JACKED (10 page)

“
Need a loan, Nurse Pendleton
?” she liked to gloat.

One more semester. If the car could make it till May, she could say good-bye to her crappy car and her crappy job and best of all her crappy roommates. Once she had a nursing job at the hospital all this would be a memory.

Theo got into the truck, took off his hat and tossed it in the back of the cab. He snapped the light off and pulled out onto the road, doing a U-turn in the middle of the deserted highway.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For the coat.”

He nodded.

“I didn’t know that you drive the trucks. I thought you had a law degree. From the military or something. The Marines. Hoo-ra, right?”

He scrubbed his hand across his face and remained quiet for a moment longer. She cringed. Why was she always such an idiot around Theo? Either she babbled or she said nothing. She pulled his coat around her tighter, relishing the warmth and the scent,
his
scent.

The truck cab was a much more intimate setting than the coffee shop, just the two of them and the hum of the diesel engine. When he started talking, she almost jumped out of her skin.

“I used to be a lawyer and a Marine,” he said. “I worked for JAG. When I was stationed in the Middle East, I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not really sure, because I don’t remember anything. After I got patched up, the Navy said, ‘Thanks a lot, see ya later.’ I came home, and my wife told me the same thing, minus the ‘thanks a lot.’ Now I don’t practice law anymore. I buy and sell companies. Body shops, car rentals, a tire store, two wrecker services. Other stuff.”

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Oh.”

It was such an outpouring of information that she was a little taken aback, but wanted more too. He was quiet, and the only sound was the engine and the windshield wipers.

Theo was so well built, like a professional football player. It was hard to imagine him being injured. She looked out the window to the inky darkness, and thought of him ‘being patched up’. What that meant she didn’t know but it made her sick to her stomach. She imagined him injured and lying in some hospital bed, far away from home. On top of that his wife had walked out. It was awful.

He’d never spoken that much at once to her before. Weekly visits over coffee were usually terse exchanges.

“
Doing okay
?”

“
Fine.
”

“
Work’s good
?”

“
Just great
.”

She glanced at him nervously. He seemed angry. His hands held the wheel with a grip that made the muscles on his forearms flex. Anxiety threaded through her. Wait till he found out she had no way to pay for the towing. Not til Monday. Then she’d have to go to the bank and withdraw the money. She deflated a little more at the thought of her tiny savings being drained. The money she’d earmarked for her final semester’s books would go to a tow truck company instead. She sighed. Easy come, easy go.

They drove in silence. Clearly he didn’t want to talk anymore, which was fine. He was towing her car. She should set aside her silly fascination with him. This was business. Strictly business.

Her friends would be wondering where she was. She needed to let them know she wouldn’t make it out to the lake. She might have enough battery to call them. If she hadn’t been so astonished to see Theo climb out of the truck she might have remembered to get her phone charger out of the car.

Emma, one of the girls who would graduate with her in May, answered on the first ring.

“Why are you not here?” she shrieked. “Daphne made the most amazing margaritas and we’re about to have dinner.”

“I’m half-frozen. A margarita sounds awful. My car broke down.”

“Oh shit, girl. You can’t stay at
your
house this weekend. It’s Valentine’s weekend. Your crazy roommates will be partying non-stop.”

It was true. Ashley and Olivia had big plans for the weekend. They’d teased her about spending Valentine’s weekend with a bunch of girls. ‘Boring, nursing students,’ Ashley taunted. ‘Little goody-two-shoes,’ Olivia chimed in.

“It’ll be fine, Emma,” Sage said. “I put a dead bolt on the door. Nobody could get past that thing.”

Emma gave a wail of distress. Clearly, she wasn’t on her first margarita.

“Want me to drive back in the morning? Tomorrow is Valentine’s. You don’t want to spend it alone. I’ll
totally
come get you.”

There were cheers in the back ground and other offers from some of the other girls. Sage smiled. “No, it’s okay. I could use the extra study time. I pulled four extra shifts at the club this week. Ya’ll be good. Don’t let Becca drag the Karaoke machine out unless someone is taping her, especially if she sings any Shania.”

The phone beeped as it ran out of battery and powered off. She sighed and imagined the scene at the lake house where her friends were partying. The reason for the party – Emma’s boyfriend had just deployed and the party was a way for Emma’s friends to give her spirits a boost. They’d secretly agreed to bring Emma romance novels, or Chippendale calendars, or sex toys. Anything to distract her.

They had drawn cards to see what each would buy, and to her embarrassment, Sage had drawn the card to buy a sex toy. It came wrapped in plain brown paper, and it sat in the backseat of her broken-down car. Her face heated with embarrassment and she hoped he hadn’t noticed it. Which was ridiculous. Not like he could have guessed what was inside.

She set the phone on the dashboard. The silence seemed heavy and she itched to turn on the radio. Anything. She tried to think of some sort of conversation, but couldn’t imagine what to talk about.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked. He tugged a thermos from his console.

Coffee sounded like the best thing ever and she was touched by the offer. First his warm coat and now coffee.

