Black Gold (15 page)

"You're on vacation, right? And the way I understand it, you can't show your face back in Nashville for a while longer, and I can't believe the four walls of your motel room are all that interesting, so I'm taking you to see the sights."

"At night? What's there to see, exactly, in the middle of Nowhere, North Dakota?"

He shot her a smile before shifting gears. His truck smelled like wool and tobacco and tools. Man smells... nice smells. The way, it occurred to Regina, a truck ought to smell.

It was a far cry from the new-leather and cologne smell of Carl's Porsche.

"Tell you what," Chase said. "How about I drive, and you don't ask questions?"

"Why would I agree to that?"

Chase shrugged. "Why wouldn't you? I mean, what do you really have to lose?"

They drove through town while she tried and failed to come up with a response. The men returning from the day shift streamed into the Wal-Mart parking lot and fast food restaurants. They'd sleep well tonight, Regina thought, yawning, after a hard day of physical activity. She herself had tried to nap after her failed attempt to relax by the pool, since she'd had only a couple hours of sleep the night before, but the noise that penetrated the motel's thin walls had kept her awake. Well, that and the thought of Chase and the things they'd done...

"You're taking me to a rig," she guessed, in an effort to distract herself. He probably wanted to show her why he was choosing a life of hard labor over what she offered him. Well, it would be interesting, at least. She'd never seen an oil rig... She wasn't even sure she knew what they looked like.

"We'll probably see a rig or two," Chase said agreeably. It wasn't exactly an answer. "You didn't get to eat. Are you hungry?"

"Not really," Regina said drowsily. "That conversation with Carl left me a little unsettled."

"Suit yourself, but Matthew made us a picnic. Got it behind the seat."

A picnic... That was sweet—the sort of gesture that would never have occurred to Carl.

"See those orange lights out there?" Chase asked after a while. They were outside the town now, headed into the black star-dusted night, through fields planted with wheat and soybeans. Looking out toward the horizon, Regina saw dots of orange. "Those are the rigs. That's the flare gas burning. And the lights. Got 'em lit up all night, since the work never stops."

"Pretty," Regina said, and then she yawned. "Oh! I'm sorry. I'm just...."

A blush crept over her cheeks. She didn't want to say it.
I'm just a little fatigued because of the things you did to me with your hands and your lips and... no
. Definitely not. If they were going to pretend last night never happened, then she was going to keep her end up.

Chase laughed. "No problem. I caught a nap in the hammock today, so I'm good. Why don't you doze a little? I'll wake you up when we get there."

He reached across the seat and patted her knee. The gesture, which Regina was sure was meant to be innocent, felt anything but. Her hand moved of its own accord, to join with his —but he pulled his hand out of the way at the last minute, draping it casually over the steering wheel.

Regina let her eyes flutter closed to cover her embarrassment. She focused on the gentle rumble of the truck's engine. She didn't know much about cars, but it seemed to her that this one, though old, was well maintained. Well, Chase probably had to do all the maintenance himself to save money.

It was nice, though.... The motion of the car lulled her into gentle relaxation.  She rested her head against the old bench seat.

"You can lie down if you like," Chase said. "Plenty of room on this seat."

It was tempting, but that would put her head practically in his lap. And while the idea of his jeans-clad thigh serving as a pillow had a certain appeal, Regina wasn't sure that was what he was offering. He was just being polite.

"Thanks, but I'll be fine," she said lightly.

A few moments later, he began to hum. Regina didn't know the tune—a sweet, melancholy slow melody in a minor key—but the sound of his voice combined with the gentle purr of the engine to lull her to slumber.

*   *   *

Chase sure as hell hoped he knew what he was doing. Regina had been asleep for half an hour when he finally relaxed a little. He'd gently prodded her shoulder just to make sure, and the poor girl hadn't even stirred . What would he have done if she'd refused to come along on this hare-brained adventure? There were promises on the line, promises he had no business making and little hope of keeping.

But Sherry had called him pathetic, and he'd had to kind of agree with her, and he didn't like the way that felt one bit. After all, there was nothing more pathetic than a man who didn't make an honest effort.

