Love, All (Camp Firefly Falls Book 19) Read online

  She ripped open the packet and unfurled the string inside, putting the two ends together, and running the doubled-over string through her hand, checking for kinks and knots before she got started in earnest.

  As he watched her push the strings through the first two grommets at the throat of the racquet, though, he realized that if she knew what she was doing, this wasn’t going to take a ton of time. That became even more apparent as she clamped, switched to the other side, pulled tension, clamped again, and repeated the process. She’d be through the mains in no time and switch to the crosses. He needed to get to the bottom of this.

  Ruby tied off one side of the mains, her knots quick and sure. He’d never found stringing a racquet—whether it was him or someone else doing it—to be alluring in any way, but when she tugged hard on that second knot, something in his stomach tightened as though she were pulling on it. Dammit.

  Then she moved to switch the clamps to do the crosses. Luckily those took longer than the mains because you had to weave them through, but he didn’t expect her to be clumsy and fumble through this part. Nope, she’d be as ruthless and talented at the more challenging part of stringing his racquet as she was at everything else, he was sure.

  “I don’t mean to be that guy—”

  Ruby tied off her starting knot, making it look easy, and then started weaving. One hand under the racket and one hand over, she used her middle fingers to steer the string over and under the mains, and it obeyed her as though she was some sort of snake charmer. Holy hell, she was good at this.

  “Then don’t be that guy,” she said, not looking up, but keeping her focus on the task at hand. It half-pleased him—she wasn’t going to screw up stringing his racquet because she’d gotten distracted—but it was also half-maddening. He wanted her to look at him. It seemed as if it was harder for her to be mad at him—and for fuck’s sake, why was she mad?—when she was looking at him.

  “I don’t…” For the most part, he was chill. He’d led a damn charmed life and hadn’t had to worry about much. It was easy to think well of yourself when the whole world had told you that you’re pretty great and you believe it because you’ve got all the trappings to show for it. Good job? Check. Decent enough looks? Check. Degrees from some great schools? Check. And usually when people didn’t like him, he didn’t worry about it. Not everyone did, but he assumed most people would because he was a good guy. It was a simple matter to move on. Usually. The brush-off he got from some people who couldn’t see past the good-time guy to realize that, when push came to shove, he’d do whatever the situation called for? It rubbed him the wrong way, sure, but until it happened again, he could usually move past it. But Ruby?

  Her disapproval was really sticking in his craw.

  “Did I do something to upset you?”

  “No.” Thread, thread, thread, another cross finished.

  “I didn’t know you’d be here. I wasn’t being some kind of stalker.”

  “I didn’t think you were.” She pulled the tension and started threading again.

  “Then I’m really not sure why you’re mad at me.”

  “I’m not.”

  She finished the last cross and tied off, her knot effortless and so close to the frame that it was a thing of beauty. He couldn’t have strung it any better himself. She took the racquet off the stringer and held it up to look for any mistakes or damage to the frame, but she wasn’t going to find any. Sure enough, she gave it a thorough once-over, then handed it back to him and tossed him the box for the strings, too. He caught it against his chest and stood there, not knowing what to say. He wasn’t going to try to tell this woman her own mind. He’d learned not to do that well enough from his mom and his sister and Van, and besides it was a dick move.

  Ruby put the cover back on the stringer and then walked past him toward the stairs, carefully keeping space between them so they didn’t touch, despite the space not being large. “Bring those to the register and tell Tommy you’re from Camp Firefly Falls. The Tullys send us enough business that we give you guys a discount.”

  “Okay, but…”

  “Just go, Nate. Please.”

  She’d folded her arms across her chest and wasn’t looking at him. When he didn’t move, she flung her arm toward the staircase and made her eyes big in the universal symbol for, Won’t this dude get a clue.

  Even though he didn’t want to—it was the last thing he wanted to do—he took the hint and jogged down the stairs toward the registers and Tommy, whoever that was. Maybe the kid who he’d talked to in the first place.

