Blush(24)

“Change? We’re not going into combat. You’re fine the way you are.”

Mia narrowed her eyes. No one ever talked to her that way. But, of course, he was right. “Looking ‘fine’ wasn’t exactly my goal,” she pointed out dryly. “But we’re not going to the prom.”

He cupped his coffee mug between his broad palms and gave her an assessing look. “Did you go to your prom?”

“No.” Stanford Long had asked, and then not shown to pick her up. He’d just wanted to humiliate her and bring her down several pegs because she’d refused to sleep with him. If only her classmates had any idea how insecure she was, they could’ve saved themselves the effort.

She’d worn a Vera Wang strapless and a million dollars in jewelry. The most minimalist her stylist was willing to go. She’d sat on the bottom step of the double sweeping staircase waiting until after eleven, when she knew for sure he wasn’t coming.

Mia hadn’t mentioned the humiliating event to a soul, not even Todd. From then on, all dates were on her terms, or no terms at all.

“You must’ve been a pretty damn cute teenager.”

“I—I was put together.” Orthodontics, colored contacts, facials twice a week, stylist at the house every day—a Blush product from head to toe.

“ ‘Put together’? What the hell does that mean?”

“Well-groomed,” she told him wryly, desperately wanting to comb her fingers through that mane of dark hair hanging to his shoulders and falling over one eye. Thick and lustrous, it had a slight curl to it that should’ve made him look effeminate but instead made him look like a sexy pirate. “What about you?”

He was fit and athletic. Probably from working construction and not from working out in a gym. There didn’t appear to be an ounce of fat on him; his muscles were rock hard and clearly defined beneath the still-damp fabric of his T-shirt. “I bet you were on every sports team.”

“For a while, yeah. But no prom, or even the thought of one. I stopped going to school at fifteen, and spent most days with a street gang to further my education.”

Mia was appalled. Her childhood had been devoid of affection, and even though her schoolmates were all in a similar income bracket, her shyness and her excessive wealth separated her from everyone else. She’d been excruciatingly lonely, but she’d always felt safe in that ivory tower. The thought of having that safety stripped away was unthinkable. “You ran away from home?”

“First my mother died, then my father died a few years later.”

“That’s terrible. Where did you go? Who took care of you?”

He gave her a surprised look. “I took care of myself. I wasn’t going into the foster system. My father had a small construction company, and I worked for him after school from the time I was strong enough to hold a hammer. After he died, the company folded, and I did whatever construction jobs I could find. Paid mostly under the table, since I was underage, then I just kept going.” He shrugged. “I’m bringing a shitload of experience to your table.”

“Good to know. And on that positive note . . .” She stood up. She didn’t want to feel empathy for this man. He was a stranger, a sexy stranger, but a stranger nevertheless. If not for some lunatic trying to kill her so she had to bide her time here, she and Cruz would never have met. “Let me show you where that exercise pole is.”





Chapter Five

Sandy’s Diner served frozen entrées and store-bought baked goods. According to the sign in the window, all of it was “homemade.” If the coffee shop had been in New York or San Francisco, it would’ve been cleverly marketed as eighties-style kitsch. Mia suspected the cheap red plastic furniture and beige Formica in Sandy’s Diner was just a result of bad taste rather than a deliberate attempt. The place was empty when she and Cruz stopped by on the way back from the hardware store before returning home.

She’d happily driven her new truck to the hardware store. Good practice, because the wide streets were pretty much empty, and she tended to get distracted and go wherever her eyes led her.

Mia glanced out the diner window, observing an elderly couple walking by, holding hands. “Before coming here”—she turned to look at Cruz across the table—“I had no idea towns like this still existed.”

His folded arms were propped on the table, and sunlight made the dark hair on his tanned skin shine silvery. She liked the look of his arms. Strong, muscled, tanned. A workingman’s arms. She dragged her attention back to his face, where the distraction was ten times worse. The man had his own gravitational field, and it was hard to keep her hands off him.