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Watch him try to knock the place down now, Gus had said, and Ashley had smiled, filled with triumph.
It was only after Gus took off and the contractor finished getting his heavy equipment in order, made a phone call, and left for the day that Ashley remembered how very stupid fear could be.
How, when you let fear be in charge, it made terrible, terrible decisions.
A number of inconvenient facts elbowed their way to the forefront of her consciousness. Like the fact that she probably should have brought food and water and some way to consume it.
Or that she definitely should have changed her clothes, because a still-damp, salt-encrusted bikini covered by an oversized T-shirt was simply not adequate protection against crotch-poking mulch, much less from the elements.
That she’d never managed to stick with a job for more than a season or a man for more than sixty days, so there was absolutely no reason to think she could stick with a protest for long enough to make it count. Especially when the contractor hadn’t actually said when Díaz would arrive.
And of course that she was a moron. An impulsive, grieving moron.
The chain rubbed her wrists raw within a few hours. The muscles of her neck and shoulders screamed every time she moved. She hadn’t felt her ass since midnight. Her lips were chapped, her mouth dry and desperate for liquid. And she was so, so hungry.
All of which made it difficult right now to decide how to feel about the man looming over her with no expression whatsoever on his face. He was the enemy, but he also had the use of his hands, which made it hard for her to resist the urge to suck up to him.
He could bring her water. He could rescue her.
Except for the part where she didn’t want to be rescued.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
Yesterday evening, the setting sun had lit a flaming burn on her right cheek, neck, forearm, and thigh. Just before dawn, the wind picked up.
There were goose bumps on her legs. Her head was too hot.
She had no idea if she was cold.
“No.”
He rose. “Don’t move.”
Ashley mulled over whether that had been a joke while he walked to his car.
The SUV’s silver front grille gleamed like a nasty set of teeth. Even from thirty feet away, she could see the Cadillac symbol stuck between its chompers.
What kind of gas mileage did an Escalade get? Twelve miles to the gallon? Nine?
At the crab shack, she’d served lobster to men who drove cars like that. Another summer, she’d worked on the glass-bottomed boat in Maui, and she’d watched the Cadillac men tapping at their cell phones, checking for a signal while their kids whined for their attention and their wives shot them dirty looks.
She’d taught Cadillac men how to sea kayak off Baja. They always hated the part where she flipped them over and they had to escape the splash skirt and effect their own rescue.
Experience had forced Ashley to conclude that—while there were certainly exceptions—Cadillac men were almost always assholes.
This asshole came back with a small plastic-wrapped package. “Do you want this?”
She didn’t even know what it was. “No.”
“Your legs are blue.”
“I’m fine.”
He tore the package open and unfolded a silver space blanket. “Top or bottom? It won’t cover both.”
She didn’t respond, because she was fighting back the sudden, distressing urge to cry.
Roman Díaz was ruining her life. He could at least have the decency to be cruel.
