Road Signs Read online

  Road Signs

  By MJ Fredrick

  Had she misread the signs?

  Briefly captivated by the idea of romance and pretty, shiny weddings, Willow Hawkins agreed to meet her potential boyfriend’s family and quickly realized she’d made a mistake. Stranded in small-town Nowhere, Willow calls her best friend, Cameron Trask, for an escape.

  Even though he’ll miss an important job interview, Cam comes to her rescue. When Willow starts to see Cam with new eyes, she wonders how she’s never made the connection from best friend to best lover. Willow has one chance to help the man she loves—join him on a cross-country road trip to get to the interview on time. On the way they’ll face a jealous puppy, an unreliable automobile and weather that threatens to trap them alone…together.

  The biggest roadblock she’ll come up against? If Cam gets his dream job, Willow may lose him for good.

  Dear Reader,

  A new year always brings with it a sense of expectation and promise (and maybe a vague sense of guilt). Expectation because we don’t know what the year will bring exactly, but promise because we always hope it will be good things. The guilt is due to all of the New Year’s resolutions we make with such good intentions.

  This year, Carina Press is making a New Year’s resolution we know we won’t have any reason to feel guilty about: we’re going to bring our readers a year of fantastic editorial and diverse genre content. So far, our plans for 2011 include staff and author appearances at reader-focused conferences such as the RT Booklovers Convention in April, where we’ll be offering up goodies, appearing on panels, giving workshops and hosting a few fun activities for readers. We’re also cooking up several genre-specific release weeks, during which we’ll highlight individual genres. So far we have plans for steampunk week and unusual fantasy week. Readers will have access to free reads, discounts, contests and more as part of our week-long promotions!

  But even when we’re not doing special promotions, we’re still offering something special to our readers in the form of the stories authors are delivering to Carina Press that we’re passing on to you. From sweet romance to sexy, and military science fiction to fairy-tale fantasy, from mysteries to romantic suspense, we’re proud to be offering a wide variety of genres and tales of escapism to our customers in this new year. Every week is a new adventure, and we want to bring our readers along on the journey. Be daring, be brave and try something new with Carina Press in 2011!

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

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  Dedication

  To Fred, who put up with my crazy NaNoWriMo schedule and glazed expression while I wrote this book.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “So, what do you think?” Patricia DiNorio folded her arms on the split-rail fence and turned her hopeful expression to Willow.

  Willow Hawkins opened and closed her mouth a few times, not certain she had understood the woman correctly. “Jerry is going to live here?” She gestured to the three-story Victorian home in front of her. Would a son want to live right next door to his mother? Not any man she knew.

  “You and Jerry,” Patricia clarified. “Won’t it be wonderful? We’ve already spoken to the bank and gotten preapproved for the loan. Wait until you see inside! There are a few things that need fixing, of course, in a house this old, but I’m sure Jerry can do a lot of the work himself.” She must have seen the doubt in Willow’s expression, because she added, “This is every girl’s dream home.”

  Not hers. Not a Victorian monster with gingerbread trim. No, she liked sleek and modern, and if she was going to buy a house, she was going to pick it out herself, damn it.

  “Just close your eyes,” Mrs. DiNorio urged.

  Willow did what she was told out of instinct more than any desire to humor the woman’s delusions.

  “Now, imagine yourself ten years down the road, your husband and children playing in the yard. Can’t you see it?”

  Ten years down the road. She did want a husband, and children, but the nameless, faceless man she imagined giving piggyback rides to a little blond boy or pushing a little blonde girl wasn’t slender, pale Jerry. No, he was tall, and dark-haired, strong but gentle. Familiar somehow.

  Willow felt herself shaking her head, and opened her eyes. She couldn’t be certain if the woman was serious—after all, she’d only met her a few hours ago, when Willow and Jerry had arrived early for Thanksgiving. This could all be a big joke, right? Mrs. DiNorio had never even spoken to Willow until today. How could she presume to know her taste?

  And for heaven’s sake, though they worked together, Willow had only been on a few dates with Jerry, including one to her friend Judith’s wedding. She admitted to being charmed by him, and maybe a little swept away by wedding fever after seeing how happy Judith was. But no way was she ready to buy a house with Jerry. She shouldn’t even have come home with him for Thanksgiving, she realized now. Her best friend, Cam, had warned her visiting Jerry’s family could be misconstrued. But she’d had no other options, with her mother in Vermont with her new boyfriend, and Cam’s family off to Minnesota to celebrate with his very pregnant sister. Cam had stayed behind, but hadn’t told her why. Nor had he suggested they do Thanksgiving on their own. At loose ends, she’d accepted Jerry’s invitation and now his mother wanted to buy her a house. Was Jerry that hard up for dates?

  She took a step back from Mrs. DiNorio’s too-cheerful face, toward the DiNorio home. Jerry would talk some sense into his mother, no doubt. “You know, I think Jerry mentioned meeting up with some of his friends before dinner,” she said. “I should get ready.”

  “Don’t you want to see the inside of the house? I have the key.” Mrs. DiNorio dangled it in front of her.

