Pride

“I’d say that’s a good policy. Don’t ask and”-Kane glanced at the buxom brunette on his right and the luscious blonde on his left-“don’t tell.”

“Your deal,” said the guy who’d let him into the game, handing him the cards. “Oh, and did Amber tell you?”

“Did Amber tell me what?” Kane asked, winking at her.

“We usually play a warm-up round before we start tossing the money around,” Amber explained. “Just to get us in the mood. Strip poker.” She looked him up and down. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” He glanced toward Harper, who only smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Trust me, I don’t mind at all.”

Was she crazy?

Kaia stared out the dusty window of the pickup truck, wondering if she’d lost her mind. What other excuse could there be for her agreeing to this ridiculous plan?

A few hours earlier, as she’d half hoped and half feared, Reed had shown up with her cold, greasy pizza. After trading yet another round of insults, she’d challenged him to find some way to alleviate her Grace-induced boredom. He, in turn, had shown up at the end of his shift with a dirty pickup truck and a challenge of his own: Drive off into the middle of nowhere with a skuzzy stranger and hope that his definition of “something interesting to do” wouldn’t land her in the morgue.

She didn’t even know why she’d called him. So he was hot. Fine. There was no point in denying that. Nor could she deny the fact that when he looked at her, when his eyes burned into her, she trembled.

But that was irrelevant. It had to be. Kaia Sellers could not involve herself with someone like this Weed, poor, stupid, aimless, and completely unacceptable. Couldn’t, and wouldn’t. And yet…

And yet, she’d made the call. And when he’d shown up at her door, she’d welcomed him in, hadn’t she? Leaned toward him, so he would smell her perfume. Favored him with a sultry smile.

And now here she was in the old truck, Reed by her side, speeding through the darkened landscape, the lights of civilization (if Grace qualified) fading into the distance behind them.

I must be crazy, Kaia thought, unsure whether to be appalled or amused. It was the only possible explanation.

Crazy was fine-for a night. But whatever happened, Kaia promised herself, one night was all it would ever be. Reed Sawyer could not be allowed into her life. He didn’t fit. And never would.

They drove in silence, and when the truck suddenly came to a stop, Reed turned off the engine and got out without a word. Kaia climbed out as well (once it became painfully clear he wasn’t planning on opening the door for her) and looked around in dismay. If this wasn’t the middle of nowhere, surely it was only a stone’s throw away.

That’s it-he brought me here to kill me, she thought in sudden alarm.

They were parked on the shoulder of a dusty road that stretched across the flat land until it disappeared into the darkness. Ahead of them sat the massive, hulking frame of a gutted industrial complex, long since abandoned.

“We’re here?” she asked, masking her increasing panic with the comfortably familiar cloak of disdain.

He nodded, and hopped up on the hood of the truck.

“And where is ‘here,’ exactly?”

“This is Grace Mines,” he explained. “Or used to be. It closed down-then it burned down.”

“And then what?” she asked, intrigued in spite of herself. She hopped up onto the hood of the truck next to him, looking more closely at the shattered remains of the mine, gleaming in the light of the full moon.

“Then nothing. Who has the money to do anything about it?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s been like this ever since I can remember. I guess it always will be.”

Kaia tried to imagine the empty husk before her as it had been in the boom times, teeming with workers, young men seeking their fortune, fathers struggling to support their families, the air filled with the clicking and whirring of machinery. This place had been alive once. And now? Weeds sprouted amid the fallen beams, empty beer cans lay strewn in piles of ash, the jagged glass of the shattered windows splintered the moonlight-now, it was just a corpse. A fallen giant, a dead zone, soon to be reclaimed by the wilderness around it.

“You come here often?” she asked, her tone more serious than she’d intended.

He nodded. “Something about it-” He looked over at her, then looked away. “We can go, if you want.”

“No, I want to stay for a while.”

And she was surprised to discover it was true.

They sat there side by side, not talking, not touching. They sat for a long time, just staring at the old building, at the desert that lay beyond it. Kaia shivered once and, wordlessly, Reed tucked his jacket around her shoulders. It was heavy and warm-and smelled like him. Not pot this time, but a deep, rich scent, like dark coffee by an open fire. It fit here-he fit here-strange and dark, like the ruins, with a quiet dignity.

She was about to take his hand when she felt the first spatter of rain.

Rain? In the desert?

Before she had time to be confused, the skies opened up. It was as if bucket after bucket of icy water were being dumped from above-the rain fell fast and hard, pelting their skin, turning the desert dirt around them into rivers of mud.

“What the hell is this?” Kaia complained as they both scrambled back into the truck. “It s not supposed to rain in the desert!”

“Sometimes it does,” he said simply, hoisting her into the passenger seat, then rushing around to the driver’s side, finally throwing himself in and slamming the door.

They looked at each other-both sopping wet, their hair and clothes plastered to their bodies-and burst into laughter.

“This is, by far, the weirdest date I’ve ever had,” Kaia said, wringing out the edge of her shirt as best she could.

“Who says it’s a date?” he retorted, but with a smile.

“We should probably wait for it to let up before we drive home,” Kaia said, gesturing toward the opaque sheet of water flooding down the windshield.

“I guess we should,” he agreed. “Cold?”

“What?”

“You re shivering.”

She was cold, she realized. She hadn’t noticed. She nodded and, hesitantly, he put an arm around her. She inched to the left, resting herself against him. It wasn’t much warmer-but she stayed.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and they listened to the rain pelting the truck, spattering against the soft ground. She shivered again, and he held her tighter. His wet hair was still dripping, and she watched the drops of water trace their way down his face. They looked like tears.

They sat there together, motionless, for a long time.

And then the rain stopped. And they drove away.

Chapter 5

“Beth, did you really think I’d be coming to ski school with you?” Kane asked, laughing.

She blushed and shook her head. “That was silly. I guess I thought maybe you’d teach me-”

He snapped her ski boot shut and helped her latch it to the ski, then grabbed his board and began guiding her toward the bunny slope.

Kane laughed again. “Me? Only if you want to land in the hospital. Trust me, you don’t want to pick up any of my bad habits.”

The hospital?