Chapter Eleven
The tired signpost to the A1 motel didn’t exactly fill Tiffany with confidence. Neither did the fact that it took at least another three signposts before they pulled into a massive parking lot. The size of the parking lot, far too large for the two-story block of rooms, was explained by four large rigs at the far end. Sun glared off the huge, silent cabs. Great, a trucker motel.
On the plus side, Thomas went into the reception and came out again a few minutes later looking triumphant. He tossed a key over at Dakota. The teen snatched it out of the air, grabbed his backpack, and disappeared through a blue door marked 2E.
Tiffany waited for her key. A shower sounded like the closest thing to heaven right now. About three inches of road dust coated her skin.
Thomas sauntered over to where she stood beside his truck. He came a little closer and then some more. The gleam in his eyes put her on high alert.
Tiffany didn’t realize she’d backed up until the car warmed the back of her shirt.
Thomas kept coming until the heat from him skittered over her skin and tightened low in her belly. She dropped her head back to maintain eye contact. Her knees got a bit iffy and she leaned into the solid truck.
He caged her between his hands on either side of her shoulders. His voice, husky with naughty promises, stroked across her skin. “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” Her voice shook slightly. She should shove him off her. Her brain sent the message, but it got lost in translation and melted in the slow burn coiling up from inside.
His clear blue gaze, suddenly smoky and sexy, sent an unmistakable message.
Yes, please! Her nipples leaped to instant attention. She wanted to cross her arms over her breasts, but he was too close.
“I have our key.” Dangling from his large finger was a key attached to a card with the lettering 2F.
Spit dried in her mouth. “What?”
“You, me, a motel room.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Fuck. See, this was what happened when you found yourself in the middle of nowhere with a strange man. All that nice had gotten her to lower her guard. It took her a moment to realize he’d pulled away from her. A huge, shit-eating grin split his face. She glared up at him and tried to get her breath under control. Her heart still leaped around her chest. “What the hell was that?”
He laughed even harder. “You should have seen your face.”
Her knee twitched, ready to make a painful point in a sucker shot, straight to the source of the problem.
He held out the key and dropped it. “Payback.”
“For what?” Tiffany scrambled and snatched it out of the air. Embarrassment made her cheeks flame hot. He’d got her good. And her libido had been so totally on board with the idea. Damn, where was a hole to crawl into when you needed one?
Raising his voice to falsetto, he batted his lashes at her. “I’m so desperate. Please help little ole me.” The grin took over again. “Unless, of course, you were feeling grateful enough for the rescue . . .”
“In your dreams.” She swiveled and marched over to her own blue door.
“You have no idea.” He sauntered around to the back of the truck, flipped open the hatch, and grabbed her bags. “Do you need all of these?”
“Of course.” She smiled sweetly at him. Let him haul those heavy bags around. A small lesson in what happened when you messed with Tiffany. “All four of them.”
Except her petty revenge didn’t work out so well, as he effortlessly brought them into her room and stacked them inside the door in a mouth-drying flex and bunch of muscle under his tee. The door shut behind him.
Tiffany sat on the edge of one of the two double beds and toed off her shoes. Blue and green floral comforters that must have been pretty cheerful back in the eighties covered both beds. A television perched in front of the mirror atop a scarred dresser. The room smelled slightly of lemon detergent. She wriggled her tired, swollen feet in relief on the rough carpet. At least it looked clean.
She dragged her purse onto the bed beside her and pulled out her book. All the stuff Thomas had told her had opened up a whole world of things to explore. First things first, though. Checking her phone, she saw three missed calls from her father. Nothing from Ryan. What the hell? Would one phone call after the way they’d left things the other night be too much to ask? Except maybe Ryan didn’t see anything wrong with how they’d left things. She could break and call him. Nope. If he wanted to talk to her, he could call her. Daddy was a different problem. She hit the Call Back icon.
“Princess?” His hot chocolate voice greeted her.
“Hey, Daddy, I see you called.”
“Where are you, Princess? I was expecting a call from you first thing this morning.”
“I left a message.” Lying to him felt wrong, disloyal, but she’d been working on her story since she left Chicago. “I needed to get away for a day or two.”
“Really?” His voice jumped to attention. “You’re upset.”
She wriggled her toes into the carpet and tried to find the right words. “You took me by surprise at dinner. It wasn’t what I was expecting.”