  Willow took another backward step. “No, that’s okay.”

  Mrs. DiNorio lowered her hand to her side, her smile dimming only a little. “I understand. You want to see it with Jerry for the first time. I can understand that completely.”

  That wasn’t it at all, but Willow didn’t argue as long as it would aid her escape. “I’ll just—” She pointed at the DiNorio home to telegraph her intention, then pivoted and willed herself not to run away. She would get Jerry to talk to his mother, to make him see what they had wasn’t serious. It wasn’t…anything but a mistake.

  “Jerry, you might want to talk to your mom,” she said as they drove in his sedan to the bar where they’d meet up with his friends. She wasn’t wild about heading to a bar at four in the afternoon, but most of his friends had plans tonight, and this was the only time they could meet. “I don’t think she has the right idea about us.”

  “What idea would that be?”

  “Well, she tried to put us in the same room and we haven’t slept together,” she reminded him.

  He lifted a shoulder. “She’s just trying to show she’s modern.”

  Willow found her anything but, though her concerns were interrupted when Jerry swung the car into a parking lot and greeted two men getting out of another vehicle.

  Soon Willow found herself
in the center of a sports bar, surrounded by the glories of Jerry’s high school football career and his former teammates, all of whom were watching her like a pack of hungry wolves. She could almost see the gleam of saliva on their teeth. And Jerry—Jerry had his arm draped over her shoulder, his hand dangling over her right boob so that, at any moment, she expected he’d give it a honk, just to show his possession. Her back hurt from leaning away from the curl of his fingers. Every word out of his mouth was accompanied by his warm yeasty breath against her cheek, and the words themselves… Man, she had really screwed up, thinking she knew him.

  “Sweetheart, could we get a couple more beers over here?” Jerry leaned past her to ask the blonde bartender. He didn’t say it in the charming way some men did, with a sexy purr. No, his words had a layer of condescension that Willow hoped the bartender didn’t pick up on.

  “Then you could bring yourself over,” one of his friends, Steve, added with a leer. All the men laughed as though it was the most original statement ever.

  Willow met the blonde’s eyes and mouthed, “Sorry.” The bartender just rolled her eyes as if she was used to it.

  The phone in Willow’s pocket buzzed, giving her an excuse to pull away from the group. She ducked from under Jerry’s arm, drawing the phone out. She glanced at the unfamiliar number, then remembered that Mr. LeFleur, her boss at the ad company where she and Jerry worked, had awarded her the campaign for a hotel chain hoping to revitalize its image. He’d warned her that the hotel’s new CEO was a workaholic, but so was Willow, so she hadn’t minded. Success on this project meant a good influx of cash into their small agency, putting it in the black for the first time since the recession started, which might mean a promotion for her. She hadn’t expected a call until the weekend was over, however.

  She strode quickly toward the door, answering only when she could hear herself think over the clacking billiards, men shouting at the basketball game on TV and the pervasive country music underlying it all.

  “Willow Hawkins,” she said, one hand on the door.

  “Willow, this is Gwyn Liedka, from Nightingale Hotels.”

  No apology for calling the night before a holiday, but Willow let it go.

  “I just wanted to touch base with you on the design you sent over. I’m very pleased with it, but—”

  Willow didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. A hand gripped her shoulder and turned her around. She looked into Jerry’s frowning face.

  “A client,” she mouthed, but maybe he couldn’t see her in the darkened parking lot. She held out a hand for him to wait, then covered her ear to better hear the tail end of Gwyn’s sentence.

  “…image we want to project. More upbeat and modern, you know?”

  “I do know,” Willow said, though she had no idea.

  Jerry held out a hand. For a moment, Willow stared at it until he made a “give me” motion with his fingers. She raised her gaze to his, unable to believe he could really mean what she thought. He wanted her phone? Oh, hell, no. She lifted her eyebrows in a challenge. He wouldn’t really ask for it.

  He didn’t. He just plucked it out of her hand. Willow stared as he snapped it closed and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

  “Come on, Willow,” he cajoled. “We’re here to have fun.”

  Her nostrils flared. She couldn’t remember ever being so angry, so humiliated. The rage rolling through her stole her breath, and her eyes burned from what she suspected might be tears. Jerry of all people should know how important clients were to their agency. She wanted to rip his pocket off and shove it in his mouth.

  “Please give me my phone,” she said through her teeth.

  He inclined his head in a condescending manner. Screw his pocket. She wanted to rip off his face. “Do you promise not to use it again tonight?”

  “Jerry, that was my new client.” A horrid thought occurred to her. Was Jerry jealous that Mr. LeFleur had assigned her to this account? Willow had been with the company longer, and Gwyn Liedka had indicated she wanted to work with a woman.

  “She can wait.” Though he was smiling, there was an edge in his voice.

  That put her back up. She stepped toward him, her hand extended in an imitation of his earlier gesture. “Jerry. Give me my phone.”

  His jaw set stubbornly and for a moment she thought he’d refuse. She’d seen that expression before, regularly, on the face of her mother’s controlling second husband, Tucker. Her stomach churned. She couldn’t put herself in the same situation that had made both her mother and her so miserable. She would fight to make sure it never happened.

