by Ruthie Knox
“You’re right, you’re right. But it’s just weird.” Taryn still sounded dubious, as if she wasn’t going to believe in the existence of James Marshall until Tom somehow proved it. “When did she tell you?”
“When I met her. On the beach at Seaside.”
“When you were being an asshole?”
“Yeah. Thanks for the reminder.”
“Tell me exactly what she said.”
Tom scrubbed his hand over his face, wishing he hadn’t called her. Taryn was in pit bull mode now, and he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this until they had thoroughly dissected the matter. He sank down to the ground with his back pressed to the cool ceramic tiles of the shop wall.
“Hell, I don’t remember it exactly.”
“C’mon, give me the gist.”
Tom thought back to that morning on the beach. He’d told Lexie why he didn’t want to ride with her, and she’d said she only needed somebody to pitch her tent next to at night. And then he’d said—
Oh, man, had he really said that? What a jerk.
“I told her I wasn’t going to sleep with her.”
“Classy.”
“Thanks. And then she said her husband would be glad to hear it.”
“Mmm-hmm. Did you sleep with her?”
“What? No.” The abrupt change of subject threw him off, but the denial was automatic.
“You want to, though.” This wasn’t a question, so he didn’t have to respond. “What else did she tell you about this husband of hers?”
Tom cast through his memories of his weeks with Lexie and came up with … “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing. She talked to him on the phone sometimes, but she never said a word about him.”
Come to think of it, that was a little strange.
“Does she wear a ring?”
“No, but I just figured that was because of the ride. You know, that she wouldn’t want to bang it up or lose it in some campground shower or something.”
Taryn started laughing then, and he came close to hanging up on her. He would’ve done it, but he wanted to know what she was laughing about.
“Are you ever going to shut up and tell me what’s so funny?”
She wheezed into the phone. “I love you to pieces, but you can be such a moron. Let me spell it out for you: Lexie doesn’t have a husband. She was just pissed off at you for being such a jerk that you implied, three minutes after you met her, that she wanted to get into your pants. So she made one up.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“I do know that. Women who are married talk about their husbands. Trust me, I have a lot of married friends, and three-quarters of their stories are Frank-this, Bob-that, I-told-Rich-to-such-and-such. They can’t shut up about them. I bet you fifty bucks Lexie isn’t married.”
That was a bet he’d be happy to lose. “What’s the point? I’m not going to see her again. I don’t even know where she is.”
“Yeah, hon, you do. She’s on the TransAmerica Trail, heading east. How hard could it be to find her? All you have to do is stay put and wait.”
She had a point.
But he wasn’t going to wait for Lexie to catch up. He missed her, yeah, and he wanted her. Married or not, though, she was much better off without him in her life.
“I can hear you, you know,” Taryn said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, but I can hear the wheels grinding in that thick skull of yours. You’re talking yourself out of going after her. You know, someday, you might want to think about doing something to make yourself happy again. Because it’s already been six years, and six years is a really long time to mope.”
God, not this again. “Taryn—”
“Don’t get me wrong. I believe in you. I think you have it in you to keep up the moping for a good couple of decades, maybe even for the rest of your life. It’s just, you might want to cast about in your memories and see if you can come up with a list of things you actually did wrong to deserve eternal torment. Because I can’t think of a single one. The way I remember it, you were the good guy. You deserve a little happiness.”
“I’m hanging up on you now.”
“Yeah, right, okay. Forbidden subject. I get it. Take care of yourself, little brother. Go find your girl.”
He cut off the connection, dropped the phone, ran both hands through his hair.
Then he got on his bike and started riding east.
9
Dillon, Montana, to West Yellowstone, Montana. 1,325 miles traveled.
One hundred forty-eight miles. That was how far he rode before he finally gave up and admitted he had to know for sure.
Taryn was probably wrong. Lexie was probably married.
But some part of him, some compulsive part that tortured him with thoughts of Lexie every freaking second, demanded that he find out.
So he stopped riding at Yellowstone, found a campsite, and waited. He rode in slow loops around the park, passing through one campground after another and looking for her absurd little tent. Even the campgrounds where he knew she wouldn’t be. Even when he knew it was too early to expect her. He couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t sit still.
On the third afternoon, he arrived back at his campsite to find her tent pitched a few sites down from his. It had the same little U.S. flag attached to the fly, so it had to be Lexie’s. But she wasn’t alone. There was another tent next to hers, apparently the property of the blond guy in bike shorts sitting at the adjoining picnic table. The guy who was waving him over with a lazy grin.
“Hey, are you doing the TransAm? Us, too. Want a granola bar or something? You should stay and hang out for a little bit. Lexie loves to meet other riders.”
Tom’s bike was moving so slowly at this point, he had to stop or fall over, so he put a foot down. And then he just stared at the guy, wondering who the hell he was and what had happened to Paul.
And what was with the “us”? Because that “us” was too comfortable for Tom’s taste. A good bit too comfortable.
“Where is she?”
“Who, Lexie? She’s taking a shower. What, you know her or something?”