There was a momentary pause. “Ryan and I realize that, Princess, but it had to be said.”
Did it? Through the sheers on the window she could see the outline of Thomas’s truck. Maybe it did. It had taken that much to get her to take the car back. Still, the words wouldn’t come to agree with him.
“Princess,” her father said when she didn’t respond.
Her heart dropped to the waistband of her jeans. She knew that voice. Daddy was about to tell her something she didn’t want to hear.
“Now, I know you’re not going to want to hear this.” Was she a genius or what? “But Ryan spoke to me about this before we set up that dinner. He has a point, otherwise I would never have agreed to it. The repairs to that ridiculous car are merely a symptom of a bigger problem. I haven’t said anything before because I thought there would come a point when you would sell the car and move on. But it’s been seven years, Princess. Don’t you think that’s enough time?”
Guilt writhed inside her. Daddy had no idea what she was hiding from him. And he would be so upset. Her mind skewed into the past.
Her lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Her little legs only reaching halfway down her big, big bed. And that sound. The soft rise and fall of someone crying. A man crying. Crying as if he would never feel whole again. Daddy.
“My Princess, it’s only you and I now.”
“Now, I realize you’re probably disappointed.” Tiffany shut the image out and concentrated on her father’s voice. “In time, you’ll come to see Ryan and I are right about this. Marriage is a lifelong commitment, and it’s hard to make it work at the best of times. You both need to go into it without reservations and dragging baggage from the past.”
“I know, Daddy,” she said, because he expected it. Daddy was right most of the time. “I just need a little time to think things over.”
“Princess.” His bedtime-story voice smoothed and settled deep, deep inside her. “There’s nothing to think about. Put this behind you so you can move on.”
“Okay.” She knew when she was beat.
“Promise me, Princess.”
“I promise.” Her voice clogged in her throat. She’d been his princess since her mother died. He’d been so alone in those first months, so desperately sad, and the only thing that broke through the unbearable sadness was his princess. Sometimes, though, the princess felt like it had her by the throat, slowly choking the life out of her.
“That’s my girl.” She heard the smile in his voice. “If you need a bit of time, take it. I know you’ll come to see all of this the right way. Ryan is a good man. He cares about you and your future. He will make you a great husband.”
The mirror behind the television reflected her face back at her. She looked a mess. Her hair hung limp and her makeup was nearly all gone. She stared at herself as the steady drone of Daddy listing Ryan’s fine points barely registered. It was weird—she knew everything he said was right, but the girl staring back at her didn’t look so certain. Tiffany dropped her stare.
Of course she was sure. God, the sole reason she was sitting in a trucker’s motel in Utah was because she’d ignored her father’s advice. If she’d listened when he’d told her Luke was no good for her, she wouldn’t be there right now. Lying to her father.
“You’re right, Daddy,” she said when he stopped talking. “I’ll take a day or two to relax and then we can celebrate.”
“Good girl.” His tone warmed the small, cold place inside her.
“I have to go,” she said. “I have a yoga class now.”
“Don’t stay away too long.” Her father chuckled. “You know I miss my princess when she’s not around.”
“Bye, Daddy.”
“Bye, Princess. I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“Impossible.”
She ended the call and put her phone down. Time to put the girl in the mirror to rights. A shower, a nourishing face-mask, styled hair, and the right Tiffany reappeared. Slipping into a pair of lounging pants and a camisole, she grabbed her iPad and her book.
“Tiffany.” Thomas tapped on the door. “Dakota and I are going to have a look around and then get something to eat. Do you want to come?”
She stared at the door in amazement. They just ate a couple of hours ago. “No, thank you,” she called back. “I think I’ll get an early night.”
The lock on her book slid open and she found a blank page. This was almost the best moment, a blank page filled with endless possibilities. She slid the pen free of its holder. Where to start? 3.14159265359, she wrote. Pi. Twenty-two over seven, she jotted down beside it. Next, she carefully drew a circle. Then she went to her iPad and read a bit further than she had before. Thomas had talked about this, and it made sense. Constant. She wrote the word in her book just outside her circle and then—best of all—a formula: C = π · d = 2 π · r
Back to the iPad and she read some more. So, if she rotated the line about its center, it would sweep out a circle whose area was . . . she looked at her formula . . . π. . . what?
Numbers, order, it flowed into her like good whisky, sliding down your windpipe and settling in your stomach with a delicious burn.