Entice Me Box Set: The Truth About Shoes and Men\Cover Me\My Favorite Mistake (40 page)

“At least wear some sensible shoes.”

I looked down at my suede clogs. “These are sensible.”

He clapped his hands together. “Okay. Ready to go?”

“I just need to get a bag of clothes I’m taking to Kenzie. Oh, and would you mind helping me with the box of tax papers sitting outside the bedroom door?”

I went into my bedroom to pick up my purse and the bag. When I checked inside the bag, I remembered with a start that I’d included the sweater Redford had given me when we’d first met. I entertained thoughts of keeping it, then told myself that getting rid of the sweater was for the best. I needed to get rid of all my Vegas keepsakes. I wasn’t sure what I would do with my lovely wedding band, but eBay was always an option. The thought of selling it online gave me a queasy feeling, but it was the logical thing to do. Considering I was marrying someone else, that is.

At the sound of footsteps behind me, I turned to see Redford standing in the doorway, holding the box of papers and staring at something off to the right. I followed his line of vision and my pulse blipped. Last night I had removed my wedding gown from the closet and hung it from the mirror on my dressing table, both to get it out of the way and as an extra reminder of where my head should be.

“Wow,” he said. “Nice dress. You’ll be a beautiful bride, Denise.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Thanks.”

His gaze was level and earnest. “I’m glad to see you plan to do it right this time.”

I looked away. I had thought the same thing myself, but hearing it from Redford was unsettling.

“We have a long drive ahead of us,” he said quietly. “We’d better get going. I’m parked illegally.”

“Right.”

We walked outside and he put the box in the back seat of the monster truck. “Wait and I’ll help you up,” he said across the expansive hood.

“I can do it,” I said, remembering the full-body slide the last time he’d “helped” me. I grabbed a hand strap and after a couple of bounces, vaulted myself into the seat, landing with less than gymnastic precision. I closed the door with a solid bang, then fastened my seat belt and exhaled, exhausted.

Redford climbed inside, grinning, and put his hat on the seat between us. “You’re getting the hang of it.”

The words were on the tip of my tongue to point out that sling-shotting myself into a gargantuan truck was not likely to be a skill that I would use again, but I realized he was only making conversation. I was being too sensitive…too vulnerable. And the day had just begun.

He started the engine and maneuvered the vehicle out of its spot and down the narrow side street, watching both mirrors to make sure he didn’t clip something or somebody.

“Do you really need this big of a truck?” I asked.

“Yeah, to pull horse trailers. The double cab is a
luxury, though. It’s nice to have room for extra supplies or extra people.”

I laughed. “I can’t believe how much it cost.”

“Jim gave me a great deal—we worked it out over the phone.”

So he hadn’t paid full sticker price. “Oh. Good.”

“It’s nice to have a comfortable vehicle for a long trip.”

“It’s comfortable,” I agreed, feeling cradled in the leather seat. “Will you be on the road a lot?”

“Quite a bit during the sales season, twice a year.”

I smiled. “You’d think you’d have a cell phone.”

He pursed his mouth. “No. Don’t see much need for one. Have you had breakfast?”

I shook my head. “I’m not hungry, but coffee sounds good.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

He pulled up to a drive-through and got two steaming cups to go. Before pulling back out on the street, he reached under the seat and withdrew an atlas. “Do you want to navigate?”

I sipped from my cup and murmured with pleasure as the warm liquid slid down my throat. “Sure.”

“Care if I turn on some music?”

“No. That would be nice.”

He found a country music station—which I didn’t even know existed within the vicinity of the city—and turned it to a pleasing volume. Soon we were on our way to the interstate and I looked around, suddenly struck by the surreal scene: I was in a truck
with my ex on a horse-buying road trip, listening to country music. He sat behind the wheel, completely at ease. And why not? This was his life. And this would have been my life if I’d stayed married to Redford.

“You okay?” he asked, shifting in his seat. The muscles in his legs rippled beneath the fabric of his jeans, diverting my attention…and my concentration. “Are you warm enough?”

