REBECCA WALKED BACK toward the parking garage where she’d left her car, thinking about Pierce and forcing the memories of the terrible night away before she collapsed to her knees in a puddle of tears—or boiled in fury and punched someone else. God, I punched a guy—and Pierce saw it all. When he’d dragged her from the bar, she couldn’t hear past the blood rushing through her ears, but she’d sensed people moving away, and she’d seen fear and surprise on their faces; then everything blurred together as Pierce dragged her quaking and shivering self out of the bar and into the night.
He’d been as determined to change her mind about the drive home as she was to stand firm. She’d almost caved under the weight of his beguiling dark eyes. That tight undershirt left every drool-worthy muscle on display. Not to mention that all six feet something of pure male sexuality beckoned to her private parts, which she thought she’d turned off years ago.
Pierce. What type of name was that, anyway? Pierce. She rolled it over in her mind, imagined saying it in a dark bedroom atop satin sheets, with his thighs pressed to hers.
Don’t even go there, Rebecca.
She hadn’t had a social life of any sort in three years. It was kind of hard to focus on anything other than the business classes she took and caring for her ailing mother, especially toward the end of her mother’s life. Not for the first time in the last six weeks, her eyes teared up. It wasn’t because of the fight she’d had with her boss, or the fact that she told him he could shove the damn job up his scrawny ass. No. That was nothing new in Rebecca’s life, either. She was thinking of the last moments with her mother, before she closed her eyes for the final time and the last puff of air left her lungs. Before Rebecca was left alone in this crazy world.
Magda Rivera had always been the picture of health, at least from the outside. But that had been an illusion. Cancer was an unfair assailant that snuck in when they weren’t looking and stole pieces of her mother, consuming her until her very last breath. Now her mother’s ashes lay in an urn in the safe of her previous landlord’s office. Mr. Fralin had been nice enough to hold the urn for her until she found a permanent place to live.
She took the elevator in the Astral resort parking garage to the fifth floor, where she’d left her car. She loathed this part of the evening. The parking garage was at least ten degrees colder than the street, and even though Rebecca had been coming home to it for three days now, she knew it would never lose the icy chill of concrete. She surveyed her surroundings as she crossed the dimly lit parking garage and noticed a man getting out of his car at the far end of the lot. She slipped into the driver’s seat of her 1999 Toyota Corolla and waited for him to enter the elevator before putting up the sunshades on the windows and reclining her seat. She’d only been staying in her car for three days, since she’d had to give up her apartment for lack of rent money, but three days of worrying about being caught in her car felt like three years. She had excuses at the ready, just in case security banged on her window in the middle of the night. I didn’t want to drive after drinking too much was her favorite excuse. Who could argue with that in the garage of a casino?
As soon as she had enough money saved, she’d find a room to rent. She missed the privacy of her tiny efficiency. Before her mother’s illness, when Rebecca had rented her own apartment and had a normal life for a twentysomething woman, she’d made it a practice never to take men back to her apartment. Her home was her private oasis, and she liked to keep it that way. She thought about how nice it would be to go home at the end of the day and kick her feet up on her own couch, in her own living room. Now that she’d quit her job, finding a room to rent would be pushed back for God only knew how long. She could have kicked herself for quitting. Why hadn’t she just shut her mouth and let Martin the asshole yell at her for the millionth time? Her mother’s voice floated through her mind. Because, mi dulce niña, you matter. She closed her eyes and rested her head back, wondering what her mother would think of her sweet girl living in her car.
