Jill Shalvis - Instant Gratification

Right where she didn’t want to be-into one of the ditches.

Stone drove like a bat out of hell, hoping it wasn’t bad.

“Jesus, man.” TJ tightened his seatbelt. “Slow down. She didn’t say there was a three alarm fire. She said she’d driven into a ditch.”

Stone tried to peer ahead through the fog and rain but visibility was nonexistent. He and TJ had been talking to Cam on iChat, having a grand old time, laughing at Cam’s recollection of him taking Katie zip-lining across the rain forest, and how she’d screamed her way through it.

Then they’d heard Harley on the radio say she was responding to a truck in the ditch between Wishful and the lodge, and Stone had hung up on Cam.

Because there’d only been one truck on that road today-Emma’s. And so no, regardless of the fact that the level headed TJ had a point, Stone didn’t slow down. A mile later, he was glad as he came to a stop just behind Harley, who had pulled up just in front of them.

Emma had indeed gone into the ditch. The truck was grounded on its belly, the front wheels firmly in the muddy ditch, the back wheels no longer touching the ground. Emma stood to one side, out in the driving rain, an arm wrapped around her middle, the other shoving her wet hair out of her eyes

Harley moved toward Emma. “Good one.”

Emma turned and looked at her. “You’re roadside assistance?”

Harley, in a ski cap and coveralls, nodded. “Until I pass my finals,” she said proudly, then turned to look at the truck. “So you’ve introduced yourself to the ditch, up close and personal. Let’s un-introduce you.”

“It got the better of me.”

“Happens to all of us at least once. You hurt?”

“I-” That’s when she noticed Stone and TJ and closed her mouth. Harley turned and looked, caught sight of TJ, and swore. “She called for roadside assistance, not an audience.”

TJ’s usual smile was nowhere in sight. In fact, his scowl matched Harley’s. “We heard the radio call go out and thought maybe you could use some help muscling the truck out of the ditch. We thought maybe you’d appreciate the help.”

“This is my job, Wilder.” Harley accompanied the statement with a finger in TJ’s chest. She was a full foot shorter than him, yet somehow managed to look down her nose at him. “So back off and let me do it.”

TJ lifted his hands in surrender, and looking unaccustomedly irritated, stepped back.

Stone left those two to their tempers and looked at Emma. “Are you really okay?”

“Yeah.”

Behind them, small but mighty, Harley didn’t appear at all daunted by the task ahead of her as she went around to the back of her truck and began to pull out a large set of chains. “If you want to you can wait in the cab of my truck,” she said to Emma. “It’s dry, at least.”

“I’ll help.”

Harley looked over Emma’s pinstriped trousers, silk blouse, and light cashmere sweater. “That would be great, except I think your outfit probably cost more than all of my clothes put together. I’ve got this.” Harley’s sharp eyes narrowed in on what Stone had also narrowed in on-Emma holding her ribs. “Really. You go sit.”

“I’m fine.” She swiped the rain out of her eyes and appeared to gnash her back teeth together. She was soaking wet, and looked cold, miserable, and mad at the world, including Stone. “I was trying to avoid Bambi.”

Harley shook her head as she wrapped the chains around the Sinclair truck. “First rule of the Sierras. Never swerve to avoid an animal. It’s survival of the fittest out here.” She struggled with a clamp on the chains, and TJ moved in.

When their hands touched, Harley jerked back and shot him a glare, which TJ ignored, muscling her out of the way to do her job.

With temper making her ears red, Harley jumped into her truck and the two of them worked silently together to pull Emma’s truck out of the ditch. It was like watching an old silent movie, no words necessary since the seething tension between the two of them spoke for itself.

“They go way back,” Stone said to a shivering Emma.

She looked up at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

Hiding his concern, he shrugged out of his denim jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Take it,” he insisted when she opened her mouth to protest, pulling the fleece lined hood up and over her head, using the excuse to touch her. He’d come to see her again, since he hated how she’d left last night, but now he was very glad he had because she needed him.

And she didn’t need easily. “You’re shivering.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. Come here,” he said, and pulled her in his arms to try to warm her up.

Emma hadn’t even noticed how cold she was until Stone had pointed it out, and then she’d realized that she was shaking rather violently. And there was a funny pain in her chest-not funny good but funny bad. “I’m fine,” she repeated as he hugged her very carefully, as if she were a fine piece of china. “I’m just annoyed that you’ve caught the stupid city girl getting stuck.” Annoyed and embarrassed.

