“And you still convinced her to stay? You must have a serious way with words.”
“Me? Way with words?” He lifted the backs of his fingers to her forehead as if testing her temperature.
Whitney batted his hand away. “True. I forgot who I was talking to.” With her gaze on Rubi and his mom again, a sly grin edged her mouth up, and Whitney cut her gaze toward Wes with a slight lift of her chin. “This ought to be entertaining. Let’s see if she can slice a few inches of those two.”
Wes hoped it was entertaining in a good way. He’d always believed Rubi could handle herself in any situation, but this new vulnerability around family was more than a little unnerving.
He and Whitney both took a drink from their bottles, watching as his mother introduced Rubi to his cousin Martin—the I-made-partner-last-month-what’s-new-with-you CPA, and his cousin Sam—the check-out-my-latest-Mercedes attorney. Both men, about five years older than Wes, turned from their conversation and focused directly on Rubi with a deer-in-the-headlights sort of shock.
“They’re frothing at the mouth,” Whit said, her voice droll with disgust. “Not a surprising start.”
“Give her a minute,” Wes said. “She likes to make them feel comfortable before she plunges the knife.”
Martin and Sam chatted easily with Rubi for a few moments. Wes caught a word or a phrase, but nothing more. Whitney must have been just as diligently struggling to hear the conversation, because she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and pulled him toward a snack table closer to the group. Wes kept his back that direction, facing Whitney as he speared a piece of salami with a toothpick.
“Russo Industries is owned by my father,” Rubi was saying, “and even though he and I aren’t close at all, he is all over that rig Wes built for Wyatt. It is a truly cutting-edge design, let me tell you. Dolph cherry-picks every project, and when he believes in a product, you can bet he’s going to send that inventor into the stratosphere as a rising star. But I’m having a hard time convincing Wes to entertain the idea. He’s so focused on getting Wyatt back on his feet, selling the rig is the furthest thing from his mind.”
“Fascinating,” Martin said with all his manufactured sophistication. “What would something like that go for? Hypothetically, of course.”
Rubi laughed. “Oh, I couldn’t even fathom. There would be an initial purchase, then typically royalties based on the number of units sold. We’re talking multimillions.”
Wes was imagining the look on his cousins’ pompous faces when Whitney spewed beer across his shirt. He jumped back. “What the—?”
He caught himself before he roared Fuck across the house, brushing at his now wet shirt. Whitney choked on a laugh, one hand covering her mouth.
“I’m fine.” She put up a hand to the observers. “Sorry. Wes just made me squirt beer from my nose laughing. Nothing new.”
Wes glanced over his shoulder and caught Rubi’s eye. The sparkle there sent the message that she knew he was listening and she was having fun.
When she turned away, Wes glanced down at his shirt, then back at Whitney. “What was that about?”
She took a step closer, her eyes watery from holding back laughter. “You should have seen their faces when she said millions. They both went as white as fish bellies.” She pulled herself together, wiping at her eyes, then sobered suddenly and pinned him with a gaze that had a way of being so intense. “Wait, is that true?”
He lifted a shoulder, glanced down at his beer. “She knows better than I do, and she knows her father’s business. But she’s the brilliant one, not me.”
“Not crazy at all,” Rubi was saying. “Wes doesn’t need the work, the money, or the fame. He’s already at the top of the stunt game, getting the best, highest-paying jobs in the industry, working with the top stars. I mean, he got that black eye while he was out with Jason Bolton last week. He works side by side with Jax Chamberlin every day. Tom Cruise, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Vin Diesel, you name a big star, Wes knows them all. He taught freaking Angelina Jolie how to fall off a building and not kill herself.
“Really, how much higher could he go in his chosen field? I mean, he’s working the latest Bond movie now. And we all know only the best of the best are chosen for a Bond film,” she said with authority. “In fact, he’s been asked to act on several occasions—by Daniel Craig himself—but Wes loves the thrill of the stunt more. I really admire that.”
Whitney’s big blue eyes lifted to Wes. “Fuuuuuck,” she whispered. “She’s good. Did you coach her?”
