Chapter Two

They were underway in twenty minutes, plus a hefty hundred-dollar charge for all of a thirty-foot tow. Dina stayed in the car throughout the extraction, arms crossed, staring into space. Let the agent hobble around in this miserable gunk. He was wearing boots. She’d already lost one pair of shoes and muddied her slacks.

She left the vehicle when Cutler returned it to the back lot, where the agent hosed it down. While that cleanup was taking place, she changed into a pair of shorts and another pair of shoes, sneakers this time, in the women’s restroom. When she returned, she found Cutler pacing back and forth, eyeing his phone and muttering to himself. Ready to depart, he eased into the driver’s seat, his lengthy frame barely clearing the dashboard.

At his close proximity, the hairs on Dina’s arms went on alert. What was with that?

Though anxious to pump him for details about the upcoming nuptials, she didn’t want to seem too anxious. She tried another tact. Annoyance. “That was a dirty trick.”

He took his eyes from the road long enough to return an even gaze. “Your clothes would’ve been ruined had I not come to your aid...uh, what’s your name?”

“Dina Ma—” She caught herself just before revealing her last name, which was the same as her famous mother’s. He hadn’t said yet whether he knew his son was engaged to the famous Jocelyn Maitland, but something kept her from telling him too much too soon. His concern about the marriage seemed real, but she’d seen too many raging bulls turn into paper tigers when subjected to the force field of her mother’s charm. Or been exposed to the potential problems her mother’s checkbook could solve, since he’d intimated his business was in trouble. “Masters, Dina Masters.”

“Ben Cutler.”

She wondered how closely the son resembled the father. If Junior had inherited his dad’s close-cropped dark brown hair and chiseled jaw, she could almost understand her mother’s infatuation with the young man. Stop it, Dina.

He pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “The agent gave me a map of sorts. It lists the roads we need to take and which way to turn, but he neglected to include mileage and landmarks. And, of course, there was no GPS available.”

“Things should start to look familiar as we get closer.”

“Good. Your job will be to spot landmarks. And make conversation.”

“You want to talk?”

“I need to talk. I’ve been up for thirty-some hours straight and need you to keep me awake. By any chance, do you have any coffee with you?”

“Sorry. Don’t drink the stuff. But I have some bottled water.”

“Hmmm,” he replied, his attention directed on the pavement ahead.

“What does that mean?” Why did that simple sound irritate her so?

“Nothing, except you can tell a lot about people from what they eat and drink. You are what you eat, that kind of thing.”

What an opinionated jerk! Still, she couldn’t resist asking, “What does the fact that I drink bottled water say about me?”

He glanced at her again, seeming surprised by her question. “Your health is important to you because you avoid caffeine. You don’t mind spending a little extra for bottled instead of tap water, although the jury is still out about the benefits of the environmental impact of bottled. And you’re organized enough to carry it with you rather than depend on what you encounter along the way.”

She’d had to ask. He’d pegged her dead to rights with one simple observation. From here on, she’d watch what she said. “Are you some sort of investigator?”

“No. Nothing that exciting.” He didn’t fill in the blanks, instead he turned the question on her. “How about you? What do you do?”

Dina hesitated.

Though his focus remained on the wheel, he said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry.”

“You’re not. It’s just that...I’m not sure at the moment. I don’t know if I’ll still have a job when I get back.”

He shook his head. “Hard times, huh? Layoffs?”

If only. That wouldn’t look so bad on a resume. Not like incompetence. “My boss and I didn’t see eye to eye about the urgency of my trip. I don’t know how forgiving he’ll be when I return.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d dashed off to deal with her mother’s issues with little advance notice. Though her boss knew who her mother was and even sympathized with Dina’s situation, he couldn’t continue to condone her frequent absences and remain fair to the other staff. He’d already been extremely forgiving about her recent blunder, which was more than she would have tolerated had she been in his place.

Ben appeared to consider what she’d said, but he didn’t pursue it further. An awkward silence filled the car. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she added, “So? What’s this crisis that’s got you so worked up?” She couldn’t afford to worry about her job security at the moment. She had to deal with her mother’s precipitous engagement and take advantage of what Ben Cutler knew before he learned her true identity.

Rather than answering her question, though, he said, “Here, check this out,” thrusting the agent’s list of directions at her.

