sooner gotten dressed and put on his knee brace than a knock sounded at his door. He opened it to find Tara standing there wearing a short red sundress and matching red sandals that showed off the sexiest toes this side of Montana.
“Good morning,” she chirped.
“Why did you let me sleep so long?” he groused. “I told you we needed to be on the road by six.”
“Relax. We’ve got plenty of time. You don’t have to be in Key West until Saturday.”
“It’s already Wednesday and I don’t like cutting things close.”
“C’mon.” She beckoned with a wriggly finger. “Let’s go have breakfast.”
“No. Let’s get on the road. We can hit a drive-through on the way out of town.”
But she was already swishing away from him, headed across the parking lot toward the truck-stop diner, her oversized purse slung over her shoulder.
He swore under his breath, picked up his knapsack and limped after her as fast as he could. “Tara,” he hollered. “We don’t have time for this.”
Stepping lightly, she turned and, still walking toward the diner, grinned at him. “You’ll feel better after a hearty breakfast.”
“I’ll feel better when we’re on the road.”
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
“Watch where you’re walking.”
“I’m—” Her retort was cut off by an eighteen-wheeler bread truck as it whizzed away from massive gas pumps at the back of the diner. The truck came barreling straight for Tara.
Adrenaline shot through Boone. His natural instinct was to run toward her, throw himself between her and the truck, but given the shape his knee was in, he simply could not move that fast. “Stop!” he commanded and then took half a dozen deities’ names in vain.
Tara froze, her face gone deathly pale.
The driver of the eighteen-wheeler blasted his horn, coming within inches of Tara as he rocketed from the parking lot.
Boone’s stomach had vaulted into his throat.
She jumped then, leaping into a hedge of bushes surrounding the diner. Boone moved as fast as he could, heart hammering. He’d intended to give her a good long lecture, but when he reached her, she was trembling all over.
“Are you all right?” he murmured.
She nodded mutely. Her legs wobbled beneath her.
He reached out and took her into his arms.
“You were right,” she said. “We should have gotten on the road. If we’d been on the road ahead of that stupid truck, I wouldn’t have been acting like a dummy.”
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re safe,” he reassured her, but she was a leaf in his arms, shaking uncontrollably.
“That was almost the end of me. Why don’t I ever think?”
“You were just caught up in the moment, enjoying the morning. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It could have been my last breath.” She leaned heavily against him.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been walking backward,” he conceded. “But that guy shouldn’t have come cannonballing around the building knowing that people come walking through the parking lot from the motel to the diner.”
“You’re letting me off the hook?” She seemed surprised.
“I think you’re shaken up enough without me making any more comments. Let’s get some breakfast,” he murmured in her ear, surprised by the tender feeling of relief that had evaporated all his anger. She was okay. That’s all that mattered.
“No, we should get on the road.”
“You’re in no shape to drive. You need to sit down a bit. Get some color back into those cheeks.”
“Okay,” she agreed in a weak voice.
Boone let his hand drop to her waist, pressed his palm to the small of her back and escorted her toward the door. He had the strangest urge to grin.
They found a booth near the front door. Tara plunked down. It took Boone a minute to get seated across from her. He dropped his knapsack to the floor and stretched his right leg out across it.
Tara exhaled audibly.
He reached across the table to touch her hand. “You sure you’re okay?”
Her smile was wan. She pushed a lock of hair from her eyes. “I’m getting there.”
The waitress came over. Boone ordered oatmeal and toast. Tara ordered the Slam Bang special. He eyed her speculatively. Where did she plan on putting all that food?