“Oh no. That is all Rubi.”
“Is it true?”
He shrugged, grinned. “She’s taking some creative license.”
“You sure as hell wouldn’t know it.”
“I’m beginning to think she’s a f**king savant.”
Whitney took another sip of beer, watching their mother steer Rubi away from the cousins, who both looked distraught and pissed.
“Okay,” Whit said, “here’s a good test.”
Wes sent a sideways glance toward Rubi as she and his mother approached his father. “Man,” he said, “she’s not wasting any time.”
“Mom likes her,” Whit said, “and believes she can hold her own with Dad, or she wouldn’t introduce them so soon.”
Wes grew a little nervous. Shifted on his feet. “I can’t hear.”
Rubi shook his father’s hand. He didn’t smile—he was a stoic kind of guy—and then crossed his arms. Within thirty seconds, Rubi had their man-of-few-words father talking. Even gesturing.
“Holy shit,” Whitney said, her voice soft and filled with awe. “He’s stringing sentences together. I haven’t seen Dad talk that much since…since…I don’t even know.”
A single surprised laugh popped from Wes’s throat. “Fucking A,” he said. “She’s got him talking about the crops.”
Whitney gave him a what-the-fuck look. “You sure she’s a city girl?”
God, the woman floored Wes. It was always something new with her. “I mentioned on the drive here that he was pissed about a problem with those new sensors he put in. It’s probably a programming glitch; otherwise, I can’t imagine how she got him talking.”
Rubi and his dad were speaking freely now, back and forth. Then she said something that made Dad crack a grin. Then, miracle upon miracles, he laughed. Whitney’s jaw dropped the same time as Wes’s.
Their mother turned her head just enough to catch Wes’s gaze—as if she’d known he’d been watching the whole time—and winked.
“She’s in,” Whitney said, awed disbelief in her voice. “Holy shit, she’s f**king in.” Whitney gripped Wes’s arm, drawing his gaze from the conversation to find Whitney’s eyes intense on him. “I want to know how she did that. I’m giving that trick to my next boyfriend before he meets Dad.”
That hit Wes funny, and he laughed loud and long. Christ, he felt good. So damn happy. So relaxed. So…complete. He turned and glanced at Rubi and found her—and his parents—smiling at him.
When she ended the conversation and started toward Wes, he opened his arm at his side to circle her shoulders. Rubi walked right into the embrace—no hesitation, no veil on that beautiful face. She was open, happy, and calm—at least as far as he could tell.
Wes kissed Rubi’s hair, then lifted his bottle toward his sister. “This is my sister, Whitney.”
Whitney shook Rubi’s hand. “That’s a record,” Whitney said, tilting her head toward her father. “You had him melting in five-point-two minutes.”
Smiling, Rubi asked, “How long does it usually take?”
Wes and Whitney exchanged a glance, grinned, and said, “Years,” at the same time.
That brought a round of laughter. “Welcome, Rubi. You’ve had a long day, so I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.” She set the beer down on the closest table and slapped Wes’s arm. “Good instincts, bro.”
She wandered toward the kitchen, slipped behind the counter, and started cleaning up.
Wes turned and circled Rubi’s waist. “Impressive wouldn’t come close to describing what you just pulled off within twenty minutes of walking in the door.”
“Exhausting might work.” Her gaze lifted from his chest to his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I feel like I’m going to fall over. And I’m dying to lick that beer off your—”
“Sweetheart…” Wes’s mother approached and laid her hand on his back. Rubi bit the inside of her lip but couldn’t completely hide the sexy grin. “Rubi’s got to be tired after her day. Settle her in the guest room on the second floor, would you?”
His gaze searched Rubi’s, but he couldn’t read it. “Mama, I think Rubi might be more comfortable—”
“That sounds blissful,” Rubi said to his mother. “Thank you so much.”
“Absolutely. I’m glad you’re here.” His mother leaned in and gave Rubi an intimate hug. Then turned to Wes with a familiar I-mean-business glance. “You’re in Wyatt’s old room, son.”
