Unstoppable - Chapter 9
Title: Unstoppable ~ Chapter Nine
Authors: aussie and bugs
Rating: T
Genre: A/U, Humor, Romance
Word count: approx 2200
Summary: The third date isn't officially over after all.
Chapter Nine
Laura stepped from her panting Aston-Martin. She had pushed it hard across the city, just daring a cop to try and stop her.
She opened her gloved fist, smoothed the paper clenched in it, and reread the note she’d finally found resting upon the hallway table after searching for Bill everywhere in her house.
Laura, I'll be right back. Gone home to get something.
Home? He needed to rush home to this--Mrs La Cruz’s squalid little establishment? What could he possibly have here that she couldn’t provide at the mansion?
She glared up at the dark boarding house before her, crumpled up the note again and tossed it into the gutter. Stomping over, she checked the name list beside the front door. Bill's room was 3C. She banged the front door open and mounted the stairs.
"Hey! No lady visitors after six o'clock," rasped a boozy voice behind her.
Laura turned slowly and looked down her nose at the woman advancing out of a open doorway.
"Mrs La Cruz, I presume," she said coolly.
Suspicious, the woman pulled her violently patterned wrapper up under her neck. "Yeah, who the hell are you?"
"We've spoken on the phone. I'm a friend of Mr Adams."
"Oh, you," sneered Mrs La Cruz.
"Yes, me," said Laura briskly. "I'm here to see Mr Adams."
"He's not in," the landlady grudgingly admitted.
Laura paused, momentarily flummoxed. Where the hell was that silly man? Then she announced, "Then I'll wait for him in his room."
"No ladies in rooms after six o'clock," Mrs La Cruz repeated, exasperated. "Do you want everyone to think you're a floozy?" She tossed her peroxided curls, which clashed terribly with her olive skin.
Laura raised an eyebrow, then opened her handbag and pulled out a large bill. "I’m a very wealthy woman."
Mrs La Cruz snatched the money from Laura's fingertips and quickly tucked it away in her bra. "Why didn't you say so?" she scolded, pushing past Laura. "Here, let me unlock the door for you."
When the landlady opened the door, Jake's nose poked out and he snarled viciously at her, showing his sharp back teeth. “You mutt--" Mrs La Cruz hissed.
"It's all right," said Laura, offering her hand for Jake to sniff. The dog settled immediately. "He knows me."
"I bet he does." Mrs La Cruz flounced away, her mules slapping on her large feet.
Laura flipped on the light switch and blinked at the drab little room. It was clean and tidy, at least. She wouldn’t think of the mess she’d left in her wake when preparing for their date tonight.
There was little furniture to speak of: a narrow bed, with bedding so tightly tucked she was certain she could bounce a nickel on it, some shelves under the one window, and small chest of drawers. A sink hung on a wall under a tiny mirror. A heavy brown robe hung on a skinny door that must be his closet.
There didn’t even seem to be a chair in the room. She grinned down at Jake. “I’ll just have to wait on the bed then,” she told him. His tail wagged in approval. Then, he moved to his dish by his basket, nudging it with his nose toward Laura.
"Hungry, boy?" Laura looked around. Bill had made a small bookcase from boards and bricks, and a few food tins serving as bookends on the top shelf. She picked up a can of fancy tinned meat. It had probably cost Bill dearly. Too damn bad, she thought and popped the top off to dump the contents into the dog's bowl.
He began wolfing it down. "You're welcome," she said, dropping the empty can in the small garbage can by the sink.
After wiping her fingertips on Bill's thin towel, she checked the titles in the bookcase. He'd amassed quite a collection in just a few days. Poetry, modern, rather racy novels, classics, even detective novels from a few of her favorite writers. Had Bill only bought those so they could have something to talk about? Or had he always enjoyed the genre?
She chose a novel, stepped out of her heels and flopped down onto the bed, smoothing her mink cloak around her. Jake soon joined her, snuggling against her legs. “You may not be allowed up on the bed,” she told him. Both she and Jake knew she wasn’t going to insist he use the basket in the corner. Blinking in the dim light, she pulled her glasses from her handbag and turned on the beside lamp, which was perched on an upturned orange crate, adding to the meager illumination.
*
Bill thumped quickly up the stairs, checking his watch. Damn, he’d taken longer than he wanted. He opened his door and was fumbling for the light switch when he realized it was already on.
Laura Roslin was curled on his bed, glasses balanced on the end of her nose, one of his books on her lap. She quickly removed her glasses. "Took you long enough to get here," she scolded.
He stared at her for a moment, then stalked to the bed, leaned down and kissed her.
She instantly clung to his shoulders, responding automatically as his mouth took possession of hers. Then she remembered she was furious, and shoved him away. She crossed her arms and glared at his guileless expression.
Jake hopped over Laura's legs and greeted Bill eagerly. His master grinned and gave the dog a quick pat, then turned his attention back to Laura.
“I just need to check you’re real,” he said, fingering a lock of her hair.
Laura pushed her hair back behind her ears, working on keeping her composure.
“Why wouldn’t I be real?” she snapped. Maybe reclining in his bed wasn’t the best strategy after all. He needed to know she was still angry! Not just waltz in, give her a sexy smile and kiss her like nothing had happened. Surely she could find a dozen men who could kiss so well...