In the past forty-eight hours, since he first laid eyes on Regina McCary in the smoky interior of Buddy's Tavern, Chase had done a fair amount of thinking about effort—and conviction and determination and the path he'd carved out for himself. And to his surprise, he'd come around to a tough realization: he'd gotten it all wrong.

A man could go hell-for-leather, sacrificing everything to stick to his path, and it would all be for nothing if he chose the wrong direction in the first place. Chase's mistake hadn't been turning away from Gerald and everything his father had wanted for him. Never mind that he'd never been able to explain that to his father That conversation came under the heading of "regret," a place Chase still saw no reason to go.

But he'd spun his compass and set out in the wrong direction. Oh, the oil field was fine. Chase was happy there; it fit him. But the solitude he'd chosen was another matter. He didn't have to be alone to prove to himself that he was tough enough. On the contrary, Chase was beginning to see that letting someone else in might be a test of real strength.

He'd resisted Regina because she saw him for something he wasn't. Not just her perception that he didn't have two nickels to rub together, though he really ought to set her straight about the whole inheritance business at some point, but the fact that she saw a lucrative recording contract when she looked at him.

That was where he'd gone wrong. Because he could swear that last night, in the moments that were burned into his memory as if by a red-hot brand against his heart, that it wasn't a country music star that Regina saw when she looked at him. When she touched him.

When she called out his name.

No. She was seeing
him
. The real version, the one he shielded from almost everyone, including himself. He wasn't defined by the tools he held in his hand or the songs he sang in the shower. His true self was something else entirely, and he'd managed to convince himself that Regina not only saw it, but liked it. Maybe even loved it.

And that solved half of the problem facing him. The other half, well the other half was Regina's responsibility. But Chase thought he could maybe move that needle along. After all, he had less than two weeks, much less, if Regina decided to cut her vacation short and return to Tennessee, and he needed to make the most of that time.

This spur-of-the-moment excursion was a gamble. They might be driving toward the dumbest idea he'd ever had. But it was all he had, so he kept going, the truck trundling through the North Dakota night.

*   *   *

Regina had been dreaming of Puddles.

Puddles had been a wispy bit of fur the first time Regina laid eyes on her, just enough kitten to fit in her hand, the runt of the litter. Annabel and Priscilla, age eleven and twelve, had been promised kittens if they made the cut for all-city chorus, and had spent the summer talking of little else. When the audition results were posted and both girls were chosen, their parents had kept up their end of the deal and contacted a breeder of pedigreed American Shorthair kittens on Chicago's north side. Nearly a thousand dollars later, the back of the station wagon held two cat carriers, the cats' breeding papers were in their mothers purse, Annabel and Priscilla were ecstatic, and Regina was in tears. At eight years old, she knew she hadn't earned a kitten of her own and never would.

But her father took pity on her. After they got home, he took Regina out for a drive that ended at the humane society. "Whichever one you want," he'd said, and she'd studied the cages full of unwanted kittens and found the smallest, most pathetic, trembling one of all trembling in the corner.

The underdog. Or under-cat, as she came to secretly think of Puddles. She lavished attention on Puddles, hand feeding her, reading to her, taking her out in the sun when it was warm enough. Her sisters made fun of her undersized kitten. Even the other cats seemed to quickly catch on to the class structure in the house and ignored her. Puddles never got regular-cat size, and she was skittish around everyone but Regina, but Regina loved her fiercely.

"Good morning, sunshine," a warm voice said, and a hand settled on her knee and squeezed. Regina's eyelashes fluttered open, and for a moment, she couldn't remember where she was. Then she caught a glimpse of dawn-pink sky, and discovered she was still in the cab of a truck belonging to the hands-down most appealing man she'd ever met.

"Oh no, was I snoring?" she asked in horror, straightening the skirt that had gotten bunched up over her thighs as she slept.

"Nope, just talking in your sleep. I sure as hell hope Puddles isn't the name of some guy back home...?"

Regina blushed. "No, she was my… Oh, never mind." She wasn't about to explain to Chase that her best friend when she was a child had weighed less than five pounds and showed her love by catching and killing beetles and leaving them on Regina's pillow. "Have we really been driving all night? Am I kidnapped? Are you working on my ransom note?"