  It didn’t sit right with him, though, so at the bottom of the stairs, he made an about-face and took the steps two at a time back up to where Ruby was about to walk into a storeroom of some sort.

  “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. Maybe you’re having a bad day or maybe I did something shitty that I’m not aware of, but I like you. I know we didn’t spend so much time together, but I find you really attractive and I’d like to get to know you better if you’ll let me. Can I take you out sometime? I hear Boone’s isn’t so bad. Or any place you want. Hell, come over to the camp sometime, and I’ll sneak you into the dining hall. You know Ginger makes a good meal. Just, please, give me a shot. I’ll provide you with references if it’ll make you feel better, but I swear, I really am a stand-up guy.”

  Chapter Eight

  The overwhelming urge to say yes slammed into her.

  Say yes—what would be the harm? Say yes—you like him and find him attractive too, and the sex was smoking hot. Say yes—what could possibly go wrong?

  All of which was well and good, but A) she had no time for this man between her three jobs and her kid, B) they’d have a great summer and then he’d leave and she’d be sad, and C) she didn’t need the town giving her pitying looks, especially after Nate went back to wherever he was from. It would be like when Tony had left all over again. Except he wouldn’t have put a ring on her finger and gotten her pregnant and then decided to head out when small-town life hadn’t proved as charming as he thought it would be. Wouldn’t make a difference to anyone in Briarsted, the talk would be the same. “That Ruby is pretty. I wonder why she can’t seem to keep a man?” She did not need any of that bullshit in her life, dammit. Not a lick.

  Which was why her face ended up in her palms briefly before she scrubbed her hands over her cheeks and shook her head.

  “No, Nate. And you’re losing your good-egg status by standing here and arguing with me about this. Take no for an answer, please. I don’t owe you jackshit, and if you don’t leave now, I’m going to have to ask my boss to escort you out.”

  Oh, Jim Landry was an easygoing guy for the most part, and he had more tolerance for people harassing his staff than she would’ve liked, but if she called him, he’d come.

  She was getting ready to reach for the phone on the wall to call Mr. Landry over the loudspeaker when Tommy came hustling back up the stairs. He stopped at the top, looked between the two of them, and she had to wonder what the kid saw. No way could he guess what precisely was going on, but it sure as hell felt as though he could.

  “What?” Okay, she shouldn’t snap. She’d apologize later, once she’d dealt with this Nate debacle. If Tommy’d even noticed. He could be a little obtuse when it came to human interactions.

  “Chloe’s on the phone, said it’s important.”

  Ruby’s chest tightened the same way it always did when there was any hint of her kid being in trouble. Calls from school? Calls from pretty much any unknown number? That was always her first thought—Chloe’s not okay. As if she needed any more proof that she didn’t have time for Nate, here it was, calling her on the phone.

  She didn’t bother to excuse herself as she took a few long strides to the phone on the wall and picked up the handset. “Chloe? Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  That assurance eased the tightening in her chest but begged another question. “Then why did Tommy tell me it was important?�
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  “He’s not great with sarcasm.”

  That was certainly true. He was a good kid, hard worker, but he didn’t always catch humor or social cues.

  “So what do you need?”

  “Can you pick up some ramen on the way home? I just ate the last shrimp one and you know that’s my favorite.”

  Really? She wanted to be irritated, but it had saved her an awkward confrontation with Nate.

  “If it’s on sale, I’ll pick some up.”

  “But, Mom—”

  “No. ‘But, Mom’ nothing. We already spent the grocery money for the week, and we don’t have extra floating around right now since we’re saving up for camp. If they’re on sale, I’ll get you a few packages, but if they’re not, then you’ll have to make do with the beef or the chicken. Sorry, Chloe-bear, but that’s how things are right now.”

  “Okay.”