“I’ve had more than one dream about you turning up in my room.” He pushed his hat back and tipped his head quizzically. “Didn’t you read my note? I told you to stay put; I’d be back.”
“I got your note. It may have escaped your notice, Mr Adams, but people don't tell me what to do -- not even men,” she said haughtily.
To her consternation, he wasn't offended, instead, he chuckled good-naturedly. “If I needed proof that you were real, I just got it. Although I prefer my way of checking.”
She only pursed her mouth in a very unkissable knot.
“How’d you get into my room?” Bill looked at Jake accusingly.
Laura swung her legs onto the floor and crossed them. She dismissed his question with a small wave of her hand, not in the least bit guilty. “Mrs La Cruz and I came to a little understanding.”
"I just bet you did." Bending down, he gently moved aside her foot and pried up the floorboard.
"My wife used to take forever getting ready. I figured I had at least an hour." He removed a sturdy shoe box from the opening in the floor.
“What did she do?” Laura murmured, stunned nearly beyond reason. If his wife had never been in any rush...Was Bill going to prove another disappointment in a long line of disappointments?
"I dunno. Woman things," he mumbled, palming a small object quickly into his jacket pocket.
She checked her watch. “It’s been nearly forty-five minutes. You took the scenic route?” she asked sarcastically.
Still bent over his box, the tips of his ears turned red. "I didn't have enough money for a cab. I had to take the bus."
Feeling terribly about his poverty, she reached for him, but then she saw him pull a large wad of one hundred dollar bills from the box. "You didn't have enough money?" she said, incredulous.
He peeled off several bills. "I don't carry more than I'm going to need." His gaze slid up her long legs beside him. "But I was distracted tonight; let a few more bills slip out of my fingers than I expected; couldn't afford a cab back. You carry it, you spend it, I say--"
She gasped. "Bill! You're....You're not poor! You're a cheapskate!"
He frowned. "I'm careful with my money, that's all. I wasn't going to end up some old rummy sailor on a barstool--"
She was still confused. "You left me upstairs, ready to make love, to come get money?"
Replacing the floorboard, he loomed over her. “I'm not gonna ask my gal to pay for our marriage license."
Her mouth fell open and her voice reached an unladylike screeching pitch. "Marriage license?!" Jake cowered on the end of the bed.
Bill spoke slowly, as though she were simple-minded. "Yes." He pulled up her suddenly slack body, gathering her close. "We're going to Reno, tonight. To get married."
"What?" Now she could barely form a single word.
"Don't you feel it? Feel the same way I do?"
"Yes," she admitted. "But....But why does that mean we have to get married?"
"Believe me when I tell you, Laura, you were the only woman I would have walked out on tonight. I respect you too much to just take what I want without the bonds of marriage. I love you, in case you haven't noticed."
The whites of her eyes showed, like a frightened filly, and he could only grin with satisfaction at her reaction. The facade of the cool and collected heiress could crack.
Marriage? Laura had spend her adult life neatly sidestepping the institution. She'd refused the proposals of a parade of eligible men; while sipping champagne; under moonlight; sitting by magnolia-filled ponds; with flickering candlelight lighting their earnest faces. And now this sea captain was ordering her to marry him with the smell of yesterday's cabbage wafting through his window. It was no wonder she was struck dumb for a moment.
But she had to fight back; panic welled in her throat. "Respect? Fine words from a man who thought I was a street walker the first time he saw me."
He glared at her. "I've been on a lot of docks, and trust me, you're the first heiress I've ever run into."
Trying another tack, she said, "You should know, I've had lovers," putting a heavy emphasis on the plural.
He only grinned, a slow, sensuous expression. "Okay."
"That doesn't bother you? Most men would not want used goods."
"See, I look at it this way. If any of those men had been satisfying you, you wouldn't have been lying on that bed when I walked in. You haven't been used, darling, you've been mishandled."
A flush rose on her skin at his confident smirk. Fuming, she realized she must divert him from this marriage talk.
Slipping from his hands, she lay back on the bed, her mink cloak draping across the entire surface. Jake quickly jumped off and retreated to his basket.
Crossing her legs, she smiled seductively up at him. "I'll marry you, Bill." She patted the bed beside her. "Later. Let's cut straight to the honeymoon," she said, shrugging the cloak off her shoulders.
"That's why we need to get married.” He flipped the cloak back over her body as if closing curtains. "I'm sure Mrs La Cruz is on the phone to the papers as we speak."
"Who cares?" Laura pouted.
"Your reputation will be ruined; that's why I care."
Exasperated, she reached up, snagged his watch chain and pulled him down to her. “Don’t be such an old fusspot.”
He leaned over and gave her another kiss, but it was efficient and brisk. "There's gonna be enough uproar when you marry some roughneck from the docks. Let's do it right, tonight, no pictures of you coming out the front door in the morning in last night's clothes."
She was running out of excuses; she'd try the last one at the bottom of the barrel. Tracing his jaw with light fingers, she asked: "Can you ever be happy in my world, Bill? How people will judge you for marrying a much wealthier woman...I have to live in it, but I don't want you to be unhappy..." She found tears welling in her eyes.
He gathered her face in his big hands. "Will you be there?"
"Yes." She blinked the tears back.
"Then that's all I need." He lifted her from the bed. "Let's go."
End of Chapter Nine