He took off toward the other end of the rink, dangling a puck in the curve of his blade as he skated a familiar pattern between orange cones. He wanted peace. He didn’t want crazy. Not in his life. Not in his head. Not hitting him like a truck.
The cool air brushing his cheeks and pushing his hair from his forehead felt good against his flushed face. He shot into the net, then skated around the boards and picked up another puck on the goal line. This time as he approached the cones, he plowed over the first and tripped over the second, almost falling on his ass. Chaos and crazy rushed across his hot skin, squeezing his chest and making him drop his stick. He’d never felt so muddled in his life. So out of control, not even when he’d listened to Lexie’s schemes or read her bossy texts. Not when he listened to her laughter or crazy stories of making clothes for chickens or chasing pigs.
He shoved one glove in his armpit and picked up his stick. He would never hear her laughter or wild stories. He would never touch her face or kiss her lips. The thought of another man looking into her eyes as he made love to her made him stop in a spray of ice. The thought of Yum Yum jumping in another man’s lap and crunching his nuts as she searched for the perfect place to lay her hairless body brought him upright.
Lexie was crazy but his life without her was the worst kind of crazy. It made him want to beat his head against a wall. In two short months, she’d caused him nothing but drama. Hot, sweet chaos that he couldn’t imagine living without.
The thought of her never waving to him from the third tier squeezed his chest and sent him skating toward the tunnel. He stepped onto the mats and moved past the rack of carefully honed hockey sticks. He’d wanted a life without chaos. He didn’t know what that felt like or what it meant anymore. He only knew that he wanted a life with Lexie in it.
In the dressing room, he unlaced his skates and shed his gear. Perspiration soaked the armpits of his practice sweats and wet his back where his shoulder pads had rested. He quickly exchanged the sweatshirt for a Nike hoodie and grabbed his running shoes. He headed out of the locker room, hopping on one foot and then the other as he moved down the tunnel toward the exit. He needed to breathe. He needed fresh air. He needed to stop her.
John stuck his head out of the manager’s office and called after him, “Where are you going in such a rush?”
Shit. Sean looked back over his shoulder. “To tell your daughter that I love her,” he said without stopping. He moved through the twists and turns of the tunnel, picking up the pace until he was jogging when he hit the door and stepped out into the fresh Seattle air.
Lexie was many things to different people. Daughter. Boss. Pet rescuer. Gettin’ Hitched bride. To him, she was sunshine and chaos. Laughter and lover. She was madness and peace. She was his and he loved her. It hadn’t happened in six months or a year. He didn’t know when he’d fallen for her. The exact time didn’t matter. The minute she’d shoved herself onto the Sea Hopper, he’d been a goner.
A cold breeze blew across his cheeks and through his damp hair, and he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt to cover his head. He’d walked to the arena that morning, and he glanced at his watch. “Shit.” She was his, but she was about to leave for her grand opening and announce to the world that the Gettin’ Hitched bride was back on the market.
He jogged to the parking lot, didn’t see any other players leaving, then he took off toward the front of the Key Arena. He figured his best chance of stopping her was to head her off at her apartment. If he ran to his own place to get his car, he wouldn’t make it in time to stop her. He glanced around, his gaze searching for a friend or a cab. A steady stream of traffic filled the road, but he didn’t recognize any vehicles exiting the arena and didn’t see one cab.
His glance moved past tourists studying maps as he ran to the curb, looking up and down First. He stopped next to a cement security bollard, and his gaze landed on a bright red scooter parked on the sidewalk. A big metal cooler was bolted on the back with a local phone number and a big sandwich painted on the side. Sunlight caught on the silver key dangling from the ignition, shooting sparkles into the air like a sign from God. Before he could think it through, Sean hopped on the red seat and fired it up. He’d had a Ducati once upon a time; he could surely manage a Vespa. The thing didn’t have a clutch and he looked around for gears.
“Hey! Get off my scooter.”
Sean looked up at a guy in a red jumpsuit moving toward him.
“I’m borrowing it,” he said, and turned the gas handle. The Vespa shot across the sidewalk and off the curb with more spunk than he expected.
The deliveryman called after him, “Come back or I’m calling the police.”
Sean couldn’t worry about a little thing like grand theft, and merged into traffic. He gunned the piece-of-shit scooter and shot down Pike. He wove in and out of traffic, but by the time he made it to her apartment building, her parking space was empty.
He’d been to her store once, but he’d relied on his GPS. He wasn’t all that certain he even knew how to get to the right shopping center in Bellevue, but he didn’t let a little thing like directions keep him from heading toward the 520.
