Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(43)

“Jasper,” Aaron said, cutting her off. “I need a dentist. Someone who can work fast. And I need him yesterday.”

“Now that’s going to be a problem,” Jasper drawled.

For the first time, Rita noticed that Jasper was watching her with concern. “Why?” she asked. “There has to be someone local.”

“Oh, there is.” Jasper nodded toward someone over Rita’s shoulder. “But he’s half shit-faced at the bar.”

“Fuck. Me.” Aaron dropped his head into waiting hands. “I should never have left California.”

Guilt would apparently be the fourth loop on her emotional roller coaster tonight. She’d been the one to press the road-trip idea and everyone was paying the price for her impulsive decision. Her relationship with Aaron was contentious at best, but losing the opportunity in Iowa would be bad for his career. It was her responsibility to fix the situation, even if the word responsibility made her gills turn green. “Um, okay. Jasper, we need to store that tooth in a cup of milk. I think that keeps it…fresh, so it can be…reinstalled.” She was grateful when Jasper nodded without giving her grief about her lack of dental lingo. “And then we need to sober up that dentist.”

Jasper checked his watch. “Might take until the morning.” His cheek jerked as if he were trying to subdue a smile. “And then there’s the surgery, the recovery…”

Aaron shifted. “What are you getting at?”

“I know what’s he’s trying to say.” Rita couldn’t ignore the wings flapping in her chest, especially when Jasper’s mouth finally lifted in a grin. “We’ve got another day in Hurley.”





Chapter Twenty



Well, son of a bitch.

If this wasn’t a sign, Jasper didn’t know what constituted one. Rita had been in the process of kissing him good-bye and divine providence had shown up like a goddamn superhero. Right about now, Aaron and Belmont were third and fourth on his list of favorite people, under Rita and Rosemary. If they weren’t coiled tighter than rattlesnakes on either side of Jasper as he walked the Clarksons back to the Hurley Arms, he might have pulled them into a group hug, unmanly or not.

He wasn’t even irritated over Rita insisting they didn’t need an escort back, because he’d bought himself some time. Or it had been purchased for him, rather, but this was no time to split hairs. He hadn’t been about to leave three women to break up a second wave of fighting. Nor was he about to let a chance for more Rita go to waste. What she’d said back in the kitchen—Don’t you want me back?—had burrowed under his skin like the gopher from Caddyshack. He and Rita were going to clear that up real quick. Assuming he could get her alone. Judging from the sly conspiratorial looks Peggy was sending him, Jasper thought he might have an ally.

When they reached the Arms, Belmont walked off into the parking lot. Aaron stared after his brother a moment before slamming into his room. Peggy looped an arm through Sage’s and urged her toward the seemingly endless line of doors. “Come on. Let’s have a sleepover in your room.”

“W-wait,” Rita sputtered. “Have it in our room.”

“I can’t hear you…you’re breaking up…” Peggy called back, faking a static noise by using her hand as an imaginary CB radio. “Try again later.”

“Unbelievable,” Rita muttered, whirling for her own room and shoving the key into the lock. “I’m starting to have that fantasy again where I’m adopted.”

Jasper barely managed to catch the door and slip in behind Rita. “The one where a rock star and a supermodel show up one day to claim you as their long-lost child?” He smiled, flipping on a light and viewing the room without the cover of darkness. “I had that one, too. Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall was my personal favorite.”

The personal information slipped out without Jasper noticing, because his focus was on Rita’s possessions. Her flip-flops stowed in the corner, the giant, noise-canceling headphones on her side table. But the curious, yet guarded, expression on her face had Jasper replaying his words. “I just realized I never asked about your parents,” she murmured. “Did your grandparents raise you?”

“They did.” He picked up a bottle of lotion, noting the scent. Winter Forest. “My parents were more than a little young. Tried to make it work for a while after I was born, but went separate directions.” That particular hurt had been dealt with a long time ago. Built in to become a part of him. When he spoke about his parents with sympathy—two kids who’d been painted into a corner—he couldn’t even remember if he meant the sympathy, or if he’d just begun believing his own patented explanation. Like a callus created over time and forgotten until someone pointed it out. “My mother is fine, living in Texas. Not too sure about my father.”

He watched as Rita absorbed that information with a line between her eyes, until she kind of shook herself. “We don’t talk to our father, either. Lawrence. We called him that, even as kids. Shook his hand and called him Lawrence. Isn’t that funny?” She smoothed her palms along her thighs. “He split with Miriam after Peggy was born, but he’d stop by every two weeks, take us to this restaurant called”—she scrunched her brow—“That Pizza Place. He’d give us five dollars each for the arcade and take us home when we ran out. Then one day he stopped coming. And none of us ever talked about it. Or him.”