  She hated this. Hated telling her kid that she might be able to pick her up a few lousy packs of noodles, but only if they were on sale. It’s not as though she was asking for a bicycle or a video game system or something that would cause any family to pause. No, it was fucking ramen noodles, and she hated that Chloe was so used to it that she understood why she couldn’t have some thirty-cent noodles. Her eyes watered, and she wanted to throw shit. Break the expensive racquets over the railing, rip the packages of string from the pegboard and unfurl them all.

  But she couldn’t because then she’d be totally and utterly fucked. She couldn’t afford to lose this job, and she couldn’t afford to pay Jim Landry back for anything she might break. So she swallowed her tears past the lump in her throat and made her voice falsely chipper to leave on a good note before hanging up.

  “Okay. I should be home around five forty-five. I’ll see you then. Love you.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  And then she hung up, hoping Nate would’ve gone on his merry way by the time she did, but of course, she wasn’t that lucky.

  She gave him the darkest look she could summon, even though she felt more like a weepy rain cloud than a forbidding storm accompanied by thunder. What she wouldn’t give to have someone whose shoulder she could cry on. She had friends, sort of, but they didn’t understand how dire her circumstances were and poverty was fucking isolating. She couldn’t grab a movie or a beer whenever she felt like it, and by the end of most days, she was too tired to want to do that anyway.

  And Nate Carter, with his fancy tennis racquet and his playing with robots at some job that let him take summers off? He definitely wouldn’t understand. Probably not even long enough to have a summer fling, so she should get rid of him once and for all.

  “I have a kid, okay? She’s ten. She’s smart, and she’s funny, and she does well in school. She loves to ride horses, and her instructor says she shows some real potential. I have a kid, and I don’t think that really fits in with whatever kind of summer fling you were planning on with skinny-dipping or making out on a blanket under the fireworks, or whatever the hell you people do over at that camp. You don’t seem like the type of guy who eats at places with kids’ menus, nor do you seem like the kind of guy who wants to trade in the title of Ladies’ Man for Dad. So go away, and don’t make this any harder on me than it has to be.”

  ***

  Of everything he thought Ruby might say, telling him she had a kid wasn’t one of them. Although things made a lot more sense now. Ruby had a kid. None of his friends had kids yet. Hell, most of his friends weren’t married yet. He didn’t spend a lot of time with kids and his memories of being ten were pretty fuzzy. What was that, fifth grade?

  It made sense why she thought he wouldn’t want to date her—which he still totally did, because having a kid didn’t make her any less badass or pretty. Plus, he liked mac and cheese and dino nuggets as much as anyone, probably more, so that whole kids’ menu thing wasn’t really a threat—but he didn’t understand why she didn’t want to date him.

  Ruby was standing there, hands clenched at her sides, her nostrils flaring because she was breathing hard. He wanted to make her feel better, and he still wanted to take her out. That’s what babysitters were for, right? And she’d said, “don’t make this any harder on me than it has to be,” which he was pretty sure meant that she in fact did want to go out with him, she just thought it was a bad idea. Well, it wasn’t. It was a fucking awesome idea.

  “I’m not sure what you having a kid has to do with us going out. It doesn’t make you any less appealing. I’d still like to take you out to dinner or something. I haven’t thought all that much about dating someone who had kids because it hasn’t come up, but you’re not a different species or anything. You still like eating, right? I mean, granted, I know jackshit about being a parent, but I’m pretty sure they still eat.”

  He gave her what he hoped was a charming smile, and she didn’t punch him, so he’d call that a win and press on.

  “It’s not like dating is getting married. It doesn’t have to be a big thing—it can be casual.”

  And that, that right there, was when Ruby looked as though she might actually punch him.

  “Dating isn’t casual for single parents. We can have one hot night because I have needs, and I do find you attractive, Nate Carter. But I don’t have the time or the energy to spare to date some guy who’s bailing at the end of the summer.”

  “Who said anything about bailing?”

