Taming Clint Westmoreland - Brenda Jackson [4]
“About what?” Clint asked in an agitated voice.
Hightower looked at him and then at Alyssa. “In order for the marriage to get annulled after the thirty days, there is something the two of you must do.”
Clint felt his heart turn over. He felt another strange sensation slither up his spine. He knew, without a doubt, that he wouldn’t like whatever Hightower was about to say. “And just what does Toner wants us to do?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
Hightower cleared his throat and then said, “She has mandated that during those thirty days the two of you live under the same roof.”
Two
I t didn’t take much to figure out that Clint Westmoreland was one angry man, Alyssa thought, glancing over at him. They had left Hightower’s office over twenty minutes ago, and now Clint was driving her to a place where she assumed they would grab a bite to eat. But he had yet to say one word to her. Not one. However, that didn’t take into consideration the number of times he’d mumbled the word damn under his breath.
Sighing deeply, she decided to brave the icy waters and said, “Surely there’s something we can do.”
He speared her with a look that could probably freeze boiling water and his mouth was set in a grim line. However, to her his lips still looked as delectable as a slice of key lime pie. “You heard what he said, Alyssa. We can try to appeal, but if we’re not successful we will still have to do the thirty days, which will only delay things,” he said.
Do the thirty days. He’d made it sound like a jail sentence. And since he would have to share the same roof with her, she wasn’t sure she particularly liked his attitude. She didn’t like what Hightower had said any more than he did, but there was no reason to get rude about it.
“Look,” she said. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but if we can’t change things then we need to do what Toner is requiring and—”
“The hell I will,” he said almost in a growl when he looked back at her. He had pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant and had brought his truck to a stop. “I have more to do with my time for the next thirty days than entertain you.”
She immediately saw red. “Entertain me? From saying that, I guess you’re assuming if we do decide to live together for the next thirty days it will be here at your place.”
He shrugged as if to ease the tension in his shoulders and said, “Of course.”
She frowned. He sounded so sure and confident. She would take joy in bursting his bubble. “Wrong. I have no intention of staying here in Austin with you.”
His eyes narrowed into slits as he continued to glare at her. “And just where do you assume you’ll stay?”
She glared back. “It’s not where I’ll stay but where you’ll stay. I’m returning to Waco and if you want to fulfill the terms of Toner’s decree you will, too.”
If she thought he was mad before then it was quite obvious he was madder now. “Look, lady. I have a ranch to run and I won’t be doing it from Waco.”
“You’re not the only one who owns a business, Clint. I’m not going to drop everything that’s going on in my life just to come out here to live with you.”
“And neither will I drop everything I’ve got going on here to move to Waco, even temporarily. That’s as stupid as stupid can get.”
She had to agree with him there, but still that didn’t solve their problem. According to Hightower, they needed to live under the same roof for thirty days, which meant that one of them had to compromise. But she didn’t feel it should be her and evidently he didn’t think it should be him, either. “Okay, you don’t want to move to Waco and I don’t want to move here, so what do you suggest we do to get that annulment?” she asked him.
He pulled his key out of the truck’s ignition and said, “I don’t know, but what I do know is that I think better on a full stomach.” He opened the door to get out. “Right now I suggest that we get something to eat.”
By the time the waitress had taken their order, Clint was convinced that somebody up there didn’t like him. If they did, they would not have dumped Alyssa Barkley