by Regan Black
“Is it?” Her gaze flew to his face. “I remember how you always used to want one back when we were in high school. We used to talk about driving cross-country, just the two of us.”
Chest aching, he nodded, not sure how to respond, what to say.
“You can still do that,” she blurted. “If that’s still your dream.”
He refused to tell her it wouldn’t be the same without her. “Maybe I will.”
Inside, the baby began crying. Nicole turned, casting one more look at him over her shoulder. “Enjoy yourself. You certainly deserve it.” And then she disappeared inside.
Moving slowly, he put on his helmet before he swung his leg over and started the engine. And then he took off.
The curving, tree-lined roads of East Texas were the perfect place to get familiar with a new bike. He took things easy, not ramping up the speed, not yet. He found this more soothing than he’d thought he would, and more exhilarating, too.
Maybe this bike would be the one thing that helped him find some peace.
And then a little old lady driving a huge Buick pulled out right in front of him.
CHAPTER 10
Reacting instinctively, Kyle laid the bike down. He knew he was damn lucky he was going the speed limit. As it was, he got some serious road rash, torn jeans and bloody scrapes, but no broken bones, at least as far as he could tell. Just wounded pride.
Limping back from where he’d fallen, he picked his bike up and inspected her. There were some scrapes on the gas tank paint, but no dents. Some touch-up paint would fix that up fine. He climbed on and restarted the motor. It started up just fine, luckily.
Meanwhile, the other driver had continued on, apparently oblivious that she’d come damn near killing him.
He thought about chasing her down and confronting her, but all the zing had gone out of him, so instead he turned the bike around and headed back home.
No longer relaxed, his normal, everyday jumpiness had returned. He braced himself at every intersection, expecting someone else to pull out or run a red light. Though no one did, by the time he pulled into his driveway, his entire body was drenched in sweat.
Nevertheless, he opened the garage and wheeled the bike inside. He placed his helmet on the seat.
As he walked into the house, Nicole caught sight of him and gasped. “What happened to you?” she asked. And then, without pausing for breath, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” He could feel himself sinking. Sinking into that dark place he sometimes went. He always fought that feeling, even though he never won. Today, he couldn’t even summon up the strength to fight.
Careful not to make eye contact, he strode past her and headed for his bathroom. Once inside, he stripped off his ruined clothes and took stock of himself in the mirror. There were scrapes and cuts and more blood than he’d realized, but he had survived. Sometimes, he had to wonder why.
Turning the shower on as hot as he could stand it, he stepped inside. The water hitting his wounds made him clench his teeth, letting a hiss escape. Using soap, he relentlessly scrubbed himself, making sure no dirt lingered in any open sores.
Sometimes, the simple act of standing under the hot shower could restore him and bring him back from whatever dark precipice he’d strayed too close to. Not today. He knew deep down in his aching bones that tonight would be a long, rough night.
Finally, he shut the shower off and grabbed a towel to begin carefully drying off. Careful, because he didn’t want some of the cuts to start bleeding again. He began putting antibacterial ointment on all the ones he could reach.
Three sharp taps on the bathroom door startled him. “Kyle?” Nicole asked. “Would you like me to take a look at those cuts for you?”
“I’ve got it,” he shot back, his tone curt.
“I couldn’t help but notice there were some spots on your side and back that are pretty torn up. I know you can’t get to those.”
She was right, but that didn’t make this any better. In fact, he wasn’t 100 percent certain he wanted her help. Only the threat of infection gave him pause.
Snugging the towel around his waist, he stalked to the door and yanked it open. “Fine,” he snarled. “Come in.”
Another woman might have hesitated. Another woman would have asked him what was wrong, or why he’d taken that tone with her. But Nicole knew him, or thought she did, and instead of recoiling at the simmering rage in his voice, she stepped inside and gently turned him so that his back was to the light.
“Let me see.”
Without commenting, she reached for the antibacterial ointment and began smoothing it on the wounds. Her touch was gentle, and though some of them stung, he didn’t make a sound. Instead, he became overly conscious of her close proximity and the fact that he wore nothing but a towel. Though he struggled not to show his growing arousal, he had to work hard to keep his breathing even.
Nicole paused. “Are you all right? Some of these cuts look pretty raw. Maybe you should go see a doctor?”
“They’ll be fine,” he managed, jaw clenched. “Are you finished?”
“Just about. There are a couple smaller ones I haven’t gotten to yet.”
Finally, she put the ointment back on the bathroom counter and turned to go. At the doorway, she paused. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“Not now.” He practically pushed her out. “Maybe later.” And he closed the door and locked it.
Now he could breathe again. And he did, wondering how it was that she still could have this effect on him. His emotions were all tangled up, love and desire and bitterness along with the dawning realization that maybe, just maybe, Nicole wasn’t the one who’d changed. He had, and not for the better.
He had no business wanting to be around a woman like her.