Was I ever. I nodded, then looked out the window, taking in the passing landscape. I’d never been north of the city, so all the road signs and landmarks were alien to me. I smiled, thinking about Kenzie making this fateful trip to see Sam Long under the guise of doing an article on the small-town hero. Kenzie was even more of a city girl than I was, and had been hoodwinked into taking her boss’s dog with her. But the trip had changed the trajectory of her life.

I glanced at Redford under my lashes and thought about how my life had changed when I’d met him. Within a few hours, my entire persona had seemed to change—I had turned into a lust-crazed creature with no regard for the ramifications of my actions.

Good God. In hindsight, I had morphed into a man.

I turned my attention back to the scenery racing by, and Redford seemed content to do the same. On the one hand, I was glad not to talk, but on the other, I was disturbed, frankly, over how comfortable we were not talking.

I was a mess.

Fairly quickly, Manhattan fell away behind us and the traffic thinned. An hour into the projected four-hour drive, we were traveling on a two-lane road lined with frost-encrusted trees and sudden small towns. Redford occasionally leaned forward to glance at the sky, his brow furrowed.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“It’s clouding up,” he said. “The forecast said snow tomorrow, so let’s hope it holds off.”

“Right,” I said with a little laugh. “I would hate to get snowed in.”

“I could think of worse things,” he said, slanting a smile in my direction.

My breasts tingled. “Redford,” I chided.

“I just meant we’d have a good excuse to miss the IRS audit,” he said, trying to sound indignant. “What did you think I meant?”

I gave him a stern frown. “Never mind. But that reminds me—” I turned around to lift the lid from the box containing our tax papers. “I had a chance to go over the forms, and there are a few things we should talk about before the interview.”

He sipped from his coffee cup, then winced. “Do we have to?”

“Yes.”

His mouth tightened. “Okay, but I should warn you that my expertise is in logistics, not numbers.” Then he grinned. “Luckily, you’re great with numbers. I’m not worried. We’ll probably walk out of there with a refund.”

I squirmed. “I suspect they’ll ask a lot of questions about the deductions I took on my home-office expenses.”

He shrugged. “So, you’ll just explain, that’s all.”

I swallowed hard. His confidence in me made me feel even worse. “Still, I’d like to go over everything so we go in looking united.”

“You mean like a team?”

“Sort of.” I rummaged around in the box and removed the form, which was several pages thick.

“That’s our form?” he asked. “I don’t remember it being that thick.”

“You didn’t read it before you signed it?”

“No…I trusted you.”

Which certainly didn’t make me feel better, considering we’d been flagged for an audit. “Okay, let’s start with the numbers and how I came up with them.” I switched to professional mode, launching into a discussion of the form, attached schedules, and supporting documents—which, between his complicated pay schedule and overseas status, were considerable. To his credit, his eyes didn’t glaze over. But halfway through the file, and an hour later, he broke in with a little laugh.

“Gee, Denise, no wonder you wanted out of the marriage. You probably couldn’t face dealing with the tax forms every year.”

I couldn’t think of an answer, so I didn’t give him one. And just like that, I felt the mood in the cab of the truck change.

“I’m so sorry, Denise.”

I turned to look at him. “For what?”

His expression was pained. “For…proposing. You barely knew me. I was on my way back to the Gulf, not sure when I’d return. It was crazy. To be honest, I was relieved when I got those annulment papers.”

I had assumed as much, but hearing it was like a kick in the stomach. “There’s no need to apologize, Redford. It takes two people to make that kind of mistake.”

“Yeah, but you were the one smart enough to try to remedy the situation. Thanks to you, we were both able to resume our lives without any fallout. I’m grateful, Denise.”

My throat constricted suddenly…and I wasn’t sure why. It was exactly what I’d been hoping Redford would say someday: that he hadn’t felt abandoned or angry when I’d filed for an annulment; that it was the right thing to do under the circumstances. I should have felt relieved…so why didn’t I?

“There’s a convenience store up ahead,” he said. “By my estimation, we’re halfway there. Want to stretch our legs?”

I nodded, grateful for a break. From both the confines of the truck, and our discussion.

Redford pulled up next to the gas pump—I couldn’t imagine how much gasoline it took to keep the monster truck running. When I alighted, I noticed the sky was indeed growing cloudy and gray, which wasn’t uncommon for February, but unsettling nonetheless.
I glanced at my watch and decided to wait until we were closer to call Kenzie, especially since I couldn’t get a signal on my phone here.

