Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(59)

Everyone looked at Belmont, who nodded once, and that appeared to be the final word on the matter. Glen deflated in apparent relief and everyone sat back down, even a quietly outraged Aaron. Which left Rita and Jasper standing, facing one another. Were her own eyes devouring the sight of Jasper the way he appeared to be devouring the sight of her? She could feel the tormented way he looked at her down to her fingertips.

“Can we talk when this is over?” Jasper asked.

After Rita tried not to break her neck nodding, they both sat down on the log, Jasper taking Glen’s vacated spot.

“We’re going to start with each of us confessing something that’s been weighing on our minds. No judgments. No commenting until the person is finished. Just absorb the honesty.” Glen scanned the group. “Would anyone like to go first?” As expected, no one made a peep. “No? Fine, I’ll start.”

Aaron shifted on the log. “This should be interesting.”

Glen threw up his hands. “My business license is expired.”

“Well isn’t that just the confession of the decade? You never had a business license,” Jasper corrected, his jaw clenched. “Someone else take a turn, so we can get Rit—everyone back to town. They’re leaving soon as the sun’s up.”

Rita wasn’t given a chance to react to Jasper’s flatly delivered statement, because Peggy stood in dramatic fashion, drawing everyone’s eyes. “I killed my own hamster in fifth grade. It wasn’t Gerard.”

“Who’s Gerard?” Jasper wanted to know.

“Rita’s weird ex-boyfriend.” Peggy’s fingers tangled in her curls, twisting them with near violence. “It was an accident. I s-sat on him and then I hid the evidence.”

“The evidence being Fluffy,” Aaron clarified, standing as Peggy sat back down. “Well, we’ve solved the hamster cold case. Seems to me we should end on a high note.”

There was only one voice that could shut down the bickering that ensued, and it cut through the arguing voices like a knife through butter. “I’ve been looking for my father,” Belmont stated. That was it. He didn’t elaborate. But the revelation had the effect of an icy-cold rainstorm catching them out in the open with no shelter. The siblings traded startled looks, clearly searching their emotionally stunted brains for the appropriate response and coming up empty.

They watched in a state of suspended animation as Sage slid her hand across the log, brushing just her pinky finger against Belmont’s, sending a shudder through his body. “Sometimes when I plan a wedding for a truly awful couple, I…secretly hope the marriage doesn’t work out,” Sage rushed out in a stage whisper, sagging in relief as if she’d just unburdened herself of a murder confession.

Belmont smiled. Actually smiled. Which reminded Rita of the secret he’d imparted. Trying to find his real father? He’d never even mentioned having an interest. And how selfish and blind of them to assume his differing parentage wasn’t an issue. Anxiety built in Rita’s chest until it felt as though she’d sprinted ten miles. Her throat started to burn with the need to speak, but what would she say?

Abruptly, Aaron stood and took a few steps out of the lit circle, before returning. “Did you all really think I could take a month off work to come on this ridiculous trip? You just…believed me without question.” He ran a hand over his mouth. “I got fired. About a week before the restaurant burned down, Senator Boggs dismissed me from his staff.” A beat passed while that bombshell sank in among the group. “I fucked up. Did something I shouldn’t have done. Iowa isn’t about getting ahead, it’s about getting somewhere. Anywhere. Or that’s the end for me.”

Peggy dropped her face into her lap and started to sob. Giant, shoulder-shaking sobs that made Aaron roll his eyes before he dropped back down onto the log and jerked his sister up against his side.

“It’s going to work out,” Aaron muttered, as if trying to convince himself more than Peggy. “I won’t be a failure.”

“You aren’t,” Peggy insisted, tearfully scrutinizing the unconfessed. “Who’s up next?”

Rita averted her gaze, staring directly into the flickering fire. It had taken so much courage for the four of them to be honest. She couldn’t follow suit, could she? No. She didn’t have it in her to just—drop the shield. Her confession was so much worse. They would condemn her. Hell, she’d already condemned herself, and that judgment was well deserved. They were on this trip because of a mutual love for their mother and the betrayal would be an arrow, piercing them all in this rare state of exposure.

When Jasper laid a hand on top of hers, Rita realized she’d been holding her breath. But now the oxygen rushed in, as though it were being fed through their physical connection. Tears pressed behind her eyes like the cold, blunt end of a hammer. And she just—exploded. “I burned down Wayfare.”





Chapter Twenty-Seven



Chasing after Rita into the desert had been a big mistake. Monumental.

He should have left things sour. Because now he’d watched her in the flickering firelight. Watched her eyes shine with unshed tears as she listened to her siblings. Heard the note of relief when he’d shown up. His plan simply to make amends for his half of this afternoon’s blowup—nothing more, nothing less—seemed like a fool’s mission now. Two people didn’t burn together—as they’d done—and simply cool off. No. The burn was there between them, brighter and more ravenous than ever.