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Damn it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WITH YEARDSLEY OUT of town again, Rhiannon o ered to meet the AC repair tech capable of providing a permanent fix at his house in his stead. She was sure he had other people who could do it for him, but she was determined to do anything to keep the listing after the agreement expired in three months.
In the month since they’d last kissed, Carmela had gotten very good at pretending there was nothing between them.
So, when she insisted on coming along for safety reasons, Rhiannon didn’t raise an eyebrow.
Blasting the AC in her car, she waited for Carmela to come down from the o ce. The end of July in South Florida was like living on the surface of the sun, and she was glad she’
d opted for a loose tank top and leggings until she saw Carmela emerge in a short, flowy, turquoise dress. Then she wished she’d worn something cuter.
“Thanks for picking me up,” Carmela said as she slipped into the passenger seat. “The dealership is behind on service, and I’m sure they haven’t even gotten to my oil change yet.”
Rhiannon tried to return the moisture to her mouth before speaking. “No problem,” she managed, her pitch too high as she tried not to glance at Carmela’s exposed legs.
“You all right?”
Rhiannon o ered a tight smile. “Yeah, fine. My throat’s a little dry. All this heat, I guess,” she rambled until Carmela dug a bottle of water out of her bag.
“Here, it’s so hot today I grabbed us some from upstairs.”
Watching a drop of water land on Carmela’s inner thigh, Rhiannon lost her ability to speak. She’d have given anything to be that lucky little speck of condensation.
“Hey, you with me?” Carmela asked, snapping her out of her water droplet fantasy.
“Yeah, sorry. I haven’t had co ee today,” she lied as she accepted the water with a thanks.
Judging by Carmela’s confused expression, she had no idea the devastating e ect she had on her. Or, maybe she did and was just torturing her. Anything was possible.
“Doesn’t your dad ever need his car?” Carmela asked as they started out of the parking lot.
“They’ve been sharing my mom’s since I moved back,”
she explained. “They both retired this year, so it’s not too bad. I’ll be super excited to give it back and buy my own soon.”
“That’s extremely generous. Living here without a car is nearly impossible. Did they retire early?”
Rhiannon smiled at Carmela’s curiosity. “Nope, they both turned sixty-seven,” she replied, knowing she’d be doing the math in her head. All her life people thought her parents were her grandparents. Not that she ever cared.
“Your mom must have been, what? In her mid-forties?”
Rhiannon nodded. “I was adopted when I was a toddler.
My parents joke that they made terrible foster parents and just kept the first kid they got.”
Carmela shifted closer to her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s no big deal. I was really lucky that I ended up with a pretty awesome family. The only thing that devastated me as a kid was learning that I wasn’t biologically Cuban,” she said with a laugh.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Carmela turned in her seat and folded one leg under the other to face her more fully.
“When I was in second grade, I cried for a week straight when we had to make little floats for Heritage Day. My dad found me in the garage after I’d taken a hammer to the pull-along wagon I was supposed to use as a base.” Rhiannon’s chest ached. The memory was still so vivid.
Carmela reached out and rested her hand on her forearm before giving it a sympathetic squeeze. “Was he mad?”
Rhiannon shook her head. “Nope. Instead of yelling at me, he scooped me up and held me until I stopped sobbing.