Wind whipped off the hoodie, and a bug hit the same eye Ed Sorenson had hit a few days earlier. The Vespa topped out at fifty. Cars whizzed past and people honked at him for either driving in the fast lane or because they wanted a sandwich. A Good To Go! toll pass had been taped to the inside of the short windshield. On the east side of the bridge, he took a wrong exit and ended up in an old neighborhood. A dog chased him, biting at the Vespa tires before Sean made his way out again. At a stoplight, he asked directions from a guy on a Harley next to him. The man revved his engine and pointed, as if talking to a guy on a Vespa was beneath him. By the time Sean pulled into the right parking lot, he was bug splattered. His good eyeball was dry, his bad eye was watery, both were dusty. He didn’t see anyone out front or the “Grand Opening” banner he knew Lexie had ordered. He didn’t see her car, either, just the bright red storefront. He figured she’d parked out back, and was so relieved to make it in one piece, he felt like crying like a girl. Whether from exhaustion or delirium, he accidentally hopped the curb in front of the store. The front tire stopped, the bike flipped over, and he landed on his back in the middle of the sidewalk, gasping for air and surrounded by sandwiches.
“What are you doing here?” Lexie’s friend Marie appeared over him, her eyes kind of squinty behind her glasses. “And what are you doing with Jimmy’s Scooter Sub?”
“Where’s Lexie?” He swallowed past the dry patch in his throat and hoped it wasn’t a fly.
“Gone.”
Chapter 16
•love is a beautiful madness
A pair of kayakers slid through the smooth waters of Lake Union, gliding past the Sea Hopper and paddling toward the neighborhood of houseboats moored farther up the eastern shore.
“I just have one more suitcase,” Lexie said as she handed a medium-sized wheelie to the pilot inside the small amphibious plane.
“Geez, how long are you planning to be gone? A month?”
“Just a week.” She hadn’t planned to get away at all, but Geraldine had called with a Buddy emergency. Lexie’s grand opening had been a flop due to a misprint in the Seattle Times. Only a few people had shown up, and she’d left early, leaving the recently unemployed Marie in charge. She needed time away to heal and relax. Although it would take more than a week to heal her broken heart, and she doubted Geraldine would be very relaxing.
A week was a start, though. One week would turn into another, then another. Then a month would pass, until one day she would wake up without thinking of Sean Knox.
They’d never even been a real couple, but the love she felt for him was very real. So was the pain.
At her feet, Yum Yum barked at the kayakers and wagged her tail. The little dog wore a down parka with a faux-fur trim to shield her bare skin. Lexie picked her up and put her in the plane.
From within the cockpit,
Jimmy’s cell phone rang and he said loud enough for Lexie to hear, “What? You’re kidding. Did you call the police?”
He jumped out of the plane with a frown creasing his brow just beneath his aviator hat. “That was one of my drivers. Someone stole one of my Scooter Subs,” he told her, and shoved his phone back inside the pocket of the old leather jacket he’d loaned her a few months ago. “The police are on the lookout for it.”
“The police are looking for your sandwich motorcycle?” Had it really been just a few months since he’d mentioned his latest business scheme? So much had happened it seemed like a year.
“It’s a scooter. It was parked outside the Key Arena and some guy in blue sweats jumped on it and drove away.”
“That’s crazy.” She pulled out her sunglasses to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun.
“He had a hoodie pulled up over his head and no one got a good look at him.” Jimmy scratched beneath one earflap. “The police are talking to people inside the arena and the surrounding businesses. Maybe someone saw something.” He put his hand beneath Lexie’s elbow to help her into the plane but dropped it a second later when his phone rang.
“Hello.” He paused and turned to Lexie. “Really? You’re telling me my scooter’s in front of Yum Yum’s Closet? Am I hearing you right?” That got her attention. “What the hell?” He shook his head. “How bad? Uh-huh. No shit? Right now?” He looked toward the parking lot. “Let me talk to him.”
Lexie’s gaze followed but she didn’t see anything but a few parked cars.
“That’s messed up . . . My driver already called the police . . . Okay. You owe me.”
Marie’s silver MINI Cooper screeched to a stop. The door opened, and first one long leg, then the other seemed to unfold from the little car. Then a whole man appeared and from within the car, Marie waved. The Cooper sped away, leaving behind Sean Knox in a dark blue sweat suit. He moved toward her, his footsteps a quick, steady thumping on the docks.
“What’s going on, Jimmy?” she wanted to know.
“Apparently, Sean is my scooter thief.”
Unable to take her eyes off the man walking toward her as if he was on a mission, she asked, “Why would he steal your Scooter Subs scooter?”
“I have no idea. He not only stole it—he wrecked it, too.”