  Finally he drew the phone out of his pocket and offered it with a stiff grin. “No more business this weekend, all right?”

  Ignoring him, hating herself for being such a fool, for taking her eyes off her goal and giving into emotions sparked by Judith’s wedding, she turned and strode back into the bar.

  “Cam, I need you to come get me.” Willow pressed a hand to one ear and her cell phone to the other. She’d pled a headache to get Jerry to bring her back to his parents’, and he’d been so solicitous, she’d been afraid she’d have to sneak out the window in order to use her phone. Instead, she’d slipped out the front door while his mother was preparing dinner.

  On the other end of the phone, Cameron Trask grunted, signaling that he’d just woken up. He must be working nights again. “Where are you?”

  “Triple Creek, Wisconsin. Jerry’s parents’ house.”

  She heard rustling through the phone. Him getting out of bed, maybe. She hoped he was alone. “What happened?” he asked, his voice more alert, tinged with concern.

  “I just—I can’t stay. I’ll explain when you get here. Please?” She held her breath, waiting for his answer. Yes, she was asking him to drive three hours in the snow the day before Thanksgiving. She was out of options. Triple Creek didn’t have an airport or bus station. The town boasted only two cabs, and neither would drive her back to Illinois, or even to the next town to rent a car. Though she and Cam IM’d at least once a day and talked on the phone at least once a week, she hadn’t seen him in weeks. Both of them were too wrapped up in their jobs. But he had been her best friend since third grade. He would do this for her.

  “Triple Creek?” he asked.

  She heard the familiar squeak of his computer chair, the tapping of his fingers on the keys of his computer. “It’s just over the border,” she told him.

  “I see it on the map. It’s a speck.”

  “Which is why you’re my only choice. I can’t get out of here any other way. And believe me when I say I need to get out of here.”

  “It’s about two hundred miles, Will. I won’t be there in the next five minutes.”

  “I know.” She bounced on her toes and hugged herself, both against the cold and the uncertainty that he would let her stay here with her mistake. She scrambled for something, anything, to convince him. “Look, I’ll pay for gas, food, everything. Anything. You have to get me out of here.” She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one had come out of the house. “He’s more like Tucker than I thought.” She closed her eyes, waiting for Cam’s I-told-you-so.

  Instead of gloating, he sighed. “I’ll call when I leave Illinois.”

  Relief sent a wave of warmth through her. Trust Cam to come to her rescue. “Thank you, Cam. I owe you.”

  “Don’t forget it,” he said, but his tone was light.

  Willow hung up and squared her shoulders as she faced the door leading back into Jerry’s parents’ house. She didn’t want to do this, but running off without a word was immature. After all, she’d have to face Jerry again on Monday.

  Jerry opened the door, startling her, slapping his hands over his chest as if he’d been the one standing on the porch instead of her.

  “What are you doing out here? It’s got to be thirty degrees out.” He reached out and she fought every instinct to flinch when he caught her arm and drew her inside. “Come on, Mom wants to get to know you better.”
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  She couldn’t bear the thought of letting them think for another minute that she was going through with this relationship. She took a deep breath as he propelled her forward, and hoped Cam would hurry.

  Cam stood in the middle of his apartment, hands on his hips as he tried to figure out what to do. He had planned to leave tonight on the train to Seattle. He hadn’t told Willow he’d sold his car and now took public transportation, because sometimes he sensed she was impatient with his attempt to reduce his carbon footprint. So how was he supposed to ride to her rescue?

  Then there was Libby. The poor girl had warmed his bed all day, and he couldn’t leave her here. But how could he take her with him? She watched him now with those big brown eyes, head tilted to one side as if she sympathized with his dilemma.

  But Willow was in trouble. She never asked for help—for his help anyway—and while he’d finally taken steps to get on with his life, to get her out of his system once and for all, he couldn’t leave her in the lurch. He’d tried to make the separation gradual, cutting down on their face-to-face meetings by claiming work, reducing the number of their phone calls, limiting their interactions to IM. That way he wouldn’t see her face, hear her voice, and lose his resolve to take charge of his life. But now she needed him.

  He’d loved her since high school, though she’d never seen him as more than her best friend.

  An idea popped into his head, so clearly the answer he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Okay, he probably hadn’t thought of it before because Brian would kill him. But Brian was out of town, already on his way to Melanie’s for Thanksgiving. He wouldn’t know. A six-hour round trip, maybe. Nothing would happen to Brian’s precious classic car. Then Cam could catch the train tomorrow. He’d be cutting his schedule a bit close, but this was Willow.

  Feeling lighter, he straightened his shoulders and considered Libby, still sitting among the rumpled bedclothes. She would be a more difficult issue. Because the eight-month-old puppy, half pug and half Chihuahua, was spoiled and used to getting her way, she’d stayed with him while the rest of the family traveled to Minnesota. His plan was to ditch her with the neighbors tomorrow night, but they weren’t home now. He hoped they’d be back by the time he returned with Brian’s Chevelle.