Winona slammed her toolbox shut and stood, her eyes narrowed, fingers tight around the handle of herbox. “I could not,” she said, “give a flyingfuckwhat you care about, or what kind of money you have.”
There was venom in her words. She despised rich people. Good. So did I. I never set out to be one, but it made sense I’d turn into someone I loathed. Still, her attitude was impressive. I hadn’t had someone give me this kind of shit in eons.
“Sal would only have hired you if you were the best,” I said. “Why would I want anyone but the best?” Might as well lean into being an asshole. Having her leave here pissed was a win compared to the alternative.
Her jaw clenched, but the tiniest flash of something else showed through, too. Pride? Humility? I wasn’t sure, but it made me want to know more about how someone like her did what she did. How she’d gotten so tough.
But wanting was dangerous.
Finally, I shrugged. “Fine. Do it. Don’t do it. I don’t give a shit.”
She leaned in, and I had to work not to close my eyes at her scent. She smelled like sweat and grease and…flowers.It was the most incongruous thing.
“Assholes like you,” she said, “deserve to lose everything.”
Something inside of me split, like a stitch pulled out of a wound too soon. Not just at her words, but at seeing her look at me like that. Like she was staring the devil in the face.
I popped my jaw. Then I yanked open the door, leaving her there.
I had behaved like a goddamned brute. I knew that. She knew that.
So why the fuck did I suddenly care?
I stormed down the hall, the lights glowing for me as I passed. “Fuck off, Anita,” I growled.
The lights went off.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge, snapping the lid off and tossing it on the ground hard enough that it ricocheted.It hit the side of the island and slid into the hallway I’d just come down. I stared at it a moment, willing myself to let it stay there.
ThenI pictured Winona stomping out of the bathroom, down the hall, and stepping on that thing. She’d slide sideways and smack her head against the floor and?—
“Fuck.” I strode over and swiped the thing up, tossing it hard in the can.
CHAPTER 4
Good Luck Charm
MITCHELL
Islumped down in front of the ancient electric typewriter in my pool house, where I’d set up shop the first week I was here. I brought the beer sweating in my hand to my lips. But I didn’t drink.
A tingling washed over the back of my neck. I’d been stuck on this scene for a week. A hundred false starts spilled out of the trash bin in the corner. I’d had lots of days like this over the past six months. But this was the worst block yet. I needed to write a woman who turned up in my main character’s life who would give him hope for the future. Who’d show him he already knew the way. I hadn’t been able to get a grasp on her at all.
But now, for the first time, a picture of her formed in my mind.
She’d have blonde hair. A mouth I wasn’t sure how she could kiss her mother with. A fire in her eyes and a pulse in her jaw where she bit back what she really thought.
I set the beer down on the desk, where it nearly toppled. I barely noticed. Instead, I shoved a new piece of paper in the machine. Then I began tapping on the keys.
To my astonishment, the words came. They gushed, like water from a broken pipe, until before I knew it, I’d filled three pages with text.
I’d purposefully stayed away while she was leaving. But now, pausing in this obscene burst of words, I pulled out my phone and tapped on my monitoring app, sliding it back by an hour. There, on screen, Winona walked briskly to the front door. She paused, looking over her shoulder. I could sense the way she was still angry from the set in her shoulders. God, those shoulders. Muscular but soft and curved at the same time. Strong but vulnerable.
I tapped to pause the video, zooming in on her face. It blurred up this close, but I could still see the fire in her eyes. The sharp point of that chin. I grazed my thumb over her image.
Then tapped to start playing again.
When she left, she slammed the door behind her. Or tried to. The soft hinges wouldn’t let her, and I actually felt my lips curling up in a smile, imagining how that would probably piss her off even more.
