Hitched by Ruthie Knox Page B

gentleman.”
    Not in my dream you weren’t.
    She attempted to straighten her noodle legs and found that if she concentrated hard, she could stand up. “I think I’m okay now.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah. You can let go.”
    He did. “What were you going after?”
    “The tea.”
    “Sit down. I’ll get it for you.”
    She wanted to point out that she’d only just managed to get up, but his tone brooked noargument, and she didn’t feel like putting up a fight.
    She would pretend this was still the truce period. When they got on the road again, the truce would be over. Once he found out where they were headed, he would kill her.
    But for now, she would allow him to make tea for her, and she would try very hard not to let it change anything.
    It doesn’t matter how warm his hands are , she reminded herself. He has a cold, black heart.
    “Half an hour,” he said. “We can spare that much. Then we have to get moving.”
    Plenty of time to drink the tea and shovel some sugar, fat, and carbohydrates into her food hole. She’d eat, take a shower, and feel much better.
    In half an hour, she could steal back the offensive, and Roman could return to being the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

CHAPTER TWO
    The Airstream was a nightmare—a thirty-foot-long silver bullet with riveted seams that sat on a pad of gravel behind the office building, gleaming in the rain.
    “Isn’t it gorgeous?” Ashley crooned.
    Roman saw nothing that would inspire her use of the word. The camper could only be called ramshackle. For some ungodly reason, the windows that wrapped around one blunt end had been covered from the inside with tinfoil—badly. Whoever had done the job had used black electrical tape that had loosened since its application, and the foil on the largest window hung suspended by one solitary square of tape.
    A pressed-metal identification plate beneath the window declared this beast to be an Airstream Sovereign “land yacht,” but to Roman it looked like an albatross. A white whale.
    A sleeping contagion, resting quietly on four balding tires.
    He kicked one. Too soft—it needed air. The trailer hitch was rusty, and a large wooden wedge lay on top of it, its presence a mystery that Roman couldn’t solve.
    The screen door didn’t sit flush. It looked like a gust of wind might tear it off at any moment. He counted seven dents in the body before Ashley pressed her breasts against his arm and distracted him from his inventory.
    She hung on him like a lover. The urge to shake her off nearly overwhelmed him.
    He didn’t want her hands on him. She was so … disorderly. She’d showered and put on clothes, but she wore flip-flops with her raincoat, and she’d used the last few minutes of the reprieve he’d granted her to put a fresh coat of blue polish on her toenails.
    Who wore sandals in a downpour? What purpose did toenail polish serve? She ought to be checking the hurricane readiness of the property or emptying the contents of the fire safe—if they even had a fire safe, which he had to admit seemed unlikely. With Hurricane Minnie on the way, it was a time to be gathering up essential records as a hedge against potential disaster. It was a time for lesser people to panic , and though he didn’t want Ashley to, per se, he didn’t want her painting her toenails, either.
    And the office—it looked exactly the way it had the day he dropped by to make an offeron Sunnyvale. He’d given Ashley two weeks to clear out after the funeral, yet it appeared that she’d done nothing to prepare for his arrival. Nothing but harass him.
    For the past twelve years, Roman had worked to ensure that he never got angry, or sad, or overwhelmed. That he never felt vulnerable or defeated or depressed, impassioned or inspired or giddy with joy. He’d had enough of extremes in the first two decades of his life. Now he was a machine of reason.
    He didn’t enjoy passing time with unreasonable people.
    Ashley stroked his wet arm,