“It’s okay to be stupid once in a while.”

“Really? Does this ever happen to you?”

‘Well, no.”

She was still shivering like crazy, and that made her mad too, just as it also made her want to burrow even closer, which didn’t help. Not one little bit. “Everything’s so easy for you.” She told herself to let go of him but she didn’t listen. “Well, here’s a memo for you, life isn’t easy.”

“No,” he agreed, sweeping a hand up her back, his smile gone. “Life sure as hell isn’t. But you make of it what you can, and you do your best to enjoy the hell out of it, because it’s the only life you get.” He turned her toward the truck, which was out of the ditch now-thanks to Harley and TJ.

Not saying another word, Stone reached across her to open the door for her.

There was no reason for her to feel like a complete ass, yet she did. With as much dignity as she could manage, she thanked Harley, arranged to go by the shop later to pay her, and then hopped up into the truck, the movement giving her a bad moment. Her ribs were killing her.

Her own fault.

Just as she put the truck in gear, the passenger door opened and Stone got in, as drenched as she. His hair was plastered to his head, little rivulets of water raining down his jaw. His eyes seemed darker, the lashes inky black and spiky with rain water. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I had a choice.” He plopped his big, wet body into the seat. Having given her his jacket, his t-shirt was sculpted to his chest. His jeans were plastered to him as well, the soft, worn, drenched denim lovingly molding to his hips, his thighs, the intriguing bulge behind his button fly-

She jerked her gaze up to his eyes, and met his wry ones. “Choice?”

“Between being a referee for TJ and Harley, or…” Leaning forward, he flicked the heater on high. “Figuring out how badly you’re really hurt.”

She hugged herself and her aching ribs. She was having trouble keeping her eyes off him, which was odd since she’d seen all there was to see last night. “I’m not.”

“Do you want me to drive?”

Yes. More than she could say, but that would be admitting defeat, and she never admitted defeat.

“I swear I won’t write the feminist police,” he said dryly.

She sighed. “It’s not that. If I let you drive, I’ll never be able to face this road again.”

He looked at her, something new coming into his eyes in addition to the irritation-approval.

It was unexpected, and washed over her like a welcome balm, whether she liked it not. For the record, she didn’t. She didn’t like it at all. She swiped at the water running out of her hair and into her eyes, a movement which hurt, dammit. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he said.

That was another difference between them. She would never have left herself so wide open. What if she wanted to know how many lovers he’d had, or the last time he’d cried? “You were right about what you said before. How we only get one life, how we need to handle it right. So I guess what I want to know is…” She paused. Talk about putting herself out there, but it was too late to go back now. “Are you happy? Here? With what you do for a living?”

He let out a low sound that might have been a laugh, and scrubbed a hand over his face before he leaned back and looked at her. Water was running down his face too, in little rivulets. “I guess I thought whatever question you could possibly have for me might be a whole lot easier to answer than that one.”

“So you’re not? Happy?”

“Oh, I am. I get to work with my brothers, when they’re around. I’m my own boss, which actually isn’t quite as fun as it should be. I get to do the outdoor stuff I love to do, but…” He breathed out heavily and leaned forward to crank the heater up. “Sometimes I’d like to also do something else as well, not for Cam or TJ, but for me.”

“Like?”

“Come on. Do you really want to know this?”

“Actually, yes. Maybe I like knowing I’m not the only one who wishes things were different. Misery and company and all that.”

He arched a brow. “I almost thought you cared there for a minute.”

“Maybe I do care.”

“You have a lot of maybes going on.” His eyes were steady on hers. “I used to do some renovating and I want to get back to it. I want to restore one of the historical buildings in town, top to bottom.”

“Yourself?”

“I like the work, like using my hands to fix things up.”

Besides the fact that she had firsthand knowledge that he was excellent with his hands, she worked with her hands and she got it. “I can understand the appeal of that.”

His smile was small, but warmed her nevertheless. “Thought you might.”

She thrust the truck into drive, took a deep breath, which tweaked her ribs and gave her a jolt of pain as she eased back onto the road. The rain was still coming down in droves. Every bump was agony on her ribs, not that she’d admit it to the man sitting next to her.