with enough caffeine to keep him awake and enough sugar to lend him the energy to keep going.
Three strikes was usually enough to knock any man out of the game. For Gus Wydowski, who had a wellearned reputation for being tougher than your average male, it had taken four.
“Lisa, damn your sweet, greedy soul, I hope you’re as miserable right now as I am,” he muttered, downshifting to pass a tank wagon lumbering south along I-77.
Lisa Crane had been strike one. Tall, gorgeous Lisa, with her midnight hair, her magnolia skin and her mercenary little soul. A confirmed bachelor, Gus had been relieved when he’d first met her to discover that she was no more interested in settling down than he was.
Their affair had lasted more than six months, which was a record for Gus. As a rule, after a few weeks with any woman he began to get that antsy feeling that made him want to move on, but with Lisa…
Not that he’d ever thought he was in love. Hell, at thirty-nine years old, he had long since outgrown all those old adolescent fantasies.
Still, they’d been good together. Especially in bed. So good, in fact, that Gus had actually started thinking in terms of the future. He had even bought her a ring.
As it turned out, Lisa had begun, to think about a future, too, only not with Gus. She had her heart set on one day owning a Ferrari sports car. Gus was satisfied with his 4 x 4 extended cab pickup truck. She liked sushi, salad bars and Streisand. Gus liked barbecue, beer and bluegrass.
Lisa had a weakness for Italian shoes and champagne.
Gus had a weakness for Western boots and anything sweet.
Gus was unabashedly blue-collar. He had calluse s on his hands and a few more on his heart. He’d been around the block a time or two—always with the same kind of woman. His biggest failing was that he was invariably attracted to women who were way the hell out of his league. Long-stemmed, elegant beauties. Classy ladies who were gracious enough to overlook the fact that he was tough as mule hide and a hell of a long way from handsome on anybody’s road map.
Lisa had caught his attention when her hat had blown off during a garden party being held next door to one of Gus’s construction projects. He’d rescued her hat, and they’d gotten along like a house afire right from the first.
About the same time Gus had started thinking in terms of teaming up permanently, Lisa had started playing games. Breaking dates, leaving town without telling him, coming back without letting him know. The sex that had been so good for so long had become less satisfactory, and they’dusually ended up arguing over whose fault it was.
Gus had a temper; he would be the first to admit that. But he tried not to let it get too far out of hand and never with a woman. He’d been taught by a mother, a grandmother, an aunt and a sister that women were to be treated like fine china. And he had always obeyed that rule. Right up to the night when Lisa had told him she had signed a modeling contract and was moving to New York. She was sorry if he was disappointed, but then, they’d never pretended to anything more than a casual relationship.
Casual. Right.
Gus had told her that he was far from disap pointed—a lie. That lately he’d been thinking about moving on—another lie. He’d wished her a lot of luck, but he hadn’t specified which kind.
And then, with the engagement ring he’d bought still in his pocket, he’d gone on a bender—something he hadn’t done in a long time. He’d ended up putting his left fist through a packing crate. That had been strike number two. Number th ree had come when he’d gone to the emergency room for a stitch job. There he’d been coughed on and sneezed at until he’d even tually come away with seven stitches, a tetanus booster and a bug that had laid him out flat for nearly a week. The ring had been missing when he’d gotten around to looking in his pockets. Then he remembered giving it to one of the older barmaids and telling her to buy herself a pair of good sturdy shoes with arch supports.
Jeez, no wonder he couldn’t ’cut it with the ladies. When push came to shove, he was about as romantic as a migraine headache.
Gus lived alone in the first house he’d ever built—an A-frame near a small mountain town in North Caro lina. The house was far from perfect, but he liked it well enough. That is, he’d liked it until he’d been forced to spend a week alone there, sick as a dog, aching in every bone, alternating between chills and fever.
Then had come strike four. The weather. When he’d finally come around, he’d been snowed in right up to his dormers. His truck, which he’d left slewed in the driveway, was buried door-handle deep. The power was out; his house was cold as a tomb; the phone lines were down; and his mobile unit was still out in the truck.
He’d been weak as a kitten. Still was, for that matter. He’d been hungry, too, but what he’d craved even more than a decent meal was sunshine and the sound of another human voice. Not necessarily up close-just close enough to assure himself that he was still among the living. For a man who’d always prided himself on his self-sufficiency, that was pretty damned scary.
So he’d built up his energy by devouring everything in his efficiency kitchen—ice cream, coffee, stale cinnamon buns and Moon Pie marshmallow sandwiches—and then he’d shoveled himself out. Less than an hour after the snowplow had come by, he had locked up and lit out to find himself some sunshine. with his next two building projects still in the permitting stage and miles of environmental red tape yet to be unraveled, he could damn well afford to lie in the. sun and bake his bones until he felt halfway human again.
Just north of Columbia a smoky whipped past, siren screaming, lights flashing, throwing up a muddy spray. Gus swore again. He’d been doing a lot of that lately. He made a quick decision to pull off at the next truck stop and eat something. He was getting down into pecan-pie country. Maybe a slab of pie with ice cream and a pint or so of sweet, black coffee would get him over the hump.
Warily, Mariah eyed the gas gauge on her elderly compact car. It had been known to lie. She should have stopped for gas before now, but she’d been hoping to make it home without spending a night on the road. The trouble was, she hadn’t gotten away until nearly noon. Everything had taken longer than she’d expected. Meeting with the super for her share of the deposit on the apartment she rented with two other models, closing out her bank account, packing, trying to get her car serviced, only to be told she could have an appointment the middle of next week….
And then she’d had to deal with Vic. He’d been livid, and a livid Vic was not a pretty sight. He’d reminded her of the contract she’d signed and of everything he’d done for her since he’d discovered her. Then he’d told her he’d been planning to use her in the St. Croix shoot.
She happened to know he was lying about that because only two models were scheduled to go, and Kaye and Danielle had been gloating all morning over snagging that particular plum.
“That’s life, kiddo,” Kaye had said when she’d tackled her about it. Which summed up Kaye’s philosophy in a nutshell.
“That’s life right back at you, kiddo,” Mariah muttered now under her breath. She’d never gotten the hang of fast, sophisticated repartee. Her mind was still running on Muddy Landing time.
Vic had accused her of not taking modeling seriously, and he’d been right. There had always been an element of make-believe in it. Like playing dress-up, only a lot harder. When it came to make-believe, Mariah would rather choose her own role, and modeling just wasn’t her.
She’d
