In the Groove (5 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Sarah was having a really great dream, one of those fantasies where everything is so good, you just know it's a dream. And so when you feel yourself waking up you try to keep yourself under, try to wiggle and shrug and worm away from the hand that. Wouldn't. Leave. Her. Alone.

"Go away," she moaned.

"Sarah," a voice said. "It's time to wake up."

No. It wasn't time. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to keep enjoying the dream that she was a famous swimsuit model with a race-car driver boyfriend and a house on the beach.

Lance Cooper.

The name clanged through her head like a cymbal in a marching band. Sarah sat up so abruptly her hair fell over her face. She shoved it back over the top of her head, spitting out strands of hair that had somehow made it into her mouth.

"Whoa there, Sparky. Settle down," the voice said.

Lance Cooper.

Her gaze shot to his, her hands lifting to her face as she let out a loud moan.

"It wasn't a dream."

"What wasn't a dream?" he asked.

"Never mind," she said, horrified that she'd obviously been dreaming about
him
and that was bad, bad, bad. Men were taboo. They were all jerks. She didn't trust them as far as she could throw them. She had no business, no
business,
dreaming about Lance Cooper.

"Those drugs Doc gave you give you bad dreams?"

"They gave me nightmares," she amended, dropping her hands back to the bed. "What time is it?"

"It's morning. You slept the whole night through without dinner. That's why I woke you. You should eat some breakfast."

Breakfast. Ugh. Her stomach turned at just the thought of eating. "I'm not very hungry."

"It's the drugs. They make you nauseous."

"You sound like an expert."

"I
am
an expert. In my line of work you get a lot of bumps and bruises."

Yeah. She supposed he did. "Look. Could I have a minute?"

"Sure," he said. "I had Sal take your stuff out of your car." He pointed.

A green garbage bag of clothes wilted in the corner of her room.

He followed her gaze, saying, "I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using a VW as a suitcase."

"Yeah, well, it's not like I've had the money to do a lot of traveling."

"No. I suppose not."

Sarah glanced up and when she looked into his eyes it wasn't a look of pity she saw; it was a look of understanding.

He understood.

She felt her whole body relax before she remembered that she shouldn't go looking for sympathy from her new boss, even if he was a hottie.

A
famous
hottie.

"Tell you what," he said. "I'll send some food up. You can eat it in bed. When you're done, if you're feeling better, you can come downstairs and I'll show you the motor coach."

"That's right. I'm supposed to head out today."

"Only if you feel like it."

"I'll feel like it."

"We'll see."

She watched him walk away after giving her a chipper smile, then hid her head in her hands.

How had it happened?

How had she ended up here, in this fancy house, working for a sexy race-car driver when three months ago she'd been happy, living with a man she'd thought might be "the one," teaching little ones their ABCs? No more putting up with drunks late at night while she drove a county bus to pay her way through college. No more living from paycheck to paycheck.

She'd moved in with Ron and things had been looking up.

And then creepy Peter, her ex-boyfriend, had decided to get even. Okay, so he had a good reason for being kind of peeved at her. She'd left him a few weeks before graduation. But to be fair, he'd been freaking her out with his growing possessiveness. So she'd broken it off. And, yeah, she'd gotten involved with Ron pretty quickly after that. But he was a teacher just like her and they'd had a lot in common. Peter had wigged out. Just went off the deep end. She knew he'd known about the pictures she'd taken, but she never,
ever
thought he'd dig them up and sell them to some porn magazine just to get even. He even had to forge her signature on the model's release. And then to send the magazine to the principal and a few of the parents when the pictures got published. It made her sick just thinking about it. And then Ron had dumped her. That hurt the worst and very obviously proved her point: Men couldn't be trusted.

"Here we are," a female voice said, Sarah looking up to see a Hispanic woman enter the room, a tray of food dangling off a Great Barrier Reef of breasts presently contained by a tight red tank top. "I'm Rosa, the housekeeper."

Rrrooddsa.

That's how she said her name. Not Rosa like Sarah, a bona fide Anglo Saxon would say it, but R-r-r-o-d-d-d-sa.

Rrodsa
leaned down, setting the tray on the nightstand, apparently unaware that her low-waisted jeans didn't fit her quite right and so when she bent, they slid down like she was a plumber bending over a pipe. Sarah about to warn her that her "something" was in danger of falling out. Fortunately, Rosa straightened just before the critical moment.

"You going to be driving the big banana boat from Mister Lance?" she asked, hands on her hips, her brown eyes narrowing as she glared down at her. She had hair like a wand of cotton candy, only black, and a mole that was too dark to be real. It sat near the corner of her mouth like a fly.

Sarah had to replay the sentence in her mind. "Beg your pardon?" she asked when she realized she'd been so distracted by the pants, she'd missed what the big woman had said.

"You know," Rosa said. "Drive the big bus." She mimicked the holding of a steering wheel with her hands.

"Oh," Sarah said. "Yes, I am."

"That's what he told me. He also told me he hit you with his car. You not going to sue him, are you?"

Sarah drew back. "No. Of course not."

"Good," she said, eyes narrowing like a bird of prey. "Mister Lance, he a good man. If I no married to my Jose, I snatch him up myself." She snapped her fingers for good measure.

"Er. Okay," Sarah said, not sure what to make of the woman. She was like the Mama Corleone of housekeepers, staring down at her with such suspicion, Sarah wouldn't be surprised if a horse head showed up in her bed the next morning.

