Raising the Stakes

“Actually, that happened to me once. I was driving along and suddenly my tru—my car started to make funny noises. I coaxed it along for a couple of blocks but it finally died, right outside a station.”

“Ah.” Gray smiled over the rim of his coffee container. “A well trained… Did you say truck?”

“No,” she said quickly, “I said car.”

He knew she’d started to say “truck.” He thought about Queen City, about the parking lot outside the Victory Diner where he’d met with Harman. It was easy enough to imagine a truck in that place but difficult to imagine the woman opposite him behind the wheel. She looked too urbane, too fragile; she looked like a woman who had never seen a hick town or a pickup cab in her life.

“And what was wrong with it?”

“Sorry?”

“Your car. Cars. The one that broke down near a station and the one that died in the middle of the desert yesterday.”

“Oh.” She sipped her coffee, and he had the feeling she was sorry she’d mentioned the service station incident. “I just ran out of gas, that other time.” Ran out, and had no money to fill the tank. Harman doled out only enough money for groceries, and he was the one who had driven the truck dry but when she’d phoned and said she was out of gas, he’d been furious…

“Miss Carter?”

Dawn blinked. Gray Baron was looking at her and smiling, but there was an intensity in his eyes that made her uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” she said briskly. “I was just thinking that I don’t seem to have much luck with cars. It’s a good thing you came along yesterday, or I might still be standing on that street.”

“Desert,” he said solemnly. “Just picture it the way it was not too many years ago. Sand and cactus, buzzards and rattlers…”

She laughed. “I get the feeling you don’t like the desert. Were you born in one of those green, leafy parts of Texas?”

He was baffled, but only for a second. Then he recalled how neatly she’d managed to place his accent.

“Yes, I guess you’d say that. Austin. Well, near Austin. Do you know the area?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, it’s green.” He grinned. “But it’s still Texas, where men are men and cows are cows, and anybody who doesn’t wear boots is pretty much an alien species. What about you?”

“What about…? Oh. I’m from a lot of places. We moved around a lot when I was growing up.” She took a paper napkin from the plastic container centered on the table and touched it to her lips. “Well, this was really very nice, Mr. Baron.”

“Gray, please.”

“Gray. It was a nice break.”

“For me, too.”

“And I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I mean, having coffee turned out to be—”

“Nice.”

“Yes. It was…” She blushed. “Mr. Baron. Gray. Look, I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for what you did, but—but I’m not very good at this.”

Gray caught hold of her hand as she began to stand up. “At what?”

She took a deep breath. “Never mind. The point is, as I already told you, I don’t date guests.”

“You also said it wasn’t against hotel policy.”

“That’s right.” Carefully she disengaged her hand from his.

“But you do date.”

“Yes,” she said, lying through her teeth, “of course, but—”