Chase grinned. "Hadn't thought of that, but it's not a bad idea... I just needed a cup of coffee and I thought you might like to, uh, do whatever women do at rest stops."

Regina had already grabbed her purse, grateful for the mini toothbrush she kept in her makeup kit. They were parked in front of a gas station, the old-fashioned kind with a diner attached to it. "Give me five minutes," she said.

In the bathroom, as she freshened up and combed her hair, she wondered where exactly Chase had brought her. She'd never imagined an all-night road trip when he suggested a drive. She wasn't even sure what direction they'd come, though given the position of the sun, she thought maybe they'd gone west. Or north. Or possibly east... somewhere pretty, at any rate, with lush fields of crops and sheep dotting a hill in the distance.

Yes, it was a little odd, but wasn't it kind of romantic, too? Maybe they were going to watch the sunrise over a vista point, or dip their feet into a waterfall. Chase was on a budget, she reminded herself sternly. Other than the cost of gas, this had to be one of the cheaper ways to show a woman a good time. Drives in the country—guys had been courting women that way for generations, hadn't they? Regina warmed to the idea as she carefully applied her favorite shade of lipstick—"Bombshell Scarlet"—and blotted with a tissue.

Returning to the car, she passed a couple of old gentlemen rocking in cane chairs outside the diner. She could see Chase inside the shop, paying for coffee at the register.

"Good morning, young lady," one of the men said, nodding. He was eighty if he was a day, a ball cap covering his few remaining strands of silvery hair.

She smiled back. "It
is
a good morning."

The second gentleman tipped his own hat, a straw number that looked like it had seen a lot of years of wear. "What brings you to Alden Springs?"

Regina froze. "What... What did you say?"

"Er..."

"As in, Alden Springs,
Wyoming
?"

Chase chose that moment to come out of the store, balancing a paper bag with two steaming cups of coffee. The wide grin on his face faltered when he saw her expression. "Something wrong, sweetheart?"

"You brought me to
Alden Springs
?"

Chase swallowed and exchanged a glance with the two old guys, who turned their attention to staring at the road, wise enough to avoid a dustup between lovers. Which he and Regina might not be much longer if he didn't handle this right.

"I called ahead," he said quietly, taking her elbow and guiding her back to the truck. "We're expected. Have a little something to eat. You'll feel better."

"You called Mason Crenshaw? What on earth would have possessed you to do such a thing?"

"Now calm down and think this through a minute, Regina. You've had a couple of... disappointments this week, what with Sherry signing with Carl and I... Well, I didn't exactly turn out to be the client of your dreams. I just thought—"

"If you thought that revisiting my biggest professional failure would make me feel better, you're crazy," she protested as Chase opened her door and helped her up into the cab. "I want you to turn this thing around and drive us home. Please. Please? I'm asking nicely."

Chase closed the door carefully, making sure not to catch her dress. "Can't do that."

*   *   *

That dress was half the problem. Printed with tiny pink flowers, it looked like something his grandmother would have worn to clean the house in, except that the way it was cut with little puff sleeves and a neckline that dipped low enough to give a guy all kinds of imaginative ideas, with that little satiny bow right between her breasts – well, damn, one look at it when he laid eyes on her last night and he'd almost been ready to move to Nashville and become her client just so he'd be guaranteed a chance to see her on a regular basis.

Except Chase didn't belong in Nashville. And he was getting the feeling that Regina didn't, either. And the only way he knew to prove that to her was to take her back to the site of her wrong turn.

"You
can
. You just turn the wheel and head back to North Dakota. Or… or the nearest bus station. I don't care, just not... there."

Chase didn't say anything, but he started back down the road, following the directions Mason Crenshaw had given him over the phone last night. Mason actually hadn't sounded all that upset. In fact, he'd sounded pleased. "She sure is something, ain't she?" He'd chuckled when Chase said he was Regina's "friend," and Chase had been momentarily tempted to hang up on him. But he was willing to forgive the young man's crush. He felt kind of bad about stretching the truth. Technically, he and Regina wouldn't really be "passing through" since he was pretty sure they'd be turning back the way they came before long—but in for a penny, in for a pound.