Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(5)

Belmont stayed quiet.

Rita was unsurprised by their reactions. If you’d asked her two days ago if a trip to New York was on the agenda, she might have sighed over the far-fetched fantasy of such a notion but scoffed nonetheless. Just then, however, looking out over the charred remains of her career, guilt a smoky cloud around her shoulders, she couldn’t remember a time when taking off wasn’t part of the plan. If it were feasible to begin driving that morning, she would have done it without wasting a second.

Rita gathered her hair on top of her head and let it drop, addressing Aaron’s statement first. “You know I don’t fly. I’m driving.”

Aaron cocked an eyebrow. “You’re actually going. On this weirdly specific mission to catch hypothermia.”

“Looks that way,” Rita answered, cranking the car’s air conditioner. Their scrutiny was making her hot, and San Diego’s elevated climate in late November allowed her to get away with the nervous action. Her heart was thumping in her chest, her decision cementing itself. Pride wouldn’t let her change her mind now that she’d said it out loud, in front of her brothers and sister.

Rita hid her inward flinch when Aaron and Peggy sailed off toward Aaron’s Mercedes, muttering to one another, Peggy throwing him the occasional shove. Belmont stood in the middle of the street, head down, but clearly halfway to bailing. Fine. She’d been without them for a long time. She certainly didn’t need them or their stupendous neuroses now. Add the dysfunctional Clarkson clan to the list of things she would gladly leave behind when she hit the road.

Done.

Starting the car’s engine, Rita was a second from throwing the car into reverse when she caught Aaron, Peggy, and Belmont closing back in, varying degrees of irritation etched into their familiar features. Without turning her head, Rita rolled down the driver’s-side window and waited.

“All right, look.” Aaron smoothed a hand down the front of his still-pristine dress shirt. “The front runner for the presidential nomination—Glen Pendleton—is going to be stumping at the Iowa primaries on December tenth. Senator Boggs already recommended me as a campaign adviser; I just need to make contact. If we can pause our little road trip long enough for me to meet with him and secure the position I want…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m in.”

“I have a condition thingy, too,” Peggy chimed in, unable to stop herself from bouncing. “We stop at U of C between Iowa and New York. There’s an old friend I’ve been meaning to visit.” Rita narrowed her eyes at Peggy’s blush. As far as Rita knew, Peggy had mostly maintained contact with her cheer squad from the University of Cincinnati, but why would that turn her face red? “I’m only asking for one day,” Peggy added. “Maybe two, depending on how things…progress.”

Nothing with her family could ever be cut and dried, could it? She jerked her chin at Belmont. “What about you? Any special requests?”

Belmont’s gaze was locked on his shoes, but he tipped his head down in Peggy’s direction. “I need…I might need—”

“Sage,” Peggy supplied, surprising Rita. “You want me to invite Sage.” Belmont didn’t answer, remaining eerily still, but Peggy only nodded. “I’ll ask her if she can take the time off, big guy.”

Sage—as in Peggy’s wedding planner? Why would Belmont need his sister’s best friend along for the ride? Rita traded a baffled look with Aaron, but neither of them commented. Prying never worked with Belmont. He would only clam up more.

But they were actually considering coming along. There was a spark of gratefulness—maybe even reluctant excitement—in Rita’s chest, but she doused it. “Look, if you guys are doing this because you feel sorry for me and my burned-down pile of bricks, I don’t need your pity.”

“Does that sound like us?” Aaron asked.

“Not even a little bit,” Rita admitted, hands twisting on the leather steering wheel. “So…fine. I need a week to handle the insurance company and tie up loose ends. Unless Peggy has another wedding scheduled I’m not aware of, we leave Tuesday. December first.”

Aaron did a quick check of his phone and sighed. “Fine.”

Peggy clapped her hands once. “I’ll bring snacks.”

Rita’s three siblings left her feeling as if the earth had shifted beneath her feet. In a matter of twelve hours, everything had changed. Everything.

What else could she have expected after committing arson?





Chapter Three



The Suburban’s fan belt blew two hours after they crossed the Arizona–New Mexico border.

Looking back on the day of departure, calamity had been inevitable. Having spent two days meeting with insurance adjusters and calling in favors to get replacement jobs for her Wayfare employees, Rita had shown up half asleep in her pajamas, drawing exasperation from Aaron and an offer to borrow clothes from Peggy. Each of them still wary about the whole trip and what it symbolized, the siblings had ridden in relative silence throughout the first night and into the morning, Belmont a steady presence at the wheel. Despite Rita’s negative predictions of squabbling and battle cries of shotgun, leaving San Diego had gone almost…smoothly.

She should have known Murphy’s Law would take effect sooner or later.