Rebecca didn’t rue her circumstances. Mr. Fralin had been kind enough to allow her and her mother to stay in their apartment rent free during the final two months of her mother’s life. Rebecca had been at her side every minute until the end, making it impossible for her to hold a job, and her mother had earned so little money when she was healthy that even her disability didn’t cover their bills. Not to mention that her mother hadn’t realized she was responsible for paying taxes on the disability income because her employer had paid for the insurance premiums. Rebecca was still working to pay off the debt her mother had accrued during her illness—it was the least she could do for the woman who gave up so much of her own life for her. Luckily, Mr. Fralin was a generous man, and he’d allowed Rebecca to remain in the apartment for almost six weeks after her mother had died, while Rebecca tried to pull herself together. Mr. Fralin did all he could, but he needed the rent money, and once again, Rebecca did what she had to in order to survive. Not wanting to be any more of a burden on Mr. Fralin, she found the pride she’d set aside to ensure her mother’s comfort, and she’d moved out of the apartment and into her car.
While Rebecca didn’t rue her dire circumstances, she did have a bone to pick with God, or whomever, or whatever, powers that be had stolen her mother away like a thief in the night.
Chapter Two
REBECCA WALKED INTO Fitness Heaven with her gym bag over her shoulder at six thirty the next morning. She’d joined the gym three months ago on a month-to-month basis when the water in her apartment had decided to take a vacation. She figured a shower was worth the $19.99 membership fee. While she was there, she did a quick workout, which, it turned out, was just about the best stress reliever a girl could hope for. Giving up a few groceries had been worth it. And now, since the month was already paid for, she had a place to exercise while she caught up on the morning news, had a cup of free coffee, and took a warm shower with clean, fresh towels. If only her bedroom didn’t have four wheels and a gas tank, she’d be all set.
“Hey, Bec. How are ya today?” Andy Brandt was a personal trainer, built like a marine, with a military-style haircut and a face that could stop most girls’ hearts. He was the one person Rebecca looked forward to talking to each morning.
“Oh, same, same. I quit my job last night.” She slowed on her way to the ladies’ locker room.
“Finally. I told you that guy’s a prick.”
Tell me about it. “I really thought I could grin and bear it, you know? But last night I was talking to this woman. She must have been sixty or older, a really sweet lady. Her husband left her for a twenty-five-year-old. Why do men always do that?”
“They don’t. Assholes do,” Andy answered.
“True. Anyway, he gave me shit about talking to her, right there in front of the customers. Hello? I’m a bartender! Listening is, like, a job requirement.”
“There’s a reason he’s in that part of town. I’m really sorry that you had to quit.” Andy leaned over the counter and whispered, “You sure you don’t want to borrow a few bucks? Just to get out of your car?”
She had told Andy about living in her car in a moment of weakness, and now she hated that he knew about it. “Don’t, okay? I’ll get through this.”
“Oh, I have no doubt. I was just offering.”
She softened, despite her embarrassment. The compassion in his eyes looked strikingly similar to the look in Pierce’s eyes last night. God, Pierce has soulful eyes. “I know. Thanks, Andy. I’ll catch you after my workout.”
Rebecca made her way to the back of the gym and put her clothes in a locker, then went through her normal routine. She worked through forty minutes of cardio—today she rode the recumbent bicycle so she could scroll through her phone looking at the want ads around town—and twenty minutes of weights. She pushed herself harder each time her mind traveled back to Pierce, replaying last night over and over—offering her his shirt like a knight in shining armor, then the way he’d gone from looking at her like he wanted to take her to bed to looking at her like he wanted to offer her comfort. Part of her had wanted so badly to snuggle against his broad chest and soak in his strength, but she’d done the right thing. She pushed the thoughts away on her way back to the locker room. No sense dwelling on what couldn’t be.
After her shower, she dressed in her favorite interview outfit—a sleek black pencil skirt, smart white blouse, and comfortable, but not dowdy, secondhand heels—and carried her bag back out to the front to grab a cup of coffee on her way out the door.
Andy whistled as she was filling up her to-go cup with coffee.
“Damn, girl. You’re going to knock someone’s socks off in that outfit.”
She held up her to-go cup. “That’s the hope. I’m interviewing everywhere I can today.”
“I wish we had something here to offer you.” His eyes widened. “Hey, my girlfriend, Chiara, works over at the Astral resort. She’s in HR. I bet she can hook you up. Want me to give her a call?”