Was it his imagination, or was Blondie kind of a bonehead? Surely he wasn’t Lexie’s type.
“Yeah, I know her. What happened to Paul?”
“Who’s Paul?”
Maybe it had been a mistake to leave her in Paul’s hands. He probably should have guessed she’d be too stubborn to stick with him. But he hadn’t, and now she was with this guy. This guy he loathed, even though he’d only known him for half a minute.
“Doesn’t matter. We were riding together a while back.”
“Cool,” Blondie said, sticking out his hand. “I’m Lance.”
“Tom.” He got off his bike and took the hand, pleased to find he could outshake the little prick any day of the week. He had a good forty pounds on him, too. Not that it was going to matter, but still, nice to know.
“So, what, you guys spent a day or two riding together earlier on the route?”
“About three weeks. From Oregon.”
“Oh, you’re that guy. She mentioned you.” Lance no longer looked quite so happy to meet him.
Tom wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Lexie had said about him, but at least she’d said something.
Lance frowned. “Are you looking to ride with her again? Because if you are, that’s fine—you know, the more the merrier—but I just want you to know that she’s taken.”
Tom’s stomach did a slow roll, and he had to shove both hands in his pockets and will himself not to punch the little bastard. Not until he found out if he was telling the truth. Not until he found out if Lexie actually liked him.
“You sleeping with her?” He had to grind the question out between his teeth, since he’d lost the ability to move his jaw.
Lance grinned, and Tom dug his fingernails into his palms hard enough to leave marks. “Not yet, man, but I have a bottle
of wine and a plan. Tonight is the night. I’ve been waiting to hit that since Hamilton, but the anticipation makes it sweeter, you know?”
He had to move then or kill him. One or the other. So he crossed to the other end of the campsite and paced back and forth over the powdery dirt until he could breathe evenly again. “She tell you she’s married?”
The grin faded. “No, she said she was single. Is she married, for real?”
The last of Tom’s hope died then. Taryn had been right. Lexie wasn’t married. And that meant if Lexie had wanted him, she would have told him the truth.
Instead, she’d told Lance.
The thought of her with this asshole made him wretched, but if he was Lexie’s choice, Tom had no right to stand in her way.
“No. I don’t think so,” he replied.
Lance let out a sigh of relief and stood up, stretching. “Good. I’m going to hit the showers then. Got to get ready for tonight.”
He winked at him, and it was the last straw. Tom crossed the campsite until he towered over the little twerp. “If you get her drunk and make her do something she’ll regret, I’ll kick your teeth down your throat,” he warned.
Lance swallowed visibly but didn’t back down. “Get your hands off me, dude.”
Tom realized he was squeezing Lance’s arm so hard his knuckles had turned white. “Are we clear?” he asked, his voice rough with rage.
“Crystal.”
He dropped his hand, wiping his palm on his shirt, and took a step back. “Good.”
Lance smiled again, and this time he was taunting him. “She’s not going to regret it. They never do.” And then he turned and strolled off toward the showers, whistling.
Tom returned to his tent, disgusted with himself. If he had any sense, he’d get on his bike and ride on into Wyoming as fast as he could. Instead, he was going to stick around to make sure Lexie was safe. And to let her knife him in the gut personally.
It had been a mistake to wear the dress. She could see that now. She’d bought it when they stopped at the Patagonia outlet in Dillon. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a no-fuss black V-neck T-shirt dress, but it made a nice change after wearing the same two T-shirts and pairs of shorts for a month.
Arriving at Yellowstone was a big moment, so when Lance had suggested they go to the Roosevelt Lodge for dinner instead of warming up canned food as she’d planned, she’d changed into the dress, wanting to mark the occasion by doing something a bit different.
Unfortunately, Lance got the wrong idea. He’d ramped up the flirting over the past few days, totally oblivious to her gentle attempts to turn him down, and the dress was like the proverbial red flag. All through dinner, he came on to her like they were the last two people on Earth and they needed to get going on repopulating the planet. He told her she looked beautiful. He tried to feed her bites of his entrée. Nothing she did to try to steer the conversation back to neutral ground had worked.
It was looking like she was going to need to ditch the guy. She didn’t want to, because he’d been a pretty good riding companion, but she was getting tired of being hit on every five minutes, and it wasn’t as if she was going to change her mind. There was only one man she wanted to sleep with, and he was probably in Colorado by now.
Her chest did its usual painful squeezing thing at the thought of Tom. She’d seen a tent that looked like his on her way back from the showers, and for half a minute she’d allowed herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, he was here. Maybe he’d waited for her.
But she’d forced herself to be realistic, refusing to go over and investigate the site, which was clearly unoccupied at the time. Tom had a popular tent model, and anyway, she couldn’t ride the rest of the way across the country hoping to see him again. She’d drive herself crazy that way. She just had to get used to the fact that her idiocy had driven him off.
Back at the campsite, Lance built a fire and coaxed her over with a bag of marshmallows and two sharpened sticks. While he incinerated his marshmallow and ate the goo off his stick, Lexie sat beside him on one of the logs that framed the fire pit and patiently turned hers at regular intervals until the whole thing was a uniform golden brown. It took a while, but it was worth getting it right. A perfect toasted marshmallow was all about contrast—the crisp, papery exterior setting off the hot, sticky, sugary mess inside.
