Home Sweet Gnome (14 page)

My cell rang from my purse. “Get that, will you?”

JT pulled it out, looked at the screen. “Goldie,” he muttered.

“Put it on speaker.”

“What happened to the side of the RV?” she asked.

I glanced at JT. “What do you mean?” I asked warily.

“It looks like you struck an iceberg.”

“Where are you?”

“A few hours from Fargo.”

“Then how—”

“You’ve gone viral. That RV is all over Facebook and Twitter. Seriously, Daphne, if you wanted to go all stealth with this Silky Tangles thing, it’s over now. The cat’s out of the bag.”

“Speaking of cats,” JT said. “Tell Esther she forgot something.”

“I’m not Silky Tangles,” I ground out through clenched teeth.

“Whatever,” Goldie said like a teenager. “Is that George the Gnome in the windshield? How on earth did it get there?”

“How viral are we talking?” JT asked, skipping the gnome question.

“You’re just passing mile marker twenty-three in Wyoming.”

“Holy shit,” he muttered, not realizing the abilities of social media.

“I can’t sell the RV with that damage,” Goldie added. “It does look like a unicorn.”

“You dented the front of it way before the iceberg incident,” I countered.

She didn’t respond for a moment. “Just don’t let all this publicity slow you down. You’ve got to be here tomorrow night, remember. Velma and Esther are going to lose it if you don’t get here in time.” I heard grumbling through the phone.

“The traffic is terrible, so I’ll try my best,” I countered. We were still over an hour from Sturgis and the road was like LA at rush hour.

“All right, I’ll let you go. But, Daphne, change your shirt. If you’re going to be on Facebook, you need to at least show a little cleavage.”

Goldie hung up and JT tossed my phone back into my bag and said, “She’s right. A little cleavage would be good.”

***

“This isn’t going to work,” JT muttered as we pulled into a rest area for a pee break. It had taken us an hour to get fifteen miles. The Sturgis Rally was so popular, so big, the roadways were inundated. We’d just crossed into South Dakota, but at this rate, we were never going to make it to Sturgis.

Because of the traffic, I hadn’t known we were being followed. This wasn’t James Bond style followed, this was Silky Tangles style followed. When we parked at one of the in and out spots, so did about fifty motorcycles and a few cars.

“You can’t go out there,” JT warned. “I can’t protect you in the ladies’ room.”

“I have to pee.”

“Screw Goldie’s rule on the stupid bathroom. No one’s going to buy this wreck now anyway.”

I glanced at the crowd outside, then at JT. “You’re right.”

I climbed from my seat and made my way to the tiny bathroom. When I emerged, JT was on the phone. “I know. Yes. You’ve seen it. It is not a unicorn horn, it’s a garden gnome. Why?” JT was in the recliner, slouched in the way only men could. His tone was tired, but resolved. “Shit, I forgot about the bike. Forget it. I’ll get it fixed when you get back home.”

He threw the phone in his lap, looked up at me. “I locked the outside door, in case someone gets a little fan crazy.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, grabbing a soda from the mini-fridge. I offered it to him, but he shook his head. I sat down at the table.

“I can’t leave you.”

I popped the top and looked at him, eyes wide. “Some women would love to hear you say that to them.”

He ignored my words. “This is insane. Have you looked out the window?”

I pulled down a slat on the metal blinds behind my head. “Oh shit.”

We were practically surrounded. Motorcycles and cars were parked every which way, people standing around talking, taking pictures.

“The traffic is only getting worse and once we get to Sturgis, it’ll be so crowded you’ll never be able to leave town. Hell, you’ll never be able to leave the RV. This thing isn’t very subtle. You can’t fend off these fans yourself.”

“I can just tell them I’m not Silky Tangles,” I replied.

He gave me the look as if I had lost my mind. “That didn’t work for me.”

“You believe me?” I asked.

“Look, it doesn’t matter if I believe it or not. It doesn’t matter what I think about you or this situation. We’ve entered some alternate universe. I feel like I’m in
Planet of the Apes
.”

I wouldn’t take the situation that far, but then again, he wasn’t the one who looked like a porn star. Well, he
looked
like a porn star, all hot and gorgeous and rugged and all, but people weren’t showing his picture all over Facebook.

“We’re not going to Sturgis.”

I put down the can. “What? Why?”

“Because I can’t let you deal with this on your own.” He waved his hand around the RV.

“What about Sarah, the dentist?”

He sighed. “There’s always a Sarah somewhere.” I didn’t really like the sound of that, but who was I to judge? I wasn’t a hit with finding a man either—Silky’s thousands of followers aside. “Besides, I was kissing you a little while ago, not Sarah, and I want to do it again.”

“What are you saying?”

“We’re going to Fargo.”

***

By eight that night, we pulled into a campground in western North Dakota. Fortunately, the few other people staying didn’t appear to be connected to the internet, or maybe there wasn’t wifi, because besides strange looks at the state of the RV, no one recognized me. Also good news was the showers. I stood beneath the hot spray to wash off not only the miles of traveling, but also the night in jail as well. The rustic shower was infinitely better than in the RV; the bathroom was so small I couldn’t lift my arms up over my head to wash my hair.

When I got back to the RV, JT was tilting a bottle of liquor into a hole he’d cut into the watermelon. “It’s like being in college again,” he said. His hair was still damp from his own shower. He’d changed into a pair of cargo shorts and a gray MSU T-shirt. His feet were bare and his smile was relaxed.

“How much have you had to drink already?” I asked. He looked too at ease with our situation to be completely sober.

“Let’s just say I found Esther’s secret ingredient.” He grinned and I couldn’t help but smile back.