Wes did the only thing he could. He nodded with a soft “Yes, ma’am.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Wes’s sweet, reverent words kept playing in Rubi’s head. And kept her smiling.
She lay in the comfy queen bed, surrounded by down pillows, down blankets, and colorful quilts, staring at the ceiling in the dim light cast from the private bathroom. She was overwhelmed by the complex day. She’d gone from nonstop invasions of privacy in LA to a cocoon of safety in Missouri—if not exactly tranquility. Downstairs, things had quieted. The kids had been the first to disappear, then slowly the multiple voices.
In the quiet, without the ocean waves to soothe her, thoughts overwhelmed her mind, emotions swamped her heart. She was truly exhausted but far too wound up to sleep.
She’d had different ideas for unwinding tonight, and they hadn’t included being alone in bed. That little quickie in the car hadn’t been near enough to satisfy her. She was beginning to feel like a nymphomaniac. She’d always walked away from other men satisfied with one f**k. But with Wes, the more she got, the more she wanted.
Rubi picked up her phone on the nightstand and texted Desiree.
RUBI: Can you put in another offer on Dolph’s house?
After a couple of minutes her phone vibrated:
DESIREE: Of course. Same amount as the last offer?
Rubi chewed on her thumbnail a moment.
RUBI: Up it half a million. But that taps me out.
DESIREE: Done.
She rolled to her side and cuddled a pillow close to the front of her body. Nothing would come of the offer, she was sure. But Wes was right; she couldn’t win if she didn’t play. Maybe Dolph would mix up the offers, and Rubi would get it by accident.
A click sounded, and Rubi glanced at the door. Wes slipped into the room—all clandestine and half-naked. Rubi propped herself up on her elbow and took in every last inch of skin above the waistband of his cargo shorts. “There is a God.”
Wes grinned at her with a finger to his mouth, silently shushing her. Took one more glance down the hall and closed the door quietly. He turned toward the bed. “All the relatives are finally gone,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Kitchen’s clean. Whitney took the girls home to Tori and was going to check to see how Wyatt is settling in.” He lifted a knee to the bed, leaned forward, and braced his hands beside her, then bent his elbows to lower himself until his lips barely touched Rubi’s in a tender, lingering kiss. “And Mom and Dad went to bed—right after issuing a stern ‘Stay in your own room, Wesley.’”
Rubi laughed and lifted her hand to stroke his cheek. “Sounds like they expected you to buck the system. My very own rebel.”
“I’ll be anything you want…as long as I’m yours.” Grinning, he slid onto the bed, lying on his side, mirroring Rubi. “You impressed the hell out of my entire family—even the hard-to-impress. I have to know, what were you talking to my dad about? He’s usually a pretty stoic guy.”
“I’m going to help him get his sensor software back online tomorrow.”
Wes’s gaze glittered with a strange mix of emotions that lifted Rubi to the ceiling. Maybe a little awe? A little pride? A little joy? “Crap. You can do that?”
“Silly boy.” Rubi scraped her fingers into his hair and stretched her neck to kiss him again. “I have all kinds of tricks up my sleeve.”
“How did sensors come up, of all things?”
“Your mom. She suggested that I might be able to help him with some problem in the fields. I told them that the extent of my agriculture knowledge was my weekly stroll down the produce aisle at the grocery store. But then he told me about the sensors he’s installed that monitor the soil.
“After he explained how they worked, I knew I could help. The software is open source, free, and written in C. Coding at this level is just a matter of copying and pasting existing code to create what he really needs. Tomorrow, he’s going to watch me add pieces to monitor other things—soil temperature, ammonia levels, moisture levels, and barometric pressure. Then if he wants to add something more later or change the sensors for each crop, he’ll be able to do it himself. It will save him thousands of dollars every year in water and fertilizer and crop yield.”
“Oh my God.” Wes went all drama queen and fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, his voice one of the-world-as-we-know-it-is-over. “You’re going to be his new favorite. That’s so wrong. I’ve been vying for that spot for almost thirty years, and you tango right in and steal it out from under me. Or, well, actually Wyatt.” He turned his head and pointed at her. “But I was getting close to nudging him out.”