Who I Am With You

by Melody Anne

  He tried to ignore the fact that his legs felt like jelly, and that this night wasn’t going to be much fun, to put it mildly. It was only 3 a.m., but he was officially up for the day, in more than one sense of the word. Throwing on his jogging pants—thankfully, no one could see the tent he’d made in them—he grabbed a flashlight and his gun and stepped outside.

  He planned to run until exhaustion was the only thing on his mind. But after two hours of punishing his body almost to the point of no return, he knew nothing was going to get Taylor from his mind.

  Taylor looked around anxiously as she came out of the bedroom. Whew! No Travis. She’d behaved badly the night before. They’d both wanted to make love, but she’d been so afraid. That was her only excuse. He wasn’t the man she’d been imagining him to be for the last few years.

  If he were a monster, this would be so much easier. But he was kind and giving, and he made her laugh more than anyone else ever had. So why was she so reluctant to fall back into bed with him? The answer was profoundly painful to admit to herself. It was because she was in love with him, and if for some reason this didn’t work out, she feared she’d never trust her heart again.

  Was that a good enough excuse to keep her distance? Right now, she really didn’t have all the answers. Maybe she could do something kind for him. He’d been cooking most of the meals since they’d both ended up at the cabin—she mostly handled sandwiches—and though she wasn’t the greatest of cooks, she could surprise him with breakfast.

  He was most likely out running, or gathering more firewood, more things she hadn’t been doing. Taylor realized that if she’d been up at this cabin all by herself, she never would have lasted. It was time to fight this inner battle and get back to the woman she normally was.

  Yes. Breakfast it was. It wouldn’t be nearly as good as what Travis made, but that was okay. It was the thought that counted, right? Right! Pulling out one of the cooking magazines her mother had conveniently left, she flipped to a page showing breakfast biscuits and an egg dish she needed to bake.

  Okay, she could do this!

  She pulled out eggs, bacon, onions, and the ingredients for the biscuits. Her mother made the most mouthwatering ones, so she’d do her best. If she wasn’t careful with her cooking, instead of offering him an olive branch, she’d end up having to rush him into the ER to have his stomach pumped.

  Taylor found herself humming as she combined the eggs with milk and seasonings in a bowl, and then poured the mixture into a pan and slipped it into the oven. Laying out the bacon in a pan, she enjoyed the sound of sizzling as she mixed the batter for the drop biscuits just like the magazine was telling her. Sure, the batter looked a bit lumpy, but she laid out the biscuits on the pan and put it into the oven, too, before flipping the bacon.

  When she was finished with the meal, the egg mixture looked a little rubbery, the biscuits a bit too brown, and the bacon overly crisp, but she was more than proud of herself. Now, all she had to do was wait for Travis.

  When the door opened a few minutes later and his eyes zeroed in on her, she gave him a hopeful smile, praying he wasn’t going to be angry with her. Yes, she had the right to refuse his advances, but they were in this small cabin together, and the last thing she wanted was to keep arguing with him.

  “What’s that smell, Taylor?”

  She couldn’t tell from his tone whether he considered the smell good or bad.

  “I made breakfast,” she said, shifting on her feet.

  He absolutely gaped at her, and it took him a moment to speak. “It smells great.”

  Taylor could feel her face heat with pleasure. “Come sit down. It’s all ready.”

  She brought the dishes to the table and waited for him to join her. She already knew he liked ketchup on his eggs—weird!—but she had the bottle next to his plate. He waited to sit until she was seated, a bit of sexist etiquette that she hated to admit pleased her, but it did. When he dished up a huge serving of each item, she found herself bursting with pride.

  It was silly, honestly. She hadn’t done anything spectacular, but her last boyfriend had begged her not to cook, saying she was much better at ordering takeout. Even though she didn’t enjoy cooking, he’d still hurt her feelings for some odd reason.

  “This is great, Taylor,” Travis said after clearing half his plate.

  “I know it’s not cooked correctly . . .” she said as she pushed her food around on her plate. Sheesh. He’d been creating masterpieces during his time in the kitchen and her food tasted awful.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said, and took up his fork again.

  He smothered a biscuit with butter and her mother’s homemade jam, and ate it in a couple of bites. Maybe she’d made them too small and that’s why they were so hard. When his tongue came out and swept up the leftover jam on his lip, Taylor felt her stomach clench with need.

  Their eyes met, and Taylor lost any semblance of an appetite—for food anyway. Keeping her distance from him seemed well-nigh impossible. After the night before, after his hands had roamed over most of her body, after his lips had owned hers, she couldn’t seem to keep sex off her brain.

  “Taylor, if you keep looking at me like that, I’m not going to be able to play the gentleman,” he told her, his voice a sexy growl.

  “I don’t know if I want you to.” Taylor was just as shocked as Travis by the words that came from her mouth.

  “Last night . . .” He shook his head as if to clear it.

  “I’m scared, Travis.” He would never know how much it cost her to admit that to him.

  “We all get scared. That’s not a good enough reason to fight something as powerful as what the two of us share.”