* * *
While Nicole wasn’t entirely positive what had happened, it wasn’t too terribly difficult to guess. He’d wiped out riding his new motorcycle. There must have been extraordinary circumstances, because Kyle had learned to ride dirt bikes at his foster home as a kid. Then while stationed in Georgia, he’d had access to motorcycles there. For all she knew, he might have used them while stationed in Afghanistan. He’d never told her exactly what army rangers did, and she knew a lot of it was classified.
Whatever had just happened, it couldn’t have been too bad. He had cuts and scrapes and road rash, but no broken bones. And the motorcycle had appeared banged up. She watched out the front window when he’d wheeled it into the garage.
She went into the kitchen and made a glass of iced tea. As she carried it to the table, her cell phone rang. Her mother. That in itself was so unusual, but with everything that had been going on, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Fran loved nothing better than to light into Nicole over her latest imagined sin. She could deal with it now or let the call go to voice mail and deal with it later. She decided to get it over with. “Hello?”
“I’m surprised you answered your phone,” Fran said, skipping right over the pleasantries and making Nicole regret not letting the call go to voice mail. “I’ve had to avoid going into town due to the gossip about you. What on earth are you thinking, shacking up with that man?”
That man. Despite believing Kyle to be dead, despite knowing how deeply her daughter had grieved. That man, who happened to be the only man Nicole would ever love and who was the father of her beautiful baby boy.
“I’m not shacking up, Mother.” Nicole reminded herself to breathe deeply. “Kyle was just kind enough to offer me a place to stay until my house is livable again.”
“I’ll just bet he was,” Fran sneered. “And now the two of you can resume your little sordid relationship. I just don’t understand why you are so determined to destroy our reputation in this town.”
And that’s what it all came down to with her mother. Everything was about the r
eputation. Clearly, Fran hadn’t given a single thought to the possibility that her daughter and grandson might have been harmed in the fire or found themselves with nowhere to live.
And though she’d known she wouldn’t, Nicole couldn’t help but feel a twinge of hurt that her mom had even bothered to call and make sure they were safe and all right.
“First off, nothing sordid is going on. Second, I’m a widow. And finally, Kyle was kind enough to help us out. If you hear someone dragging his good name through the mud, the right thing to do would be to defend him.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me on the right thing to do,” Fran shot back. “That boy took advantage of your innocence.”
“Ooookay, I’m going to have to let you go,” Nicole said. “I’ve got things to do.”
“Wait.” Fran suddenly sounded desperate rather than vindictive. “I wanted to ask…that is, I’m wondering when you plan to bring that sweet baby to see your father and me.”
In shocked disbelief, at first Nicole didn’t know what to say. The words coming out of her mother’s mouth defied explanation. Her first reaction was actually suspicion. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” Fran did a lousy job feigning indignity.
“You don’t sound like yourself, Mom. Are you feeling okay?”
“Of course I am,” Fran huffed. “I’m not sure I like your tone. What are you implying?”
Nicole sighed. “Honestly? You’ve never wanted to have anything to do with Jacob.”
“Never is a strong word,” Fran protested, though weakly.
“He’s three months old. You refused to come to the hospital when he was born. And you haven’t come by to visit with him, not even once since then.”
“Well maybe I realized the error of my ways. I’m trying to rectify that.”
Now Nicole knew her mother was scheming something. Fran would rather walk on her lips over broken glass than admit to being wrong. But what? Clearly she had a reason for suddenly wanting to appear to be a doting grandmother.
“Please don’t deny your son the right to know his own grandmother.”
No doubt with that, Fran thought she had her. But Nicole knew without a shadow of a doubt she wanted no part of her son being around the shallow, sanctimonious and judgmental woman who’d made Nicole’s childhood a living hell. She’d actually been sort of relieved when neither of her parents had shown any interest in their grandson.
Now this.
“I’ll think about it,” Nicole allowed. “And I’ll let you know what I decide.”
“I need to know by Thursday afternoon,” Fran said. “We’re having a Grandparents’ Day celebration at church. It’s a potluck and a lot of fun. Since Bill died, everyone has been asking, wanting to see our grandson. I just need him for an hour or two at the most.”
Like a prop. Nicole knew she shouldn’t have been surprised or disappointed, but apparently where her mother was concerned, hope sprang eternal, even when she knew better.
At least now she understood her mother’s complete reversal. Shaking her head, she looked up to see Kyle standing in the doorway watching her. He’d gotten dressed in a faded T-shirt and workout shorts.
“Your mom?” he asked, pulling out a chair at the table opposite her.
“Yes.” She sighed. “If anything, she’s gotten more judgmental and critical with each passing year. She’s never wanted much of anything to do with Jacob, and I have to say that while that hurts sometimes, most of the time I’m relieved. I don’t want her imposing her narrow-minded beliefs on my son.”
“She imposed them on you, and you turned out fine,” he pointed out.
Startled, she had to laugh. “You know, I never thought about it that way.” She told him what her mother had wanted. “It feels like she’s just using him to improve her standing among her friends at church.”
