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“I didn’t ask for help. Are you firing me or not?”
“You’ve left me no choice.”
“What about unemployment? Are you going to put it down that I was laid off or fired?”
“You know Human Resources won’t let me say you were laid off. They watch that stuff more closely now.”
“Fine.”
Thirty minutes later, she was sitting on the marble slab that encircled the fountain in front of Brampton and Simmons. With her back to the building and her box of things in her hands—a fake plant, a book, and a handful of nice fountain pens—it was finally safe to cry. Since the sky had betrayed her again, opening to allow rain to pour down, she could do it with a small amount of privacy even in public.
She was so lost in her own misery that she didn’t realize she wasn’t alone until the dark brown cowboy boots were only a few inches away from her.
She scooted away. “What do you want?”
“Lose your job?”
“Well, look at the box and the pathetic girl crying in the rain. Figure it out, genius.”
“You’re rude.”
“Another brilliant observation,” she said. “You’ll make it great in the big city.”
The rain came down harder. The cowboy stood tall and steady in the downpour as if he were part of the elements and silly things like weather couldn’t touch him.
“Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
Had he been lurking and waiting for her? “Why? Do you get off on being yelled at?” Just what she needed. One ofthosefreaks.
In answer, he offered a hand to help her stand. It was a public place. And anyway, if he killed her, that might be a step up from the current situation. She had no idea what she was going to do. She’d considered bankruptcy—assuming she could afford the fees to file. But that was out now. It would make it that much harder to find another job, if anybody in the industry even wanted her now. She’d hopped from job to job over the past few years burning bridges with abandon. There might not be any left for her to walk across.
Veronica threw her box of things in the trash on the way to the diner. None of it had sentimental value, and it was all ruined anyway. She tried not to wince or scream at him as he led her inside, his hand resting at the small of her back like he was calling dibs on her and wanted to warn away all other males.
There were no other males in the diner—just the cook, whose name she didn’t know.
A familiar waitress came out and led them to a booth. “Oh sweetie, you look like a drowned sewer rat.”
“Thanks,” Veronica said.
“Let me get you a towel to dry off.”
Marlboro man looked somewhat drenched himself, but she didn’t offer him a towel, nor did he seem to care for one. It was possible Veronica was a lot more pathetic-looking than she thought.
“I’m Luke,” he said, after he’d ordered them some coffee and Veronica was seated in the booth with a towel wrapped around her.
There was a long pause where she couldn’t think what to say. He probably wasn’t going to kill her in the middle of the diner.
“Ronnie, is it? Is that short for something?” he finally asked. He must have heard Sandy say her name that morning.
“V-Veronica.” It was the chill from the rain that had made her stutter. Or that was the story she was going with. She couldn’t bring herself to be nasty to him again after he’d bought her a cup of coffee. This was the kind of thinking that got women lured into the middle of nowhere and killed.
“The reason I brought you in for coffee is that I have a ranch in Vermont. I could always use another hand out there.”
She looked up, startled. He reallydidplan to lure her to the middle of nowhere. With the way he’d watched her earlier that morning with Sandy, there was no way in hell. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s not advertising with a slick office, but it comes with room and board.”
Images of being kept prisoner by him in some barn filled her head. She tried not to be aroused by those images. Now wasn’t the time for those thoughts. It wouldn’t play out like her fantasies. He was just so attractive, it was hard not to think those thoughts.
