Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(45)

“Have you had any strange theme requests? Like—I don’t know—a RoboCop or Laser Cats wedding?”

“Not yet,” Sage said, after swallowing a sip. “But I’ve organized seventeen Star Wars weddings, three Cinderella themes, and one Brady Bunch.” She looked over. “The couple had been through separate divorces before meeting each other, three children each. That was a fun one. Their maid of honor dressed as Alice.”

“No way.” Rita shoved her available hand into her pocket, a grin stretching her mouth. “Did they throw footballs at the bride instead of rice?”

“Ohh, my nose,” Sage said with a snort, doing her best Marcia Brady impression before turning a touch self-conscious, shooting a quick glance back at Belmont. “I wish I’d thought of that.”

“Ah, there’ll be a next time,” Rita sighed.

A few beats passed. “There won’t be a next time.”

“No, probably not.”

Up ahead, the motel came into view and Rita squinted, wondering why someone appeared to be pacing in front of her door. As they drew closer, however, the flannel tipped her off to the pacer’s identity. Jasper? They’d left to forage for coffee before the clock struck eight. It couldn’t be more than a quarter to nine now. It’ll be early in the morning when I come looking.

Apparently, he hadn’t been playing around. And, ironically, he appeared to be holding two paper cups of coffee in his hand, one of them obviously for her. If she’d just waited, she could have avoided coming outside. Life was so unfair sometimes.

There was a window of about thirty seconds where Rita was close enough to make out Jasper’s face but he didn’t see her approaching. He appeared to be upset. Very upset. One of the flaps of his flannel shirt had come untucked, and his hair stood at odd angles. Concern ticking along her spine, Rita increased her pace toward the motel, only drawing up short when Sage’s soft voice called to her.

“Rita?” Sage’s shoulders lifted as Belmont came up behind her, stopping about two feet away. “Um. Sometimes fairy tales look different than climbing into carriages. Sometimes.”

Not knowing how to respond, Rita gave the wedding planner a graceless nod and continued on, feeling an urge to jog for—literally—the first time in her life. Jasper threw both cups of coffee into the garbage can with serious force just when Rita hit the parking lot and almost simultaneously turned to find her closing in. “Rita?”

“Yeah.” She slowed to an easier gait, her pulse’s rhythm erratic not over the brisk power walk, but because of Jasper’s stricken expression. “Uh…you better have a good excuse for wasting earth’s most precious resource.”

“I thought you were gone. Left.” He propped a fist on the motel wall, raking the opposite hand down his face. “No one answered and I don’t even have your fucking phone number, Rita. And…Jesus, you know?”

Two walls on either side of Rita smacked together, flattening her in the middle. One brought a warm, welcoming infusion of—belonging. Here was a man who would miss her presence. She’d actually made a little mark in this big, broad, place, even if it were only with one person. One man. Because that man was so huge himself, wasn’t he? There was no avoiding the purity of his strength as she watched him deflate, baked concrete warming the soles of her boots.

The other side of the smacking wall turning Rita into a pancake was hearty rejection of his panic. His distress. Seeing it turned a wrench in her chest, and she was springing forward to connect with him before the mental command fully formed. Although Rita’s arms didn’t get the memo, because they hung at her sides as she pressed her face into his heated flannel chest, muscles tensing and shifting beneath her mouth. “I just went for coffee.”

“I was bringing you some damn coffee, woman.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Well.” His arms wrapped around Rita, jerking her close. “Now that you’ve scared a handful of years off my life, the least you can do is come with me somewhere without giving me any lip.”

It was excitement that flooded her system, full, flavorful, and a little wild. She regretted a lot of things in her life, but she refused to regret not taking advantage of her time with this man. In this place. “Let’s go.”

*



Jasper figured he must be a marvel of modern science, because his heart had relocated to his throat. It beat there as he drove Rita—where was he taking her, again? The mesa. Right.

Around five miles outside of Hurley, the flat mountain gave a vantage point to the next town and the surrounding desert. When half the nature-made structure had eroded in the late eighties, a local politician had commissioned a roadway be built to the top of the now restored section in the hopes of bringing tourists through the smaller New Mexico towns on their way to somewhere more interesting. So far it was frequented mostly by the Hurley teenagers looking for a place to make out.

Which—and Jasper would take it to his grave—is how he’d gotten the idea to bring Rita. This morning, while purchasing the now deceased coffee, he’d overheard the young clerk flirting with his sweetheart over the phone, asking if they could go to the mesa later. And then Jasper remembered. It had been the place to bring girls when he’d been in high school—the place for everyone else, that is. He’d never been required to create a romantic, star-blanketed atmosphere to win a girl over. But now? Efforts would be made, and, unfortunately, he didn’t have an array of sexy locations at his disposal to bring Rita to. So they were going to the mesa.