I’d never seen him this way. Ever since the first time I saw him he was tense or aggravated or frustrated. Or all of the above. Moody JT was pretty hot, but laid back JT was working for me, too. Once the bottle was empty, he pulled it from the hole and shoved it into the corner by the toaster oven. Yanking open drawers, he found a knife, then set to cutting a section off the rind, forming a great big bowl.

The knife was tossed into the tiny sink and he pulled two spoons from another drawer, handing one to me. Sliding in beside me at the table, he pulled the watermelon in front of us.

“Cheers.”

He scooped out a piece of dripping watermelon and ate it. I watched as he grimaced, then swallowed. I took a chunk of fruit myself and put it in my mouth. The secret ingredient most assuredly was grain alcohol because I swear I breathed out fumes of jet fuel.

“Holy crap, that’s strong.”

“Slides down smooth,” JT replied. “You know, I was thinking about your problem.”

I arched a brow. “Problem?” Which one?

“Why don’t you just get your own place in Bozeman? I mean, you’re old enough not to live with Velma anymore.”

I scooped up some more watermelon. “True.”

“Your aunt is pretty crazy, but I’d think if you lived in town, but not
with
her, she’d be less…intense.”

“Like Goldie, you mean.”

He pointed his spoon at me, then poked the watermelon. “Goldie might be a little wacky, but you’ll never hear me talk bad about her. The way she helped me with my dad—well, she went above and beyond. I won’t forget that.”

“Like how Aunt Velma took me in.”

“You sound like you were an outcast or something.”

The alcohol was starting to make my blood a little sludgy, my body relaxed, everything warm. And JT, he was starting to look mighty fine. “Not an outcast really, more like a cast-off.”

“Have you seen your parents since?” He watched me closely, all of his usual angst toward me gone. At least for the moment.

“No. Last I heard they were in Europe somewhere. I’m sure Aunt Velma heard from them when I was young. I never asked, so she never told.”

“It’s not your fault they were terrible parents. It’s also not your fault Velma’s wacky.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “She doesn’t need any help from me to be crazy. She was that way before I was born.”

“Then give her a chance. On your terms.”

I swallowed another bite of watermelon. “What about you?”

He put his hand to his chest. “Me?”

“Yeah, you. Why don’t you take a chance on someone who’s not perfect?”

“No one’s perfect, Daphne.”

“Silky Tangles is perfect, because she’s not real. Everyone can fantasize about her, love her. Wish they were with her in bed. But the real Silky is probably just this woman with a really good stylist who has issues of her own. Bad boyfriends, crazy relatives. She might even get PMS like the rest of us women.”

JT cringed. “No way.”

“Way. If I were Silky Tangles, wouldn’t I look like this if I weren’t on scene? Wouldn’t I eat a liquored-up watermelon? Wouldn’t I want to kiss a normal guy like you?”

JT’s eyebrows went up. “You want to kiss me?”

I shrugged, modest all of a sudden.

“What’s this about normal?” he kidded. “There are places on me I can guarantee
aren’t
normal.”

I bet. Oh yeah. I bet he was way more than normal in some places.

***

I awoke to the sun shining in my eyes. Wincing, I put the pillow over my head and sighed. It was then I felt the arm over my waist and a body spooning me from behind. The more I felt, the more I realized that it was
skin
I felt against me. Warm skin over very hard muscles. There was one other thing that was hard and it was pressing against my butt.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, trying to slip out from beneath JT’s arm. There wasn’t much room to maneuver and I couldn’t just slide off the bed. The mattress abutted the sides of the RV. As I turned to look at JT—whose naked chest had a very nice smattering of dark hair across it—his eyes weren’t the ones staring back at me. Perched ridiculously on JT’s hip was Tigger, watching me with his weird cat eyes.

I froze, hoping he wasn’t going to hiss and dig his little cat claws into JT’s hip and butt, even through the blanket. “Shoo,” I whispered, flicking my fingers of one hand as I held up the corner of the sheet over me as best I could with the other.

Nothing. The cat didn’t even blink.

JT stirred then, his eyes opening and awareness made them open all the way.

“Don’t move,” I said, my voice low.

He grinned. “No problem.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t meant
that.
” I pointed at Tigger.

JT sucked in a breath and held it. “Go on, kitty. Nice kitty,” he said in a calm, soothing voice.

“Turn or something,” I said.

“If I turn one way, he’s going to poke holes in my ass with his claws. If I turn the other way—”

The cat hopped down off JT’s hip, rubbed up against his blanket-covered legs. I swear I heard it purr before it hopped down and went out the door.

We both exhaled, then I slammed the door shut, us on one side, the feral, schizophrenic cat on the other.

“This is a good sign, you shutting us in bed together.” JT’s voice was rough, his hair tousled, his eyes sleepy.

“We are naked,” I hissed.

Now he grinned. “I can see that.” His eyes moved down my body. While the front half of me was covered with the sheet, the back half was completely exposed to him.

I hopped back on the bed and beneath the covers to hide.

“This is even better.”

“Why are we naked?”

“I have no idea, but it works for me.”

“You don’t remember either?”

“The last thing I remember about last night was…” He thought for a minute. “We were talking about flour versus corn tortillas.”

“Flour…wait, I do remember that. Then you said something about how cilantro was like eating fermented grass. Then it’s all fuzzy from there for me.”

“Esther’s moonshine has some kick.”

“Yeah, but right out of our clothes? JT, I hardly know you.” My inner slut was fighting with the good girl within me. I turned on my side to face him, the sheet covering me up to my chin. Unfortunately, the more I tugged, the less that covered JT. Oh my.

“When put in difficult situations, people often get closer much faster than usual.”