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She searched all her mental store cupboards for cool, but cool was out of stock. This strange man and his big hands and his beard and that belt buckle and everything underneath the belt buckle had done something to her, had stolen her cool, so she did the only thing she could possibly do.
She fled.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Escalade waited in Mitzi’s gravel driveway, sporting a deep new dent in the bumper courtesy of Jerry’s being both reckless and insane, as well as a long scratch along the side courtesy of he had no idea who.
Roman waited on Mitzi’s porch.
His keys were in his pocket, his bag packed and sitting by his right hip. Ashley had turned out to be correct about the trailer hitch—it was just the pressure of its being jackknifed that had made it impossible to remove—and he’d towed the Airstream into Mitzi’s driveway and then set it loose.
All of it a performance, of course. Ashley had him by the balls, and both of them knew it.
So he waited.
She came out of the house and sat down beside him. Through the open screen door, he heard Mitzi and Kirk talking, alto and baritone. He could hear a dog barking, and he could see past his truck over the lawn to the swamp, but he couldn’t see the shape of what was supposed to happen next.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“What do you want from me?”
There was a long silence. He wondered if she was hesitating because she thought he might snap. He might have told her not to worry about it. All the snap had gone out of him. How many days had he been with her—three? And she’d already beaten him.
Jerry had been the last straw. Jerry and the fucking dent in Roman’s fucking Cadillac, and then Carmen telling him he couldn’t leave. That he had to find a way to control Ashley. By Monday.
As if there were such a thing as a way to control Ashley.
“I want you to change your mind,” she said.
“That’s not possible.”
She tucked her feet closer and wrapped her arms around her knees, converting herself into a small, neat package perched at the edge of the step. “I think it is,” she said. “And even if it’s not, I have to try.”
“Haven’t you already tried? I got the speech at the palm tree, the speech at the diner.” He lifted his hand, gestured at the view. “I got one all-expenses-paid night in this lovely swamp, which I assume is supposed to be a taste of the good life, courtesy of Ashley Bowman.”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t get you stuck here.”
“You didn’t help get me unstuck, either.”
After a moment, she said, “Fine. I’ll take half the responsibility if you take the other half.”
Roman could accept that. He was at least fifty percent responsible for getting himself into this mess. He hadn’t listened when his instincts told him to be wary of the deal he’d made with Susan. He’d underestimated Ashley from the beginning, and then he’d let her get to him, and then he’d underestimated her again and she’d blindsided him with this Key deer bullshit.
He just hadn’t expected her to lie to him. Hadn’t expected her to use this particular brand of sneaky, underhanded manipulation.
“What will it take to make you drop the deer thing?”
“Your cooperation.”
“With …?”
He turned slightly to study her compact form, her inward-focused expression. She wore shorts and a T-shirt with black flip-flops. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, her nose freckled, her lips shiny with glossy stuff that smelled like watermelon.
She looked exactly as she had when he met her. Nothing special.
Yet he had to do whatever she asked.
“With a trip,” she said. “We’re going to take a trip.”
