Blue-Eyed Devil (Travis Family #2)(40)

Hardy's lips grazed the top of my head, and he released me slowly. He looked down at me, blue heat in his eyes.

"Now show me the apartment," he whispered.

Purely by luck — I couldn't yet pull a coherent thought from my brain — I managed to dial the right combination and open the door.

Since I wasn't certain how far I could walk without staggering, I let Hardy do his own exploring. He wandered through the three-bedroom apartment, checking out the finishes, the appliances, the views from every room. In the main living area, a wall of nothing but windows revealed a spectacular view of Houston, the unzoned city sprawling outward in a mix of offices and strip malls and mansions and shacks, the cheap and the great mingling freely.

Watching Hardy's long, lean form silhouetted against those windows, I thought the apartment suited him. He wanted to show people he'd arrived. And you couldn't blame him for that. In Houston, if you wanted a place at the table, you had to have the clothes, the cars, the high-rise apartment, the mansion. The tall blond wife.

Needing to break the silence, I finally found my voice. "Liberty told me you used to work on a drilling rig." I leaned against the kitchen counter as I watched him. "What did you do?"

He glanced at me over his shoulder. "Welder."

No wonder, I thought, and I didn't realize I'd said it aloud until he replied.

"No wonder what?"

"Your . . . your shoulders and arms," I said, abashed.

"Oh." He turned to face me, his hands still tucked in his pockets. "Yeah, they usually get the bigger guys to do the onboard welding, the stuff they can't do in shore-based shops. So I had to carry a seventy-pound power-con all around the rig, up and down stairs and ladders . . . that whips you into shape real fast."

"A power-con is some kind of generator?"

He nodded. "The newer models are built with the handles farther apart, so two people can carry them. But the older version, the one I had to lug around, could only be carried by one guy. Hell, my muscles would get so sore . . ." He grinned and rubbed the back of his neck, as if recalling long-ago discomforts. "You should have seen the Other rig welders. They made me look puny."

"I honestly can't imagine that," I said.

His smile lingered as he approached me, coming to lean on the other side of the counter.

"Did you like being a rig welder?" I asked hesitantly. "I mean, was it what you wanted to do?"

"I wanted to do anything that would get me out of Welcome."

"That's the town you grew up in?"

He nodded. "Blew out one of my knees playing football — so no chance of a scholarship. And in Welcome, if you don't make it to college, your options are limited. I knew how to weld, from my fence work. It didn't take much to get certified. And I had a buddy who worked as a rig roustabout he told me the welders made-eighty bucks an hour."

"Did you ever think you'd go on to . . . this?" I gestured at the gleaming, pristine apartment around us.

"No," Hardy said at once. " I never imagined I — " But as he stared into my eyes, he paused. It seemed as if he were weighing the consequences of his words, wondering how I'd react if he told me the truth. "Yeah, I knew," he finally said, his voice soft. "I always knew I'd do whatever it took. Living in a trailer park, running in a pack of barefoot kids . . . my whole life was already set out for me, and I sure as hell didn't like the looks of it. So I always knew I'd take my chance when I got it. And if it didn't come, I'd make something happen."

As I began to comprehend what a tremendous drive he possessed, I was surprised by the hint of something like shame or defensiveness secreted deep in the quiet admission. "Why does it make you uncomfortable to admit you're ambitious?"

He gave me an arrested glance, as if it were a question he'd never been asked before. A wary pause, and then he said, "I learned to keep quiet about it early on. Folks make fun of you otherwise."

"Why?"

"It's like crabs in a box." Seeing my incomprehension, he explained, "You can keep a bunch of crabs in a shallow container, and none of them will escape. Because as soon as one of 'em tries to climb out, the others pull him back in."

We faced each other directly, our forearms resting on the counter between us. It felt too close, too strong, as if some incinerating current had opened between us. I pulled back and looked away, breaking the connection.

"What did you do in Dallas?" I heard him ask.

"I worked at a hotel for a little while. Then I stayed at home for about a year."

Hardy's eyes held a mocking glint. "Doing what? Being a trophy wife?"

Since I would have died before ever letting him know the truth, I said casually, "Yes. It was pretty boring."

"Is that why your marriage ended? You got bored?"

"More or less." Reading his expression, I said rather than asked, "You think I'm spoiled, don't you?"

He didn't bother to deny it. "I think you should have married someone who could have done a better job keeping you entertained."

"I should never have gotten married at all," I said. "I'm not cut out for it."

"You never know. You may want to give it another try someday." I shook my head. "No man will ever have that power over me again."