Then Lance pulled plastic glasses and a bottle of wine from somewhere and opened it with a flourish. Crap. It was a seduction ambush, and she’d walked right into it. Now she had to find a way to convince Lance she wasn’t interested, ideally without hurting his feelings. He’d gone to a lot of trouble here, after all.
Ten minutes later, she decided it would be fine if she had to hurt his feelings. The guy had as many hands as an octopus, and he didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. If he draped his arm casually over her shoulders or touched her bare knee one more time, she was seriously going to punch him.
She removed his hand from her leg and dropped it back onto his lap. “Look, I don’t know how many ways you’re going to make me tell you this, but—”
Lance cut her off with his mouth, shoving his tongue between her teeth before she had time to react. As soon as she came to her senses, she pulled her head back and pushed him away as hard as she could manage with the hand that was between them. Her other hand was still occupied with the marshmallow stick.
“Get off me!” she shouted. “What are you doing?”
He came right back at her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Come on, Lexie, stop playing hard to get.” While she tried to squirm out of his grasp, he licked her neck, an experience she found about as erotic as being slobbered on by a dog. All the while, he was trying to snake his hand between her thighs.
“If you don’t get off me right now, I’m going to start screaming, and I’m not going to stop until you’ve been arrested for assault.” She made this threat in her loudest voice, hoping to attract attention, but it had no obvious effect on Lance, so she also used the marshmallow stick to poke him hard in the crotch.
“Ow! Sonofabitch!” Lance yelled, pulling back. That freed up her arms, which she used to knock him off the log, sending him sprawling onto his back in the dirt.
She stood up as he scrambled onto his elbows. “What’s your problem?” Lance yelled, as if her attack had been unprovoked.
“I’d say her problem is you.” The voice came from behind her, outside the circle of light cast by the campfire. Tom’s voice.
She turned. With his face half in the shadows and his expression stern, he looked like he’d been carved from granite. Tension rolled off him in waves. His hands curled into fists. Angry Tom at his angriest.
Lexie had never been so happy to see anyone in her life.
“You okay, Lexie?”
“Where did you come from?”
“My tent’s down that way,” he said, gesturing in the direction where she’d spotted it earlier. “It sounded like this asshole might be bothering you.” The way he ground one fist into his palm made it look like he wanted to do something about that.
Lance sat up with both hands raised in a classic gesture of surrender. “Whoa. Listen, Tom. We’re just having a misunderstanding here.”
“You know him?” She was speaking to Lance, but she really meant the question for Tom, and he was the one who answered it.
“I met him when I came by earlier. He didn’t tell you?”
She shook her head, stunned. If she had known he was here, she would have … what? Tried to set the record straight, at the very least. Anyway, she wouldn’t have been eating marshmallows with Lance.
Then Lance’s words sunk in, and she whirled to face him. “A misunderstanding? You—You—” She couldn’t think of a bad name to call him that would come close to doing him justice.
“Rotten, opportunistic, spineless piece of shit?” Tom suggested.
“Yes!” Lexie agreed. And then she surprised herself by bursting into tears.
She was not a cr
ier. She tried to stop, but out it came anyway. When she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, she got marshmallow on her face, and that only made her cry harder.
Tom stepped closer and pulled her into his chest. He was stiff with anger, but he was warm, too, and he smelled of his familiar woodsy soap. Collapsing gratefully against him, she wiped her sticky face on his shirt, and he settled his hands into the hollow of her lower back. Even in her addled state, she recognized how good it felt, how right.
“Did he hurt you?”
“Hell, no,” Lance protested. “I didn’t—”
“Shut up,” Tom warned, in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t in the mood to hear another word. Lance shut up. It was kind of fascinating—apparently Lance found Angry Tom a lot scarier than she did. Though in this case, that was probably a good thing. She had the distinct impression that if Lance made one more wrong move, Tom was going to break that pretty nose of his.
“I’m okay,” she told him. “It’s—I’m happy to see you again.”
He acknowledged that with a curt nod. “What do you want to do with him?”
“Huh?” It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the words, more that she couldn’t really think through the implications of the question.
“I’d like to kill him, but I keep telling myself not to, because I don’t want to end up back in front of a jury. So then I thought I should just beat the living shit out of him and call it good. Or you could. You were doing a pretty good job of it without my help.”
He smiled a little then, and she reached up her hand to brush through his hair in a quick, unauthorized caress. It was hard to concentrate on the conversation when all she wanted to do was look at his eyes, his cheekbones, his lips, his chin, to reassure herself that Tom was here, that he was speaking to her.
“Lex?”
“Don’t hurt him. I’m a pacifist.”
That made him sigh. “Of course you are. You going to keep riding with him?”
She grimaced. Even if Tom hadn’t shown up, there was no way she could buddy around with Lance now. “No. I want to ride with you.”
Tom pursed his lips, pleased again, and then he defaulted back to stern. “So I can run him off?”