“True.” He thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “But it’s a start, right? Maybe she needs to get used to being a grandmother gradually. If her church friends make a big fuss over him—and her—it’s possible she might want to spend more time with him.”
She had to admit he had a point. “Thank you,” she finally said. “I guess letting her have Jacob for a few hours wouldn’t hurt.”
His answering smile took her breath away. When he got up and headed outside, she didn’t try to stop him, even though he hadn’t told her what had happened to him while on his motorcycle. Truth be told, she didn’t want to push too much. After all, unless he felt the need to explain, she didn’t have the right to ask.
Instead, she drank a bit more of her tea and called her mother back, agreeing to let Fran take baby Jacob to church with her this coming Thursday.
* * *
To his frustration, Kyle couldn’t stop thinking about Nicole. He’d never been able to, even while serving in the hellhole desert she’d always been there, in the back of his mind. But now, with her in such close proximity, he yearned for her with every cell in his body.
The simple taste of her hadn’t been enough. And he suspected, would never be enough.
Once, they’d known with absolute certainty that one completed the other. Of course life, messy and difficult, had intervened. Nothing was actually certain.
Except this. His love for her. The knowledge of what Nicole had lived through nearly broke him.
She thought he pitied her, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Bill Mabry was lucky he was already dead.
Over the next few days, Kyle saw little of Nicole. She got up early in the morning, packed up little Jacob and left, often before Kyle had even finished showering. He knew she was dealing with her insurance company and a claim adjuster, as well as the fire department and the police. When he went to the café for breakfast, his waitress that morning turned out to be Wendy Morris, someone he’d gone to high school with. While she refilled his coffee cup, she was more than happy to fill him in on all the gossip.
People were talking, she said, about the fact that the sheriff hadn’t made an arrest yet in Bill Mabry’s murder. And the fire was another hot topic, coming so soon after his death. “And you, too,” Wendy said, winking. “Everyone is all openmouthed at the way you got her to move in with you with Bill’s body barely in the ground.”
He shrugged, as if it were no consequence to him, burying his frustration deep inside. “She needed a place to stay. We’re friends. And friends don’t turn friends away when they need a place to stay.”
“True.” Wendy went to the kitchen opening, retrieved his breakfast and brought it to him. “But everyone remembers how you two were a couple for so long. That makes it hard to believe there’s nothing going on now.”
Aware she was pumping him for possible gossip to pass on, he dug into his scrambled eggs. After he’d washed down his first few bites with a slug of coffee, he looked up. She still stood in front of him, ignoring her other customers, clearly waiting.
“People change, Wendy,” he said, returning his attention back to his meal. “What else can I say? People change.”
After leaving the café, he took a stroll around town. He’d tried to force himself back onto his new bike, but like everything else inside his messed-up head, he found the idea made him shake. Actually shake, like a terrified toddler caught out in a thunderstorm. Not at all the way an army ranger should act.
This, his complete and utter lack of control over his own mind, his own reactions, was what infuriated him the most. PTSD be damned. He knew he was stronger than it was. All he had to do was get the upper hand on it.
Walking the sidewalks downtown filled him with so many memories. In the year that he’d been away, only a few things had changed.
Main Street shops, from the shoe repair place to the ice cream store, did a steady business. There were other kinds of businesses downtown, too, law offices and dentists and doctors.
&nb
sp; He was glad he didn’t see anyone he knew since he wasn’t in the mood to make small talk. The very ordinariness of this, a simple stroll in his childhood town, was exactly what he needed. Peace stole over him and he smiled.
And then a car backfired. It sounded remarkably like a gunshot.
Startled, he jumped. Heart pounding, he barely managed to keep from dropping in a “take cover” maneuver. Instead, he stumbled in a blind panic, crouching low, and as he caught himself, he tried to make the move look completely natural.
Sweating, he concentrated on his breathing. In and out, in and out, because he needed to calm the hell down.
Once he thought he had himself under control, he continued his walk, but the incident had ruined everything.
This had to stop. Now, instead of fear, anger filled him. Enough already. Hadn’t he already been through enough? Whatever messed-up wiring had short-circuited in his brain needed to repair itself pronto. He’d never been the type of man afraid of his own shadow and he refused to be now.
Lost in thought, he nearly ran over an older woman coming out of the pet store with an ungainly, large black dog on a leash. He still bumped into her, but the impact turned out to be much less than it could have been if he hadn’t caught himself just in time.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Are you all right?”
Both she and the furry canine looked at him with nearly identical miserable expressions. Horrified, he realized she was crying.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, catching hold of her arm. This movement earned a surly growl from the dog, even though the beast barely raised his shaggy head.
The woman looked at him, not even bothering to wipe away her tears, and sighed. “You didn’t hurt me, young man. I’m moving in with my daughter and her family in two days, and they won’t let me bring Gus. I’ve put notices up everywhere, even online, but I haven’t been able to find him a home. Doug inside the pet store thought he had a lead, but it didn’t work out. I’m going to have to take him to the shelter, and I don’t want to. It will be a death sentence for a dog like him.”