  His eyes bored into hers, and the rest of their breakfast was completely forgotten. She almost wished he would just stand up, walk around the table, and take the choice away from her. She didn’t want to think any longer. She just wanted to feel something other than sadness, fear, and anxiety, something other than pain.

  She had no doubt that being in Travis’s arms would take her to the highest reaches of joy. But then, when she came back down to earth, wouldn’t the crash be so much worse?

  “I . . . I . . . don’t know, Travis.” She was struggling to work through her confusion.

  “I’m not going to push you, Taylor. I’m going to be your friend. I’m going to listen to you, and I’m going to wait, because you’re worth waiting for.”

  “Who says stuff like that?” she gasped. “It has to be a line, just like the sand and the cement.”

  “Even then it wasn’t a line. Even when I make mistakes, what I say is one hundred percent real. When I look at you, I picture forever. You’re not just some weekend girl, or someone to hide away. I want you on my arm, Taylor. I have for a long time, but now I’m not letting guilt stop me.”

  He didn’t allow her to look away. The control in his eyes, the confidence, the sureness, made it impossible for her to turn from him. Her mind whirled, and her heart beat erratically. Could it really be that simple?

  “How do you know that? How can you be so sure?”

  “I know what I want, and what I want is you.”

  “But what if . . .” She didn’t know how to complete that sentence.

  “There are always what-ifs, Taylor. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have faith in ourselves, in our abilities to know what we really want and then go after it.”

  She remained torn. Her heart insisted that she accept what he was offering, but her mind told her that it could never work.

  “What if all of this goes badly? It isn’t as if either of us can just walk away and never see each other again. You are my brother’s best friend. You’ll be there on holidays, at the house at the most unexpected times. We would never be able to walk away from each other, always have this thrown in our faces.” She didn’t add that he would be a constant reminder of what could have been, and she’d suffer for the rest of her life because of it.

  “I can�
��t promise nothing bad will ever happen. But to not even try is ridiculous.” He couldn’t counter her argument.

  “I don’t think I can do this, Travis.” She wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was being more honest with him than she’d ever been before.

  “You will allow yourself to let go, Taylor,” he said with a sure smile. “I know it. And I’ll be right here when that moment happens.”

  She had a feeling he was right. Why keep fighting? She was so tempted to stand up and walk around the table, to fall into his arms. She couldn’t fathom what held her back now, but she had no doubt at all that the two of them weren’t finished yet.

  She simply had no idea what the next chapter of their story would be. As if knowing the struggle she was going through, Travis stood and walked around the small table, then kneeled in front of her.

  “I’m letting you off the hook for this moment, not because I’m weak, and not because I don’t want you, but because I will not allow you to use our lovemaking as an excuse to run from me. When we come together, you won’t have a single regret,” he said, rubbing a finger along her cheek.

  “How can you be so casual, so accepting, when I’m acting crazy? Most guys would run like hell.”

  “I’m not like most guys. I’m one of a kind.” Winking at her, he stood and pulled her up, drawing her into his arms.

  Taylor didn’t try to resist. She leaned against him and accepted the comfort he was so willing to give. Yes, she was in love with this man. But she couldn’t answer one crucial question right now: Was love enough?

  The sound of the fire crackling was their music as Taylor and Travis sat together on the couch, her head resting against his shoulder while he caressed her back, at once comforting her and also filling her with need.

  Their day had been another good one. They’d walked to the pond, swum, talked, laughed, and, to her mind at least, grown closer together. Still, she hadn’t really opened up to him.

  “Come on, Taylor. I’ve shared war stories with you. Don’t you think you can share some of your racing career with me?” he said, his hand almost mesmerizing as it caressed her skin.

  “You’ll judge me,” she said. Everyone did when they knew the full truth.

  “I swear to simply sit and listen. No judgment of any kind,” he said, even holding his hand up in the scout’s honor pledge.

  “Fine, but . . .”

  “I said I swear.” He seemed irritated that she was making him repeat himself. Well, she would get irritated if he didn’t keep his word.

  “I’ve been in several accidents over the years, Travis, most of them without my parents knowing,” she told him. “They know my occupation is dangerous. They know the risks, but they also know they can’t keep me from it, so they don’t harp as much as they used to. If my mother really knew all the stuff that can¸ and sometimes does, go wrong, she’d tie me up in the basement and never let me race again.” She ended with a laugh.

  “What accidents?”

  Though he was trying to seem nonchalant, she could hear the strain in his voice. This was why she didn’t talk about it. She didn’t want her family making her feel guilty for doing what she loved.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve had a head injury,” she said reluctantly, though she wanted to kick herself for saying it when she felt his shoulder tense beneath her head.

  “Taylor . . .” There was a note of warning in his tone.

  “You said you would just listen, Travis. You promised not to make rash judgments or try to make me feel guilty.”

  “Yeah. I did make that promise, but when you’re putting your life in danger . . .”

  “And isn’t that what you did every single day you were fighting a war thousands of miles away from home? It’s so easy for you to judge me, and for my parents, and for my brothers, but you and my brothers lead lives that are just as dangerous, and no one is trying to get you to stop.”