As she reached for the paper, the car suddenly veered to the right. Caught unaware, she grabbed for the dashboard to steady herself and succeeded in knocking heads with him, then splashing the better part of her open bottle of water onto his lap.

Belatedly, he called out, “Careful,” but his pants were already drenched.

“Oops.”

Ben slowed the car and pulled to the side of the road. He emitted an exasperated breath. “At least you’re a health nut and not a coffee drinker.”

“I wouldn’t have spilled it, if you’d had the car under control.”

“Under control?” His face turned the color of strawberries and his eyes blazed like smoldering charcoal gray embers. “Would you have had me hit that bunny?”

“Bunny? You mean rabbit? I didn’t see a rabbit.”

“You were too busy dumping the contents of your bottle on me.”

Despite his angry mood, his use of the word bunny rather than rabbit and the sight of his wet khakis struck a comedic chord. She couldn’t help chuckling. “Only your pants got soaked.”

“I sit corrected,” he replied stiffly, “which I intend to rectify before we resume our ride.”

Before she could ask what he meant, he was out of the car, the trunk jerked open and his head and shoulders hidden beneath it, apparently searching through his bag. He emerged with a pair of jeans in tow.

“Turn your head,” he ordered.

“Turn my—Oh, okay,” Dina said as she discovered he had already begun to shed the sodden pants for a dry pair. Although she turned around in her seat and looked straight ahead to oblige him, her neck knew no such civility, surreptitiously leaning over to catch the sight of his bare legs in the side mirror. Hmmm. Briefs.

Better judgment suggested she avert her eyes, but good sense wasn’t her strong suit at the moment. Her gaze remained glued to the mirror, eyeing his rear. Santa Monica! She guzzled the last of the water that remained in the bottle and willed herself to focus on a billboard several yards ahead. The sight of a guy’s derriere hadn’t caused such heart palpitations since she’d gone to her first high school football game. Talk about tight ends!

The sun must have risen near its noontime high, because her body temp jumped several degrees. She tugged at the collar of her knit top to dab away the accumulating perspiration.

Behind her, Ben exploded. “Damn!” Now what? Had the bunny returned to bite his exposed leg? Then she noted the vehicle approaching from behind and realized Ben had yet to finish dressing. When he turned his back to the road, he gave the appearance of a man relieving himself. Funny how that seemed more socially acceptable to him than having her watch him changing out of his wet pants.

He didn’t say much once he donned dry clothes, returned to the car, and they were again underway. Since he now sported a pair of sunglasses, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He sat ramrod straight and kept his gaze on the road ahead.

She attempted to match his mood, although every so often, she peeked his direction, noting his long, slender fingers on the wheel. “What did you do with your wet pants?”

“They’re lying across my bag in the trunk.”

“They’ll mildew like that. Don’t you think you should—”

His scowl cut her off. “An hour or so shouldn’t hurt. We’ll be arriving at Edgar Island by then, right? Check the directions the agent gave me.”

She barely missed hitting the gearshift as her left hand, seeking the paper that had dropped to the floor in the previous mishap, collided with his right. He gave an intake of breath, but he said nothing.

Once she located the instructions, with a sinking feeling, she realized her driver was in for more labored breathing. Besides drenching his pants, the water had also found the agent’s directions, now smudgy hieroglyphics.

That truly wasn’t her fault. Ben had been the one to slam on the brakes while she held a full bottle of water. What did he expect? But since she didn’t want to argue the rest of the way or have him think she was any more of an idiot than she appeared, she decided not to tell him. Bluff her way through.

Right. That had worked so well when she’d first discovered what she’d done to her client. She would have been sacked within a week, if her conscience hadn’t caught up with her. Still, bluffing was her best option at the moment. It couldn’t be that difficult finding the correct route. Since they were going north, all they had to do was keep heading to the right to get to the coast.

No sooner had she made that decision when they pulled up to a three-way stop. The road they were on continued straight ahead and two other roads veered to the left. So much for her “go right” theory. “Stay on this highway,” she directed, frantically searching for road signs that would give her some clue what lay ahead.

Ten minutes later, Dina’s theory was once again put to the test as their road made a ninety-degree turn to the left. That didn’t seem to faze him, but then, he thought she knew where they were going.

She needed to glean as much information as possible from him before he discovered what a miserable navigator she was without directions to guide her. Once he found out, he was sure to shut down. “You said you haven’t slept in over thirty hours. How come?”

He jerked his head. “Sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked, why the insomnia?”