“This is some full-service wrecker company you run here.” She laughed at her own joke, took the thermos, and twisted the top off. The top served as a cup and she poured coffee, inhaling the aroma that filled the cab. The brew, slightly sweetened and creamed, left a path of heat down her throat as she sipped it.

“Your engine overheated,” he said.

She turned to look at him. “How do you know that?”

“I can tell.”

She groaned. “Is that expensive to repair?”

“Yes. Very. I’ll lend you a car.”

Guilt tugged at her. She was drinking his coffee, sitting in his truck and wrapped in his jacket while she had no way of paying him, for towing, much less a car rental.

“I don’t know if I can afford to lease a car or have mine fixed right now. I’m in a little bit of a bind.”

“We can negotiate something.” His tone was neutral, but the words held an edge of threat.

She waited for him to say more. Negotiate? They drove in silence, the quiet broken by a crash of thunder that rolled across the hills and faded.

“What do you mean by negotiate?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.

“You know what the patrons of the Cabaret say about you, Sage?”

The hair on the back of her neck prickled. His words felt like a punch to the gut. She said nothing, but watched the rain drops hit the windshield. She’d hoped for conversation, but this seemed like it was veering into territory she didn’t want to think about.

“Trey says you think you’re above everyone else… you’re too good to give a guy a lap dance.”

They came to a crossroad. He slowed the truck to take a turn down a road she didn’t recognize. Cold dread washed through her.

“He told me you owe him five thousand dollars. He says you’re desperate and desperate girls make the best dancers. I’m tired of hearing his bullshit.”

Her heart thudded against her chest. “I would never strip for him.”

“I’m glad to hear that. That’s why I’m giving you a chance to make five grand.”

Lightning flashed, illuminating rolling hills below them.

“Where are you taking me?” she whispered.

“To my home.”

End of the preview.
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Kept Little Thing
, by Sasha Gold

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Chapter 1

August

Emma Childress frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Not at herself so much as the six-inch stain of café macchiato on her new blouse. Grainy light from the airport bathroom didn’t improve things. The concourse was jammed with travelers that afternoon, and in the midst of the crowd her six dollar coffee ended up on her hundred and thirty dollar Anne Klein top. To make matters worse, Will Briscoe, her boss, would arrive any minute and expect her to be ready to board the two fifteen plane which meant she had exactly nineteen minutes to figure out a solution to her dilemma.

The stain started at her shoulder and ended at her breast. At her nipple, to be precise. Had she
tried
to draw attention to her generous endowment with a splash of overpriced coffee, she would be hard pressed to do better.

Yesterday she’d received the invitation to go to San Francisco. Will, the owner of the San Antonio law firm where she worked as a temp, asked her to go. It was her last day of work for him and she thought he’d called her in to say good-bye, and was stunned to hear his request. Two days of meetings with a particularly difficult client. Did she have time? When she hesitated, he’d told her that he could provide tuition assistance for her last semester at school and a clothing allowance.

“Your contract was only for the summer, and if I offer to pay you outright I’ll get into hot water with the temp agency. But I can compensate you in other ways.” Will gave her a rare smile, one that actually reached his ice-blue eyes. “You’ve helped me close five deals in the last six weeks. That’s a record and I’m starting to think you’re my good luck charm.”

The memory of his praise sent a ripple of happiness through her. Women in the office claimed Will gave her preferential treatment, sniped that she was his pet, but she liked to think she’d earned every bit.

And that he was madly in love with her and just didn’t know it yet. She liked to think that too.

Wheeling her suitcase into a restroom stall she heard a woman enter the bathroom talking on her cell phone. Emma opened her carefully packed suitcase, tugged out another blouse and listened to the woman go on about her trip to Hawaii, a honeymoon. Emma grimaced. A trip to a tropical island… For a moment she imagined her and Will’s plane continuing on from San Francisco, across the Pacific, and depositing them in paradise for a week of fun instead of two days of business meetings.

She took off her shirt and listened to the woman describe her shopping spree in preparation for her honeymoon. Five hundred dollars’ damage at Victoria’s Secret, twelve hundred dollars at Escada, and another grand at Neiman’s. Emma snorted as she eyed her open suitcase packed with business clothes. Conservative pumps, plain slacks in charcoal and navy, a few more silk blouses and two pencil skirts just in case. She also had a blazer. How sexy was that?

Appearances were everything to Will. His entire office could keep a Talbots or Anne Taylor in business. He himself dressed impeccably—custom suits, Italian shoes, Hermes ties.

The woman in the neighboring stall flushed, and while she washed her hands told her friend about the snorkeling in Hawaii.

“If Danny ever lets me out of the hotel room we plan on spending a lot of time in the water.”

A wash of envy came over Emma. She imagined the crystalline island waters and then pictured Will in bathing trunks. She zipped up her suitcase and a warm sensation settled over her as she stepped out of the bathroom. Maybe the San Francisco hotel at least had a pool.

Just as quickly, she dismissed the thought. Will was all business. She’d traveled with him twice before, just for the day, but he never allowed so much as a relaxed lunch or a quick walk around a park.