No Ordinary Home by Mary Sullivan

Author:Mary Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

THAT EVENING, Gracie and Austin fought.

“Austin, you still don’t get how hard it is for me to keep taking from you. I’m becoming a broken record.”

She couldn’t possibly tell him she was falling in love with him, so she fell back on the issue of finances, which was still valid.

“You don’t have to be like this. I can provide for you, so what are you so worried about? It’s not a hardship for me.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is? This?” His arm swept the alleyway in the town in which they’d stopped for the night, taking in the pungent odor of garbage. They were in Taos, New Mexico.

“I’ve gone far enough with you.” More than far enough. Too far. She cared for this man to a depth she’d never felt before. She hardly knew him and yet, by comparison to her feelings for Austin, the crush she’d had on her husband, Jay, seemed shallow. Insubstantial.

Austin was the real deal, a man who could be trusted.

“This is where you think you should be?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

No, but until she figured out an alternative, this was where she would stay. “I can’t let you pay for more hotel rooms and more meals. Can’t you see what this does to me?”

The likelihood of ever being able to pay him back for the food he bought her every day was slim. She couldn’t think about adding the significant cost of accommodations.

No. She wouldn’t stay with him.

Who are you kidding? It’s becoming less and less about money, and more and more about not being able to share a room with him.

They hadn’t had to share a bed since that first night, but the intimacy of being in the same room with him the past two nights, taking turns using the shower, behaving like a real couple, had torn her apart.

Daydreams ran rampant. What if this could be real? What if Austin returned the attraction?

How could he? She was eaten alive by thoughts of the girlfriends he must have had in his hometown, women with respectable homes and jobs. Women who were a lot more attractive than she was, even though with regular meals she didn’t look as much like a scrawny, plucked chicken.

Clean hair helped, as did the clean clothes. The moisturizer Austin had bought for her that first day freshened her skin.

Frustration with herself set in when she thought this way. She knew too well how superficial physical attraction was, and how little looks truly meant in a relationship. Far better to be a good, generous person than to be the hollow little celebrity she used to be, the puppet without a thought of her own.

She had not only grown up since then, she had grown. Period.

She might not be as pretty now, but she was real.

The daydreams crashed to a halt when she remembered what her past could do to Austin if they were involved. He wasn’t the kind of man who would appreciate the media frenzy if, in some strange alternate universe, he chose her to be his significant other.

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