“Paperwork.” He returned his attention to the highway, volunteering nothing further.

“For your business?”

He nodded.

She probed again. “Taxes?” Eliciting a complete response from him was a challenge. Though he’d wanted her to talk to keep him awake, he was about as chatty as the Sphinx. She could keep her words to a minimum too.

He yanked his sunglasses from his face and shot her a questioning gaze, like did she really care? Then he sighed. “I did ask for the chitchat, didn’t I? Okay. Here’s the story. After years of saving every penny and making big bucks for others, I launched my own company a few years back. I recently developed a new product my competitors want. They’re apparently willing to do whatever is necessary to obtain it for themselves.”

“Oh. That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Your intensity. Once you charmed your way into my car, you’ve been engrossed with driving.”

He leaned back against the seat and raked his free hand through his hair.

She stifled an insane desire to plow the same ground.

“Charmed, you say? Could’ve fooled me. I thought I’d intimidated you, the way you spilled that water. You don’t seem like a klutz, other than when you’re driving a straight stick.”

“I’m not. Thanks. But intimidated?”

“I no sooner promised to behave myself, and there I was shedding my pants after a mere fifteen minutes on the road. Silence seemed the best course since then.”

“Ah.”

He didn’t reply further, that conversational thread having come to an end. She twiddled her thumbs for several more minutes, then plunged in again. “How does the paperwork you mentioned play into this war with your competitors?”

He continued to stare ahead, as if considering whether or not to answer. “Their latest ploy is an audit. They’ve convinced some government agency to take a look at my books. I’m a good businessman, and I don’t cut corners. But bookkeeping isn’t my thing. I was in the midst of tracking down receipts and orders when my son called to announce his marriage plans. After that, my brain wouldn’t engage. I couldn’t get the numbers to add up.”

“I see.” And she did. Most of her clients, like Ben, were entrepreneurial whizzes who couldn’t tell a spreadsheet from a bed sheet. She could probably help him, but the guy seemed to have enough problems right now. She didn’t want to jinx him.

Ben continued to stare past the dashboard, faking concentration on the road. Every time he turned her direction, he had to fight to keep his eyes off those legs, envisioning them twined around his body. When he’d more or less commandeered this vehicle, she’d been wearing slacks. Not that she didn’t look so bad then. But after her run-in with the mud, she’d switched to Bermuda shorts, revealing incredible gams. Gams? Listen to him. Using that term like he was caught in a Forties film noir time warp. Whatever, he had a struggle on his hands. His thoughts had connected with his libido and the two of them were playing havoc with his pants.

Did she have to keep bouncing around? When his eyes weren’t on her legs, they were fixated on that knit top and the curves beneath. What was the matter with him? Sure, this Carolina back road was boring, mile after mile of scrawny trees and brush flanking it so closely. But he had a crisis, no, two crises, requiring his focus. Since when had he paid the slightest attention to the opposite sex, other than as clients? He’d written off personal relations long ago.

The silence once again grew thick. He searched his brain for a new topic. “Since we’ve established you’re fairly organized, how come you didn’t arrange for a rental car before today?”

She appeared to think through her response. “I’m on my way to my mother’s place. We exchanged harsh words during our last phone call, and I may have hurt her feelings.”

“Pretty extreme for an apology, isn’t it? Flying down here in a rush rather than calling back, or sending a card, or flowers?”

Dina emitted a sort of futile chuckle. “The harsh words I mentioned were exchanged in my third attempt to reason with her. Our argument just kept escalating. The only way to set things straight was in person.”

“Sounds like both of us have family problems keeping us from doing our jobs. Wonder if there’s a helpline for that.”

“Let me know if you find one.”

Massaging the back of his neck with one hand, he stretched in his seat, attempting to work out the kinks. He really needed to sleep. That’s probably why he’d become so aware of his female passenger. His brain was growing punchy. “This happen often between you and your mom?”

Was that a snort? “More often than I like. She means well. She just tends to see the world differently than I do.”

They were approaching another crossroad. Ben eased up the vehicle at the stop sign and lifted his brow expectantly.

She studied her nails.

“Which one do we take?”

She kept her head down. No response.

“Dina? Which way?”

At length, she raised her head, a sheepish smile tugging the corners of her mouth. “Beats me. The directions were destroyed with the spill. I’ve been guessing ’til now. I have no idea where we are.”