silence from settling between them again. When they were quiet, her mind wandered, and she didn’t want to spend the entire drive wondering whether or not the bench seat of his vehicle was long enough for them to act out a few of her spicier fantasies.
“So, how far away do you guys live from the airport?”
“You guys?” he repeated with a thick Brooklyn accent. “You’re never going to fit in around here with talk like that. We say y’all around here.”
Renee tried again, this time putting the thickest drawl she could muster into her voice. “Well lookee here, Jeremiah, just how long of a ride do we have in this here fancy horse buggy till we mosey into y’all’s neck of the woods?”
He let out a peal of laughter that reverberated through her chest, so loud and genuine that it made her laugh in response. He had an amazing, infectious laugh, and she was swept away in the silliness of the moment. When was the last time she’d joked with a guy? It seemed far too long.
“We all live about sixty miles away,” he said, finally getting himself enough under control to answer her question, adding an adorable Texas accent to his words.
An hour alone with him. God help her. Renee looked out the window. The city—if you could call it that—was already shrinking in the distance, leaving them surrounded by a few homes and a lot of open land. “And that’s the closest town to you? To get a generator, you need to drive all the way to, um—” she panicked for a moment as she realized she didn’t remember the name of the city she had just flown into “—Tyson?” she finished, hoping it was right.
He raised his eyebrow and smiled at her again in the way that made her insides twist. “You mean Tyler?”
She flushed, embarrassed. “Yeah. That.”
“There are a couple of small towns that are closer, but Tyler’s the biggest nearby. We’ll be at Jessica and Aaron’s before you know it.”
Although that was what she told herself she wanted, the idea was not a pleasant one. She was enjoying talking to Jeremiah, and didn’t want it to end too quickly. “Was it weird to start calling it ‘Jessica and Aaron’s’ instead of just ‘Aaron’s place’?”
He thought for a moment, tilting his head. “Not really. They just fit together so well that the moment she moved in, it became their place, you know?”
Renee nodded, but didn’t really understand. She looked at the window as they flew past large homes and swaying trees, already well out of the city. The fields in the distance were a wintry brown, showing off a wide expanse of countryside. How did Jessica transplant her whole life to this strange place and settle in so smoothly? Renee felt like a fish out of water looking at the vast nothingness around her.
* * *
JEREMIAH TRIED TO keep his eyes on the road, but his gaze was continuously drawn to the woman only a few feet away. He’d been failing miserably at self-control since the moment she walked into baggage claim in that sexy, curve-loving skirt and heels that made him want to drop to his knees and worship her legs. There were a lot of things he’d like to drop to his knees and do to her, in fact.
He focused back on the present, trying to stop those thoughts. They were exactly what he couldn’t let himself get caught up in this week if he wanted to survive.
He glanced at her again. Instead of thinking about the way her shirt moved against her breasts as she shifted in her seat, he tried to think of something to say to her. Her mood had switched from silly to thoughtful in a matter of seconds, and he wasn’t sure what he should do. For a guy who’d always felt so confident around women, this was a new one on him.
He grabbed at some new topic of conversation. Anything to keep her talking. “It’s nice of you to fly in a week early to help your sister. According to Aaron, she’s been fighting off a state of panic for the past week or so, worrying that things won’t be ready in time.”
Renee nodded, as if this wasn’t new information. “She’s always been the anxious one. She wouldn’t be Jessica if she wasn’t worried. Really, though, it should be Cindy here. She’s always been the enthusiastic, creative one. I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to help much, but with the pregnancy and all, Cindy couldn’t take that much time off from work.”
“If Jessica’s the anxious one and Cindy’s the enthusiastic one, what are you?” He wasn’t sure if he was prying, but he just had to know more about her.
She paused, thinking. “I guess I’m the focused, driven one.”
Jeremiah tried to read between the lines. “Is that code for ‘workaholic?’”
Renee gave him a small smile. “Pretty much.”
“And what else are you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think that’s about it.”
He could think of some other adjectives that described her, but didn’t say them out loud. He wasn’t sure if she even realized she was the funny one, the sexy one, the dear-God-I-wish-she-was-in-my-arms-right-now one.
He tried to think of something else to talk about. Normally he’d be fine with silence, but silence around her made him want to say and do things that were all on the “terrible ideas” list. At least when they were talking, he could focus on their conversation instead of on the way her hair fell across her shoulders and that one darker freckle just below her left ear.
Lucky for him, she seemed just as willing to keep up continuous chatter as he was, and the rest of the drive passed quickly while she described her favorite things about New York, asked questions about her sister’s life in Texas and told him about her job.
“It’s not a sure thing yet, but the lead designer spot would be amazing. I’ve been working toward that exact position since high school. It’s my dream job.”
He glanced at her out of the side of his eye, even though her face was already indelibly printed in his mind. She couldn’t possibly be older than twenty-eight. “You’ve managed to land your dream job before turning thirty? Is that some kind of a record?”
Renee smiled and her eyes lit up, changing her face from beautiful to stunning. “I’m younger than a lot of people on my team, but I have just as much experience as pretty much anyone there if you look at the work I’ve done. I usually pick up a few extra pages each issue, and my work hardly ever needs to be retouched. I don’t think my age will matter.”
“I guess you were right about being the workaholic one.”
“That was your word,” she pointed out. “I said I was the focused one.”
Jeremiah was impressed, but something about her dedication to her job sent up an alarm. “How do you manage to do all that and still have fun? Doesn’t it make it hard to relax, take vacations, date?”
Jessica had mentioned at one point that Renee was single—Jeremiah was sure she had no idea how that offhand comment had affected him—and he’d been perplexed as to why. Now he was beginning to suspect the reason.
“I don’t really have the time for that kind of stuff. My job is too important to me and I wouldn’t want to screw that up because of those types of distractions.”
Renee’s
