A Perfect Storm
Page 15

Jackson had his sympathy. Teasing, Spencer asked, “Were you getting into trouble even then?”
She paused, made a face. “I think mostly he wanted me out of his apartment because I came on to him.”
Flattened, Spencer stood there, mute.
Arizona glanced at him. “Dumb, huh?”
“I never…” He shook himself. “You…?”
“Snap out of it, Spence. Sheesh, I didn’t expect you to get all tongue-tied over sex.”
“Sex?” Had she slept with Jackson then? A red haze gathered in his vision. That son of a—
“Keep up, will you?” She rolled her eyes. “I offered, Jackson refused, and then he was different. Maybe uncomfortable. How should I know?”
“He refused?”
Sighing, a little dreamy, Arizona said softly, “Yeah, he did.”
Suddenly he understood. “You thought to repay him, didn’t you?”
“No. Well…maybe.” She made a face. “Something like that, I guess. But Jackson had this heart-to-heart with me, and he was…kind.”
So kind that he’d packed her off to a stuffy school where she wouldn’t fit in? “Yeah, he’s a prince.”
“I know.” Still wearing that small smile, she said, “I suggested going to a school, but I didn’t expect that school. I just wanted to not be dumb, you know? But we talked about it, and I liked the idea.” She flashed him a look. “I had no idea it’d cost so much, though.”
“Jackson paid for it all?”
“Yeah. Insane, huh?” Going back to the cabinets for tableware, she said, “The way that guy blows money—”
“Think of it as an investment in your future.” If he hadn’t met Jackson, if he didn’t know him as an honorable man in love with a different woman, Spencer might have been a little jealous. Not that he had the right. Not that he even wanted to think along those lines.
But knowing that Arizona had once offered herself to the other man, he couldn’t deny the twinge of resentment. Jackson had done the right thing in turning her down.
And when the time came, he would do the right thing, too. He would do what was best for her.
“That’s almost exactly what Jackson said.”
After stirring the steamed vegetables one more time, Spencer put them in a bowl and carried them to the table. He dropped a potato and one chop on Arizona’s plate, then his own.
He had a lot more questions, but he also wanted to feed her. “What would you like to drink?”
“Milk would be good.”
Why that surprised him, he couldn’t say. “Milk it is.” As he filled her glass, he asked, “So you liked the school?”
“It was okay.” She wrinkled her nose. “Except that they tattled a lot. Their loyalty was to Jackson. I mean, he paid, so that makes sense. But still, I couldn’t even dodge out for a day or two without them telling him.”
Keeping himself in check, Spencer asked, “Why did you dodge out?”
“I get restless.” She eyed her food with significance.
He joined her at the table with a glass of iced tea. “Go ahead. Dig in.”
She surprised him again by showing impeccable manners. She put her napkin in her lap, cut a small piece of her pork chop, chewed quietly.
He took great pleasure in watching her. “Good?”
“Mmm. Delicious.” Her bright gaze went over him. “Sex, cooking, kicking as—er, butt. Is there anything you aren’t good at?”
“Good catch.” She’d almost cursed—and then she would have owed him that kiss. Refusing to acknowledge his disappointment, Spencer forked up a big bite of buttered baked potato. “Don’t take Marla’s word on the sex. As for kicking butt, I can hold my own, but I’ve gotten my fair share of bruises.”
“And modest, too.” She finished another bite. “Why shouldn’t I take Marla’s word?”
“You said it yourself, she has me in her sights. Wouldn’t do her much good to insult me, now, would it?”
“I guess not. But it was more than that. She made it sound like you were something special. Something more than—”
“So…” Finding it prudent to interrupt, Spencer asked, “What did you mean by blending in?”
She stalled, then her slender shoulder rolled. “What did I know of polite society? Even before I got caught up with the traffickers, my family was not what you’d call normal.”
“What would you call them?” he asked gently.
“Hmm. Well, my momma was mostly okay, I guess, except that she drank too often, and she put up with daddy and his cronies. And I can’t tell you much about my dad since I can’t curse.” She grinned. “Let’s just say he wouldn’t win any awards for father of the year.”
“That leaves open a whole lot of possibilities.”
“Yeah, well, figure the worst, and that was my father.” She lifted her glass of milk in salute.
The worst was…awful. But then, he’d already guessed as much.
She didn’t give him time to sympathize. “After the traffickers had me, well, you know how it goes. You get the bare minimum of everything.”
Minimum care, shelter…and food. His heart hurt. “No milk?”
“Not unless a customer gave it to me. And then I always figured it might be drugged or something. There was no real contact with the outside world except during a deal, so I had no way of staying up on current affairs. In other words, I was dumber than a rock, uneducated, uncouth… Even you noticed the way I talk, right?”