A Knight In Rusty Armor. Dixie Browning
he kept his eyes on her hands. She had nice hands. Long and slender, with smooth white skin and pretty nails. No polish, no rings. White knuckles, though. That was a bad sign.
“Ru, level with me. Did your friend know you were coming? If she did, she probably left a key with a neighbor, or maybe she left a note telling you how to reach her.”
“I—it was going to be a surprise. I sort of...left home in a hurry. I tried to call along the way, but...”
That was about what he’d figured. She must have taken off with no real plan, which pretty much guaranteed disaster. “Let’s think this through before we jump to any conclusions.”
“Frankly, I don’t much feel like thinking.”
Frankly, he didn’t, either. Besides, he had a feeling no amount of thinking was going to change the basic facts. At the moment she had no place to go and no means of getting there, short of hiring a beach buggy from one of the sports centers. Somehow he couldn’t quite see her hitting the road with all her bags and boxes in a four-by-four bristling with rod holders.
Another thing had occurred to him, something he didn’t know quite how to approach. Her finances might not be quite as healthy as her classy tweeds and cashmere coat and sweaters indicated. Even in the off season, rooms down here cost more than a few bucks.
Bottom line: he was stuck with her. Or rather, they were stuck with each other until one of them came up with a solution.
Morosely she forked up three beans and a chunk of wiener. He watched her lips part, showing a set of even white teeth that had probably sent some orthodontist’s kid to college.
And then he watched her eyes widen as steam all but came from her ears.
She lunged for the sink at the same time he reached out to open the refrigerator. “Milk’s better—fat coats the tastebuds. Water just spreads the fire.”
She drank from the carton before he could grab her a glass. And then she lowered the carton, fanned her face, and gulped down some more. “Oh, my heavenly days, that’s incendiary!” she gasped.
“I forgot.”
“Forgot what, the fire extinguisher?” She was breathing heavily though her mouth, her breasts heaving as if she’d been running hard.
“I’ve been cooking for years, but I guess my repertoire’s pretty limited. Are you going to be all right?”
“If I had any lingering germs, they’re dead now. Nothing could possibly live in that environment. Don’t you even care about your stomach lining?”
“Never gave it much thought. I guess it’s pretty well cauterized by now.”
“Yes, well...I think I’ll have cold cereal, if it’s all right.”
“Be my guest. There’s the pink stuff and some of that kind with brown sugar and nuts. You might as well finish the milk—I’ll get more in the morning.”
All thought of the missing Moselle and the interred car was forgotten for the moment. She wasn’t going anywhere right away, and they both knew it.
“This time I’ll take the sofa,” she offered, rising to help him rinse the plates and stack them in the dishwasher. That, too, had been Kelli’s idea. He never used it. It would take him a week to get up a load.
“Keep the bed,” he offered generously. His chest was beginning to feel as if it had been buried under a few tons of wet sand, along with her car. “I don’t mind bunking in the living room. Another couple of days and I’ll have the spare room finished ”
“Don’t hurry on my account. I have no intention of abusing your hospitality any longer than I have to.”
“You’re not abusing anything, there’s plenty of room.”
He watched her take in the cramped quarters, and it struck him that she was no more impressed with the house he was building than Kelli had been. He’d designed it himself, and been damned proud of it It was compact and efficient, with no wasted space or exposed pipes. So what if you had to go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom? At least the plumbing was all in one wall.
“Once I finish furnishing the place, it’ll look better. The room on the end’s going to be an office. The one I’m paneling now is for my boy. I thought maybe twin bunks. Kids like bunks.”
“Your boy?”
He hadn’t meant to mention Matthew. Didn’t particularly want to have to explain the situation to anyone else. Kelli had sounded sympathetic at first. At twenty-five, he’d figured she’d be the perfect age to bridge the gap between a twelve-year-old boy and a thirty-nine-year-old man who’d never spent much time around kids.
“I didn’t realize you had children,” Ru ventured.
Trav- was searching around for a change of subject when Lady Luck beat him to it.
The power went off.
Three
In the sudden darkness, the silence was pronounced. Gradually, small sounds began to emerge. The all-but-inaudible whisper of the gas furnace. A branch brushing against a corner of the house. An acorn striking the roof sounded unnaturally loud. Ru held her breath. Neither of them spoke, waiting to see if the lights would come back on. If they were still off after several minutes, Trav knew that, odds were, it would take a while.
“These things happen,” he observed, his quiet baritone sounding husky, almost hoarse. “I’ll light a lamp and go switch on the generator. I haven’t wired it in yet.”
“Oh,” Ru replied, just as if she knew what he was talking about.
A little while later they were sipping hot cocoa made from a mix. Ru would have preferred tea. She had an idea Trav would rather have had coffee, but the occasion seemed to call for something out of the ordinary.
With the noise of the generator in the background, they discussed the vagaries of living on the Outer Banks, subject to nature’s whims and the limitations inherent on a barrier island. “Why did you settle here? It’s a long way from Oklahoma City.” Ru had two ways of dealing with stress. She either talked too much or not at all. This was going to be one of those too-much nights.
He sighed as if he didn’t want to answer but was too polite to refuse. Which he probably was. Sick or not, she’d learned a lot about Lieutenant Commander Travis, Holiday, USCG, retired, in these past few days. Not that he was talkative, because he wasn’t, but a remark here, a comment there, had been enough to go on. With nothing else to do but lie around and recuperate, she’d focused on the man because she hadn’t wanted to dwell on her own problems.
She did know that he was genuinely kind. And that he was second-generation Coast Guard and had been born in Oklahoma City, which struck her as a strange place for the Coast Guard. But then, she’d never been farther west than Mississippi.
She knew, too, that he had an overdeveloped sense of duty and an underdeveloped ego, which was surprising in anyone, especially a man. Especially a ruggedly attractive man who didn’t pay homage to every mirror he passed, the way Hubert had done. Her ex had taken narcissism to new heights.
Travis Holiday seemed totally unaware of his own rugged appeal. Even she, who had sworn off men—she, who had more problems than Godiva had chocolates—had done a double take at the sight of his lean, denim-clad backside bending over a stack of lumber that morning.
He was appealing, all right. She could have sworn, if she’d even thought about it, that she hadn’t a viable hormone left in her body. Stress had a way of doing that to a woman.
At least it had done it to her. Mentally and emotionally, if not physically, she’d been curled up in the fetal position for so long she’d stopped thinking of herself as a woman. She was a victim.
Correction. She had been a victim. Past tense. Her divorce had been rough