“Coffee would be great.” He glanced inside the bag again. “Where are the rest of the clothes I bought?”
She set the bag on the table alongside the door. “I laid them out in the bedroom. I figured you’d want to shower and change, too. The shower isn’t quite up to Captain’s standards,” she joked, “but it gets the job done.”
“Five minutes and we’re out of here.” He strode into the bedroom, snatching up the shirt and pack of boxers and socks he’d also grabbed at the souvenir shop while Laurel had been waiting outside.
Despite the situation, he couldn’t help smiling when he went into the bathroom. It was bigger than the entire Captain’s Quarters room. When he flipped on the shower, hot water shot from four different showerheads, engulfing him in steam.
It would have been a hell of a room, he thought as he grabbed the soap. If they’d have been able to enjoy it.
He toweled off roughly afterward and ripped open the bag with the boxers. They were printed with smiling jalapeño peppers but they were clean. Same thing went for the cannabis-patterned socks. He hitched up his jeans and grabbed the new T-shirt.
The smell of coffee was strong and welcome when he walked out of the bedroom.
“You’re right,” he said, pulling the T-shirt over his head. “Almost up to the Captain’s standards.” He pushed his arms through the short sleeves and grimaced as he tugged the tight shirt into place.
“Told you it looked too small.” She handed him a disposable coffee cup and picked up the bag of provisions.
“Next time I’ll let you choose.” He pulled open the suite door.
“Nicest hotel suite I’ve never stayed in.” She paused in the doorway and gave him a twisted smile. “Don’t imagine many guests leave wearing pajamas.”
“If it weren’t for the purple flying pigs on your pants, nobody’d know that’s what they are. Do you still have the room key?” She handed it to him and he dropped it in the key drop when they reached the lobby.
He’d left the car parked in front of the hotel in a temporary loading zone.
“Surprised you didn’t get a parking ticket,” she said once they were on their way. “But you always were lucky like that.” She fussed with her wet hair, pulling it over one shoulder and braiding it loosely. “If I parked in front of the apartment building in Buffalo overnight, there was always a ticket under the wiper blade greeting me in the morning. But never when you did it.”
He could almost forget that she had amnesia. That she couldn’t remember so many other things. So many other critical things. “Luck of the Irish,” he dismissed.
She made a sound. “You’re not Irish. Just lucky.”
Not when it came to her.
“That was a nice town,” she sighed a while later when the city lights were nearly gone in the rearview mirror.
“Maybe you’ll get back there one day.”
“It wouldn’t be the same.” She looked over at him. “I could drive, you know. If you get tired. I remember how.”
“You don’t have a license on you. Car rental agency would probably have an issue with it.”
“Only if they knew,” she scoffed. “You didn’t use to be such a rule follower.”
“I didn’t use to be a lot of things,” he said dryly. “But if I know you, you’ll be sleeping in thirty minutes anyway.”
“The least I can do is stay awake and keep you company.”
It was his turn to scoff. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
She tsked. “You shouldn’t call me that.”
He glanced her way.
“Sweetheart,” she said as if he were thick. “If I were Ashley, it would seriously annoy me.”
“You’re not Ashley.”
“Tell me about it,” she said under her breath.
He told himself he didn’t relish the moment. “You don’t sign my paycheck.”
Aside from the lights on the dash, the inside of the car was dark. He still felt the look she gave him.
“Ashley owns Provisions,” he said patiently. “She’s my boss. And I guarantee she doesn’t care how many women I call sweetheart.”
“Your boss.”
“Along with her two sisters, yes.”
“Your boss texts you a lot,” she said after a moment.
He chuckled. “She’s good at what she does, though. I wasn’t sure she would be, at first. Seemed too young to own her own restaurant. But I have to give her props. She’s been in the business one way or another since she was in high school. Her sisters, too. They’re no slouches. What Ashley still lacks, her fiancé makes up for.”
“She’s engaged?”
“To a guy named Rodrigo Mendoza. His family has a winery in Austin. And a successful restaurant.”
She shifted in her seat. “Tell me more.”
“About Rodrigo?”
She huffed. “About Rambling Rose. About your life there.”
“Until recently, there hasn’t been much to tell.”
“How’d you go from studying industrial engineering in New York to managing a restaurant in Texas?” She barely waited a beat. “And don’t say it’s a long story. We’ve got nothing but time on our hands here.”
“Why do you want to rehash the last decade of my life?”
“If we’re talking, you’re not falling asleep at the wheel.”
Like the guy who’d caused her accident, he realized. Point taken. “Wouldn’t you prefer Twenty Questions?”
“As a matter of fact, I would not.”
He killed a few minutes sipping the now-lukewarm coffee while he framed an answer. “It’s not all that complicated. Or that long of a story,” he warned. “I collected a city paycheck that was healthy enough to keep me from starving and I tended bar a few nights a week to save me from boredom.” The problem with rehashing the last decade was picking his way around the part she’d played in the decisions he’d made. “I told you about Gerald Robinson. Learning we were related.”
“Yes.”
“In the process, we learned we had a lot of other relations, too. The number of cousins would—” He shook his head and distilled it down. “It’s pretty astonishing. Anyway, last year, when Kane and Dad and I went to