"Here," she said, reaching down to pick up Sarah's bottle of pills. "Mister Lance told me you gotta take your medicine."

"No, no. Really. I'm fine—"

"You take medicine. Then eat food. That's what he said to do. You do it."

Sarah held out her hand. Rosa poured a single pill into her palm, then stood there until Sarah picked up a glass of water and gulped it down. The thought of chasing the pill with what looked to be chorizo and eggs should have turned her stomach, but funny, the moment she smelled food she was instantly hungry.

"Good," Rosa said after she'd taken a bite. "You eat. I be back to check on you."

And that was her first encounter with Rosa Perez.

The chorizo and eggs, as it turned out, settled into her stomach like a missing relative at a family reunion. Sarah felt better. Or maybe it was the medication, but the fact remained that after she'd consumed a few bites, got up and washed her face, checked on her knee (her leg was still attached), then changed into a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a bright pink blouse, she felt reasonably human.

Enough so that she didn't mind going down to confront Lance Cooper.

She found him in his family room, sitting in the same spot she'd been sitting in last night, and for a moment she just stood there watching him. Sunlight poured in from both sides of the room. His blond hair was slightly mussed as if he'd run his hands through it. Gray eyes peered intently at the television screen opposite him. Sarah noted that even though he was a man, he had the most sensual pair of lips she'd ever seen.

Just then he looked up, those lips curing into a smile. "Hey," he said. "You feeling better?"

Be still my heart.

"Much," she said, looking away. What should she do? Sit down next to him? Stand? She settled on putting her hands in her jeans pockets.

"Good."

"Umm, I was thinking maybe now would be a good time to show me your bus."

"You sure you're up for it?"

"Sure I am."

"Okay then. Follow me."

She had to look away when he stood because if she didn't, she had a feeling she might just check out his rear end, which was not something an employee should do with her boss.

"You keep your bus in your kitchen?" she said as they headed toward the massive room, a cool breeze brushing her cheeks in a way that made her want to close her eyes and tip her head back.

"No. You get to the shop through here."

"You have a shop?"

"Well, yeah."

He opened a door and reached inside. A row of fluorescent lights flicked on with a tink-tink-tink, one after the other, exposing a garage that was easily the size of a department store.

Okay, maybe not that big.

But it was as big as a Wal-Mart service center, and she should know because she had a lot of experience with those.

"Holy guacamole," she breathed because at the far end, in its own private bay, was the most beautiful bus she'd ever seen.

"Like it?" he asked, stepping down and into the garage.

"I get to drive that?" she asked, unable to keep the glee from her voice.

"You do," he said, her pleasure obviously amusing him.

"It's like a rolling Trump Tower."

"It's my home away from home."

She stepped past him, the grin on her face so big it actually hurt her cheeks. "For some reason I thought you had a diesel pusher."

"Really? I thought Sal put in the ad that we needed someone who knew how to drive a bus."

"Well, he did, it's just that when he said motor coach I thought he meant an RV, but this looks like something a celebrity would drive."

He almost told her he
was
a celebrity, except he had a feeling she wouldn't believe him. "Actually, the company we got it from sells their conversions to a lot of rock stars."

"Wow," she said, feeling smaller and smaller the closer she got. And she had to walk fully fifty yards to reach the darn thing. His "shop" was practically the same size as his house, with shiny cement floors reflecting fluorescent glowing neon patterns that caught her attention for a moment. "It's gorgeous," she said, though she was really referring to the bright spots of light that pooled on the gray cement.

"Thanks."

She looked up at the motor coach again, having to blink a few times to get her eyes to focus. "That's a very racy race pattern on the side," she said, referring to the black graphics that whipped back from the front of the bus like streams of paper, or the tentacles from a Predator's head. "I'm surprised it doesn't have checkered flags on the side."

"I'm a Raiders fan."

She looked over at him, feeling light-headed all of sudden.

He must have seen her wobble a bit. "You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said. "I feel just fine." And she really did. In fact, she felt better than fine. "Good. Really, really good." She smiled, a huge, wide smile that puffed up her cheeks until she could practically see them. She tried doing exactly that for a while, crossing her eyes until realizing that made her
very
dizzy.

"C'mon," he said.

She followed him, having to correct her directions a few times before making it to the door. Odd.

"Whoa," she heard Lance say. "Easy there, Sparky."

She felt hands steady her. Big hands. Warm hands. She'd like it if they held her for the rest of the day.

"That medicine makes me woozy."

"That medicine makes you
something,"
she heard him murmur, amusement leaking out from the words.

"How do you get in this thing?" she asked, patting the door like it was a thug she'd just apprehended. "Is there a handle?"

"There's a keypad," he said, letting go of her shoulders, though she thought he might have hesitated a bit, as if he didn't want to let her go. "Here," he said, pushing on a hidden panel, the thing flipping around a la Star Trek to reveal a numeric keypad.

"Neat-o," she said.

"Yeah, neat-o," he echoed.

"You're laughing at me," she accused, having seen his lips twitch.

"Nah," he said, a metallic beep-beep-beep ringing out as he pressed some numbers.

"Why are you laughing at me?" she asked, feeling suddenly miffed.

"I'm not laughing. It's your smile. It's infectious."

She felt her shoulders droop a bit. "Oh," she said in a small voice. Then gasped as with a whoosh and a hiss, the bus door opened, and to be honest, she was surprised a peal of little choirboys didn't ring out as the interior was revealed.

"Hole. Lee. Shit."

"I thought you didn't swear."