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“No.” His answer was somber, resolute, and without hesitation.
That didn’t bode well.
“Sky diving!” An inspired idea, if she did say so herself.
He shot her another deadpan look. “Also a no.”
A breeze lifted her hair, the air too hot to offer much relief. “You suck at blowing restraints,” she told him.
He didn’t relent, but he did have a rather adorable hell no expression. “Come up with something that doesn’t leave me plummeting to my death,” he said, “and we’ll talk.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I can see why the calendar is out.”
“Funny.” He leaned back against the grass and his shirt settled into the grooves of his abdomen. He had to be doing that on purpose. Two seconds after refusing to pose, he did so with perfection.
She wiped some imaginary drool from her chin and tried a new approach. “Are you afraid of heights?”
He cast her a dubious, knowing look. “No, but that doesn’t mean I’m jumping out of an airplane.”
With a touch of misplaced jealously, she watched Shaggy roll against his leg and scooch along its length. He counter attacked, rubbing her belly. Lucky dog. “Are you free tomorrow?”
He looked up and grinned—for the dog, she was certain. “I think I can get out of my plans.”
She stood and wiped her shorts, then collected her things. “Good. Find a babysitter for the dog. I’ll pick you up at one.”
Chapter Nine
The minute Rue pulled up in front of Ethan’s apartment building the next afternoon, he knew he was in the worst kind of trouble. The woman was gorgeous with her weird not-Barbie hair and sky blue nails decorated with a chevron pattern. She was also double parked. She climbed out of the car and tossed him the keys without the slightest indication she’d looked for a storm grate or anything else they might fall into if he missed, and without batting an eyelash, she climbed into the passenger side. “You coming?”
“I’m driving?” He stared, bewildered. “Because I’m pretty sure you said no one drove your car.”
“If you can follow directions,” she said, “then yes. You’re driving my car.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to. “Where are we going?” Simple question, but way more behind it than he wanted to admit. He was still stuck on her trusting him with the vehicle no one was allowed to touch. Except her, who kicked it.
“Jersey.”
“For?” In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have been so surprised that she wanted to cross the state line, at least with the answer coming from a woman who’d trekked pretty darn close to the Antarctic Circle.
“Just drive.” She dropped her sunglasses to her nose as if he hadn’t any other choice and the matter was settled.
And it was. He didn’t have much choice. They were double parked, and he had an aversion to traffic violations.
“Take the Holland Tunnel,” she said after he’d maneuvered back into traffic. Not the most difficult of tasks considering he was blocking some of it, but he still felt a palpable sense of relief once they were on the road. Or he did until Rue spoke again.
“Tell me about Amy.” Her soft, sweet voice was like a balm.
The topic, not so much.
He braced himself for the usual shadow of grief to wash over him, but it didn’t. And that left him speechless. The sun still shone. The sky was still blue. The half-crazy woman with the choppy hair still sat next to him, her sunglasses doing little to shade the heat of her appraisal.
“You don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to,” Rue said.
“No, that’s not it,” he said, finding his voice. “You just caught me off guard. Most people kind of avoid the topic.”
“But you specifically told me not to. Why don’t you have any pictures of her up in your apartment?”
To his surprise, the questions were kind of refreshing. Much more so than the filth of the road and the stench of exhaust that permeated the Mustang.
“I did,” he admitted. “I took everything down to paint and haven’t put them back on the wall.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” In all honestly, he hadn’t given it a second thought. He enjoyed the bright walls. Liked not looking into the tunnel of his past at every turn, but it hadn’t been a conscious decision to leave them down. And he didn’t need pictures to see her. She was still there. Still a part of him.