With each step of his feet, her heart pounded a little harder in her chest. With each second, she feared she might pass out and had to remind herself to breathe. Then he stood before her, his hair and cheeks windblown. One of his eyes was glassy, the other black, and a grim line pulled at his mouth. With his gaze fixed on Lexie, he said, “Sorry about your scooter, Jimmy.”
“Not cool, man.”
“I’ll pay for the damages.” He swallowed, and Yum Yum stuck her head out the door and barked at him. “Can you give me a few minutes, Jimmy?”
“Is that okay with you, Lex?”
That almost got a smile out of her. What was Jimmy going to do if it wasn’t? Sean was taller and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds of pure muscle. “Yeah. It’s okay.” She glanced at the pilot as he turned to climb into his plane. “Thanks for asking, though.”
“I’ll be sitting here dealing with the scooter situation if you need me.”
“Did you talk to the press yet?” Sean wanted to know.
She turned toward him and shook her head. “The paper got the date wrong and very few people showed up.” A part of her, the part that wanted to throw herself at his chest, had been relieved that she hadn’t had to make the breakup announcement. The other part, the one that wanted to throw him in the lake, just wanted an end to the pain. She shook her head. “I’ll get ahold of Sylvia and tell her it’s over between us. She’ll be happy to get the first scoop.”
“What if I don’t want it to be over?”
Had he chased her down because he wanted to wait the two weeks as they’d planned? Was he that selfish? Mean? “Well, I told you that—”
“What if all I want is to be with you?”
“I can’t do—wait . . . Huh?”
He took her sunglasses from her eyes and put them in the pocket of his sweatpants. “What if I want all of you all of the time? Everything, for all the reasons on your made-up lists and some you haven’t thought up yet.” He paused and said, “I love you, Lexie. Not the fake kind. Not the love that looks good on paper. No sections and subsections and columns of bullet points.”
She wanted to believe her ears. With all of her heart. “Did KO threaten to put his stick up your butt again?” She folded her arms under her breasts. “Is that what this is about?”
“No.” He placed his hands on her elbows and looked into her eyes. “I’m not afraid of anything but you getting on that plane and Jimmy gunning the engine. I’m afraid that I’ve already blown my chance.” Then he pulled out the big guns and blew her away. “It’s only been two months. This sounds crazy. Hell, it is crazy. You said you see me. I see you, too, Lexie. I see all of you. I want all of you. I feel you so deep in my heart, there’s no way I can get you out again.” He paused, then added just above a whisper, “I don’t want to try.”
She bit the corner of her trembling lip. “You’re not afraid that it’s only been a few months and we haven’t spent enough time together?”
He shook his head. “Neither of us is going anywhere. We have all the time in the world.” He slid his hands across her shoulders to cup the sides of her neck. “I found a saying.”
“A what?”
His cheeks turned a little redder. “A romantic quote.”
“All on your own?”
“Yes, and it’s not cheesy like yours.”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “What is it?”
“‘Walk with me. We’ll figure out where we’re going later.’”
So simple. “I love it.” Her smile slid clear down into her heart and she took his hand. “I love you.” It might not be the most romantic saying. It wasn’t:
Shakespeare.
Byron.
Nicholas Sparks.
No more running. Not from weddings or each other or love. Not from lies or fear or limits.
Sean kissed her lips and smiled. “Ready to walk with me?”
“Yes.”
He reached into the Sea Hopper and grabbed her dog. With her hand in his, the three of them walked side by side up the dock and into a future full of real love and genuine possibilities.
About the Author
RACHEL GIBSON began her fiction career at age sixteen, when she ran her car into the side of a hill, retrieved the bumper, and drove to a parking lot, where she strategically scattered the car’s broken glass all about. She told her parents she’d been the victim of a hit-and-run and they believed her. She’s been making up stories ever since, although she gets paid better for them nowadays.
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By Rachel Gibson
Just Kiss Me
Lola Carlyle Reveals All
It Must Be Love
Military Men Series
What I Love About You
Blue by You
Run to You
Chinooks Hockey Team Series
The Art of Running in Heels
Any Man of Mine
Nothing But Trouble
True Love and Other Disasters
The Trouble With Valentine’s Day
See Jane Score
Simply Irresistible
Writer Friends Series
Not Another Bad Date
Tangled Up in You
I’m in No Mood for Love
Sex, Lies, and Online Dating
Lovett, Texas Series
I Do!
Crazy on You
Rescue Me
Daisy’s Back in Town
Gospel, Texas Series
The Trouble With Valentine’s Day
True Confessions
Truly, Idaho Series
Tangled Up in You
What I L
ove About You
Truly Madly Yours
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the art of running in heels. Copyright © 2018 by Rachel Gibson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition JANUARY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-224748-3
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-224747-6
Cover design by Nadine Badalaty
Cover illustration by Aleta Rafton
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