After I exited the ladies’ room, I pulled a bottle of water from a wall cooler and walked up to the counter where Redford had engaged the rotund clerk in a conversation about—as near as I could tell—fishing lures. The man could befriend anyone.

“I’ll get that,” Redford said, taking my water. I acquiesced, knowing it wouldn’t do any good to argue, then walked outside to get as much fresh air as possible before we set off again.

I dragged the cool air into my lungs slowly, mulling over Redford’s “gratitude” to me for having our marriage annulled. His admission, coupled with the knowledge that he had lived so close to me after he returned to the States, was—I had to concede—bruising my ego.

My chest ached with unexpected grief, and tears gathered on my lashes. (I never cried…ever) My ego was more than bruised. To be honest, I was crushed. Which was incredibly foolish and selfish of me, considering I was the one who had ended the marriage, and I was the one who was engaged to marry again.

“Ready to hit the road?” Redford called behind me.

I blinked like mad to dissipate the tears—thankful that I could blame runny eyes and a red nose on the weather, if necessary. But when I turned, the sight of Redford standing there looking so impossibly
masculine in his jeans and boots and black hat was sobering enough to evaporate any tears—along with all the moisture in my mouth. Defeated, I headed back to the truck and hurdled into my seat.

“You okay?” Redford asked when he fastened his seat belt.

“I wish you would stop asking me that,” I snapped.

He blinked, then a little smile came over his face. “I know what you want.”

I closed my eyes, at my wits’ end with his innuendos and worse, with my Pavlovian responses. “Redford—” I stopped when I opened my eyes and saw what he had in his hand. A bag of peanut M&M’s.

“These used to be your favorite.”

I sighed. “They still are.”

“Good.” He handed me the candy, then pulled two bottles of water from the small plastic bag.

“You didn’t want a snack?” I asked, tearing open the candy.

“I was hoping you’d share.”

“No way,” I said, laughing.

“Take them all,” he said as he started the engine. “The more you have in your mouth, the less you can talk about taxes.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed as he pulled the truck back onto the road. Despite his teasing, he ate a few pieces of the candy, and I was struck again by the alternate ease and discomfort I felt when I was with Redford. It was like being on a
roller coaster…in the first car with nothing to hold on to…except Redford himself.

“Back to the taxes,” I said when the last piece had been washed down.

“please, no,” he begged. “Tell me about your friends, Kenzie and Sam.”

A legitimate question…and an interesting story. “Kenzie works for
Personality
magazine. Sam was on the cover one month for the ‘small-town hero’ issue. He’s a veterinarian, and a part-time fireman in Jar Hollow, and he saved a lot of people in a nursing-home fire.”

He pursed his mouth, nodding.

“Anyway, they met when he went to the city to have his photo taken. Then she went to his place to do a follow-up article…and then there was the cover curse.”

“Cover curse?”

“It’s a long story, but basically Kenzie went to stay on his farm for a while and got into all kinds of predicaments, including almost burning down his clinic.”

“Yikes.”

“But Sam fell in love with her anyway.”

“That’s a helluva guy.”

“So, long story short, Sam teaches in the city a few days a week, and she works from their home up here a few days a week, so they’re together as much as possible.” I smirked. “I have to warn you, though—Sam and Kenzie are shmoops.”

“Is that some kind of northern religion?”

I laughed. “No. I mean, they smooch and look at each other like teenagers. And Kenzie talks about how much they—” I stopped and cleared my throat as Redford fought a smile. “Anyway, the girls and I call them shmoops.”

“Okay, well I’ll try not to notice if their clothes start flying off.”

“Now, back to the taxes…”

He groaned. “Why don’t we save that for the drive home this evening?”

“I won’t be able to read in the dark!”

His white teeth flashed in a wide grin. “I know.”

I sighed. “Okay, there isn’t much left anyway. For the most part, I…I just need to make sure that Tuesday morning we go in there—”

“United,” he finished. “Got it. They will see one united couple, by golly. We’ll be so united, they’ll think we’re still married.”