  What was it about people always thinking he would give up as soon as the going got tough? Or that he was just a second from walking away? Sure he took advantage of the freedom he had—exhibit A, being a tennis instructor for the summer instead of toiling away in his office building—but he wasn’t a flake. Well, he didn’t have to be, anyway. Georgina and Graham Carter wouldn’t let one of their offspring get away with that. He could be a little lazy sometimes—if someone else wanted to do the heavy lifting, he’d let them—but never had he bailed on something that was his responsibility. Ever. And being accused of it got his hackles up.

  Ruby shook her head, her jaw set and her expression rueful. “You don’t have to. I know guys like you. You have more money than sense. You live in a piece-of-shit apartment but drive a really nice car. You have blow-up furniture and a top-of-the-line gaming system. You spend serious bank on craft cocktails and microbrews, but eat Easy Mac, greasy pizza, and cheap takeout that you don’t even know how long it’s been in the fridge. Am I close?”

  He wanted, so badly, to say no, that she had him all wrong. That he was a stand-up guy, an adult. But the most in the way of protest he could offer was that his furniture was made out of milk crates, dammit. And that wasn’t much of a difference at all.

  One of Ruby’s eyebrows cocked in challenge, but he had nothing to fight with, no weapon to brandish. He could lie to her, but he wouldn’t.

  “That’s what I thought. I don’t date guys like you. The things you’re most committed to are your job and your World of Warcraft score. That doesn’t really square with my life.”

  “I resent that.” Now here was something he could argue. Legion was cool, but WoW wasn’t really his main jam. “I play Fire and Featherstone.”

  And wow, did that not impress her. She crossed her arms and literally tapped her foot—did people for realsies do that? Apparently they did, and he was on the receiving end of the trite gesture.

  “When’s the last time you dated anyone for more than a month?”

  Shit. “That doesn’t mean I won’t. I am reliable, I am consistent. I’m a Carter for god’s sake. I’ve had the same best friend since I was a kid. My parents have been married for thirty-four years. You were at my sister’s wedding. I have reliability in my blood. And I…dammit, I show up. I can be responsible.”

  “Prove it.”

  Whoa. Prove it? How was he supposed to do that? Reliability wasn’t a thing you established once. It had to be proved over and over and over again. It was far easier to lose than to gain, and it took time. Time he didn’t have.

  “I’m hone
st to god not trying to sass you here, but how am I supposed to do that? Consistency and showing up and responsibility and all that stuff can’t be proven one time. That’s kind of the point, right? You don’t just show up once—you have to show up all the time. Whether you want to or not, whether it’s easy or hard. That’s what reliability is about. I can’t, you know, whip it out.”

  “Then maybe it’s not meant to be. Now, seriously, I have a lot that I need to get done before the end of my shift, so I need to get going.”

  The urge to argue was overwhelming. But the urge to not be a giant dick was stronger still. He’d let it go, and he’d be sorry about it, but he wasn’t going to keep pursuing a woman who didn’t want to be pursued. He wouldn’t want someone to do that to him, so he wasn’t going to do that to someone else.

  But…

  If Ruby really would give him a shot if he could prove himself to be consistent and reliable, well, that he could do.

  “Okay, cool. I respect that. I should get back to camp because I’ve got a lesson to give soon. But what time do you get off?”

  She raised her eyebrows and tipped her chin.

  “Get off work, jeez.” He made an exaggerated expression of horror in response to her joke. Offended? Hardly. “And I’m the one who’s immature? Come on. What time is your shift over?”

  “Today I get off—” She paused to bite her bottom lip and gave him a meaningful look that had his dick waking up. Hell, she was sexy. “At five. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. Gotta go.”

  And with his plan in mind, he brushed past her and hopped down the stairs to where Tommy was waiting at the register.

  Putting his racquet and the string box on the counter, Nate couldn’t help the big smile plastered on his face. Having a plan was good. Yes, he liked plans. He liked action. Fixing things.