  This was the same argument she’d had with her mother a million times, and she just had no patience left when it came to this topic.

  “The difference is that I was serving my country, that I wasn’t told that if I fall one more time, I very well could die.”

  “You might not have been told that, Travis, but every single time you stepped out onto a battlefield—or anywhere, really—you could have ended your life, and you almost did with that IED. To me, that’s no different than my getting back on a bike. You tell me what’s more dangerous, because a hell of a lot more soldiers come home in caskets than dirt-bike racers.”

  Taylor knew she was letting her temper get the better of her, but once she got on a roll, there was no stopping her.

  “The difference is that I was fighting for something I believed in. I was helping others. What you’re doing is for yourself. I get that. But when it comes to a point that you can have a small accident and die, that’s when you have to let it go.”

  “You’re wrong, Travis,” she said, trying to pull away from him, but his arm tightened around her.

  “It’s easy to say I’m wrong, but you have to listen to your doctors. If they advise against racing, then that’s what you have to do.”

  “I still have another appointment that will either clear me or not. And it will clear me. Besides, they don’t know me. They don’t know what I’m capable of!”

  “Bullshit, Taylor.” His voice was still calm, but his words pierced her anyway.

  “You’re only being this way because I’m a girl, right? Because women need to be told what to do,” she practically snarled.

  “You can go on and on about its being because you’re a woman, but if it was a male friend of mine who had the same diagnosis, I’d advise him to quit as well.”

  “See, Travis! Right there,” she practically shouted. “You would advise him to quit, not demand it.”

  “I’m not demanding it of you, Taylor. No one can demand anything. You’re an adult, and not only that, you’re intelligent, and brave, and wonderful. You can make your own choices. As a friend, and hopefully soon as your lover, I’m saying that I care about you, that I want to see you live a long life, and that if the doctors were telling me that I shouldn’t race anymore, I would sure as hell listen. Of course, I didn’t have any choice after I was injured.”

  “But if you had a choice, you would go back, wouldn’t you? Even if it could cost you your life? Don’t lie to me!”

  “Of course I would go back. I was serving my country,” he said, his own cool slightly unraveling.

  “And just because you think that’s more important doesn’t mean that I do. I don’t want to belittle the military. I have great respect for our men and women in uniform. I’m just saying that I’m as passionate about the racing world as you are about the military.”

  He was silent for a few moments and she allowed the silence. They were navigating in some rough waters right now, and the next words could end them before they’d even had a chance to see where they were going. Wasn’t this why she was leery, though? Then why was her heart aching so badly? Was not making love to him even helping?

  “Are you passionate about racing, or passionate about the world of racing?”

  Taylor was confused by his words, didn’t understand what he was saying to her now. “I don’t know what else to do if I don’t race,” she said, her vulnerability coming through loud and clear, making her cringe.

  “Just think about it, Taylor. Think about what is important to you, and how you can have your needs met. I had to do that when I couldn’t be a soldier anymore. That’s the path you have to find. And you will. It just takes time.”

  “What are you going to do with your life?” she asked, needing to change the subject.

  She held her breath and waited to see if he would allow the change in topic. When he spoke, she let it out. “I was talking to Bryson before coming out here, and the more I think about it, the more excited I become. I think I’m opening up an investigation agency.”

  “Like chasing after cheating exes?”
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  “No, though that could be fun,” he said with a laugh. “I would take government contracts and investigate possible threats on U.S. grounds. I have contacts and business partners who are more than willing to go in on this with me.”

  “Wow. Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Yes, it is, as a matter of fact.”

  And she was instantly angry again. “Ugh. It’s okay for you and Bryson to fight terrorists, but not okay for me to ride a bike.”

  “You know, Taylor, you can still ride. The doctor is just saying you shouldn’t compete.”

  “What fun would it be if there’s no competition?”

  “Oh, darling, I will have to show you how fun it could be,” he said, and his changing tone made her stomach tighten with need again.

  It seemed they couldn’t get through a single conversation without the sexual tension going all supernova on them. But instead of offering him her lips, she continued resting her head against his shoulder as he went on explaining what he would need to do in order to open his company. Though truly fascinated, Taylor found herself growing tired.

  Soon, she fell asleep against him, her last thought that she was right where she belonged—safe in his arms.

  Taylor checked for the tenth time to make sure there was no one around. Yes, they’d been at the cabin nearing a month, and no, she hadn’t seen anyone, but still, she was nervous as she glanced out at the trees and tried to work up the courage to do what she really wanted to do.

  Travis had been away all morning, running errands in town. She should have just gone with him, but she’d woken up with a headache and figured she’d lie down and relax. She could go to town in a couple of days. She was beginning to miss people.

  Not that she thought about anyone else when she was with Travis. He was just that sort of guy, the kind who made her forget there was a whole world out there waiting for her. When Travis was around, time seemed to stand still. If the two of them could just remain in their small piece of paradise forever, she wouldn’t feel the desire to race again.