Beautiful Bounty(15)

Ronnie couldn’t suppress a small laugh. She had never known her father. Her grandfather had been the one to fill those shoes. Her granddad was the best. “I love my granddad. He did lots with me. I was his constant companion, he was my babysitter, and I followed him everywhere. He used to tease me all the time too. He’d call out for me like I wasn’t in the room, and then he would lift his shoe. I guess I was always underfoot,” she used air quotes to emphasize her meaning. Nikko smiled and waited for her to continue. “He’s the reason I studied forestry and the environment. While mom worked he would take me into the woods. We would walk, hike, fish, ride motorbikes. On the weekends we would go camping at his fish camp,” Ronnie reminisced.

“He still alive?”

“Yes, both my grandparents and my uncle. They still live in Maine, in Presque Isle, about two and half hours from where I went to school in Bangor.”

“That’s nice that they were close,” he offered.

“Yeah,” Ronnie whispered and got quiet.

After a minute or so, he tried another avenue to get her talking again. “For the record, Ronnie, I feel bad for you and this situation.”

“I don’t need your sympathy,” she muttered, stone faced. Her thoughts turned to her grandparents and how disappointed they must be.

Okay, he thought, what next? Another minute passed, and he hadn’t thought of another way to get her to open up, so he decided to finish telling her about how they ended up in Florida.

“So earlier I was telling you why we came to Florida” he started. She looked at him blankly and he just continued. “I graduated with my forensics degree and Blaze decided to do the police academy. So we both did that together. As soon as we got out, and started looking for work, my brother Andreas announced that he had enough of New York, and that he and Gio were moving to Florida. My mom’s sister and my cousin Victor lived here. They are pretty much the only family we had, so me and Blaze decided to come along for the ride. Blaze and I did about a year on the force. We were partners. Then, we moved here. That was two years ago,” he finished.

“Oh,” she muttered. “Interesting.”

Again the silence. Ronnie was lost in her thoughts again. Well, he had gotten some information from her. He didn’t think she would run, but any info he could get would be useful if she did. They rode in silence for a few more minutes when he heard the strangest sound. He looked at his console. Nothing appeared out of order.

He looked to Ronnie to see if she had heard it. She was squirming uncomfortably in her seat. He looked at his gauges again, nothing was going on there, and then he heard it again. It was definitely coming from her side of the car. He looked at her. She was pink faced.

“Um, was that you?” he asked tentatively.

He heard her sigh, and she covered her face with her hands in embarrassment and just nodded. He was confused as hell. And just kept looking her way, and then the sound came again. Louder.

“Well, what is it?” he asked, completely dumbfounded.

She shook her head in humiliation. “Believe it or not, that is my stomach growling. Prison food is not the greatest, and I hardly ate anything these last two days.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so,” he replied, let out a sigh that nothing was wrong with his baby, and began to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” she pouted.

When her lower lip jutted out like that, he had the sudden urge to lean over suck it into his mouth, and kiss those lips. “Well first I thought something was wrong with my car, but if you’re that hungry, I could just pull over and we could grab a bite. There’s tons of good places to eat along this road.”

“No thank you,” she replied tartly. “Just get me home to my mom.”

“Fine!” Women, he thought. He just didn’t get them. If you are hungry, you eat. He drove on in silence, but not for long.

Her stomach was practically speaking. He just shook his head when he saw her place her hands over her offending organ. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to get home to her mom, but something also told him, probably her tone, that she didn’t want to spend any more time in his company than she had to. And, that bothered him.

When her stomach rumbled again he just had to ask, “You sure?”

One of Nikko’s eyebrows arched up. And, Ronnie was hungry. There was no denying that. Her damn stomach betrayed her every chance it got. The advertisements along the road were just about killing her. But she had no choice. It was look at them or look at him. And damn him for looking so good in his white dress shirt, and dark slacks. He had taken his jacket off, and the tailored shirt fit him like a glove. The muscles bulging in his biceps as he handled the car smoothly was pure torture. She looked away from him, but could still feel his eyes on her. “Yes, now just drive!” she snapped, her eyes flashing his way, chest heaving in her sudden anger at him.