by Rosie Vanyon
****
Hand in hand, engulfed in the scents of moss, pine, and roses, they crossed the dark lawn toward his trailer. There were few lights left on and, apart from a subdued laugh, a whimpering dog, and the soft strains of a 12-string, all was quiet. He unlocked the door and gestured for her to precede him up the steps into the brightly lit interior.
Suddenly finding herself in his very cramped, masculine space messed with her mind. Sure, it wasn’t his house or his office—it was only his temporary accommodation while he supervised the movie preparations—but there was no mistaking Levi’s unique, manly stamp on the space. Instantly, all her senses were on alert.
First, she registered the musky pure male baseline harmonizing with top notes of magnolia and mandarin. Her mind was a montage of intimate memories where she was wrapped in the luscious scent of him.
He was tidy, she thought, noticing stacks of neatly ironed and folded clothing on the open shelves, but not a neat freak. Papers, pens, and an empty coffee mug had been abandoned on the pull-out table.
He’d left the radio on low, tuned to the local easy listening station, winding up “I Only Have Eyes for You” and segueing into a slow Fleetwood Mac number. Maybe he was lonely here. Maybe the radio kept him company.
“Drink?” he asked, tossing his wallet and keys onto the table.
She shook her head, her eyes zeroing in on the pewter framed photograph beside the bed. Long hair, white teeth, big eyes. Two women, she registered. One very young, barely more than a girl. One older. Related to one another, she decided. Related to Levi?
“It’s stuffy in here. I’ll open up the skylight. We can lie on the bed and watch the night sky,” he offered.
Cara felt a little awkward while he worked on the window. There was no room to move and she could barely decide where to look. The trailer was crowded, intimate—and his. His sleek black alarm clock, his battered leather duffle bag, his pile of paperbacks—Grisham, Hawking, Heinlein—his toiletries. She felt intrusive and desperately curious in equal measure. What was he working on at the table? What did the speech bubble on his mug say? What did he think of the latest Grisham? Was gray his favorite color or was its overrepresentation in his t-shirt collection coincidence? And, of course, who were the women in the picture?
If she was in her own space, Cara thought, she’d simply peel off her clothes and fall into bed. That morning when she had happened across Selena and Levi cozying up on the veranda seemed eons ago. A hell of a lot had happened since then.
“Make yourself at home,” said Levi, stepping away from the skylight and switching off the main light, leaving the room illuminated by two utilitarian bedside lamps.
Her exhaustion reared up and she didn’t fight it. She quickly yanked off her clothes and climbed into bed on the side furthest from the photograph. Not that she didn’t want a closer look, but she figured he favored that side.
He watched her unashamedly. She liked the feel of his eyes on her. She laughed when he pouted as she scooted under the covers. He didn’t hesitate when she patted the space beside her. His clothes quickly joined hers on the floor and they were lying in their familiar position with his arm cradling her neck and her body curled against and around him. Her tiredness melted away the instant he lay beside her. Their skin felt glorious against one another. She thrilled at his breath against her hair, his lashes on her cheek, his fingers skimming the downy flesh of her arm. Could she really want him again? He seemed relaxed, ready for sleep. Maybe she could entice him into some horseplay by baiting him with a dare as he had done for her earlier.
“So, you never had a turn,” she murmured.
“Turn?”
“Truth or dare?” she asked, injecting her tone with enough challenge and sparkle to have him lifting his head and meeting her eyes. He couldn’t miss the impish, taunting desire awakening there.
“You’re insatiable, woman! It must be three in the morning. Don’t you ever sleep?”
But despite his protests, she could feel his manhood stirring at the thought.
“You have to have a turn,” she countered. “It’s only fair.”
“Fair schmair. We both need some sleep, wench!”
“Pleeeeeease,” she wheedled, shifting herself so that plenty of warm naked skin rubbed against him, causing his cock to harden and his breath to catch.
“Woman!” he protested half-playfully, holding her still while maneuvering himself away from her. “Sleep.”
“Not until you’ve had your turn.”
“Okay, in the interest of common sense and expediency, let me throw some cold water on your cunning plan. Truth.”
She pouted. “But that’s no fun!”
“Take it or leave it.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take it.” She’d take any crumb he threw her way, she realized. She just hoped he hadn’t figured that out.
She searched her mind for a good question, something revealing that he couldn’t wriggle out of with a fast or fluffy response. If she was going to be dealt a truth hand, she could at least make sure it was worthwhile. Her gaze fell on the bedside portrait. The women must be important to him if they held pride of place where he saw them last thing every night and first thing every morning. She might have felt a niggle of envy if she hadn’t been in his bed beside him, in the flesh. Surely a question about the picture would deliver a meaty answer. Besides, she was deadly curious about them.
“Who are the women in the picture?” she asked lightly, watching his response carefully.
His body stiffened as though he was warding off an attack and almost immediately went slack in defeat. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, as though he was desperate to keep words or emotions inside. His hands slid away from her and he rolled onto his back. The inches between them felt like a galaxy.
She had made a mistake, she thought. She had targeted a topic way too close, too private. He didn’t want to share. Who could blame him? She was just some woman he’d known for a few days. Certainly, they’d slept together but their physical closeness didn’t necessarily mean he was prepared to be emotionally intimate.
Cara felt tears well up in her eyes and rolled over, planning to face away from him, so he wouldn’t see her tears. She felt clumsy and intrusive. She’d managed to ruin what had been a lovely night by pushing her own agenda too far, first insisting on another round of Selena’s silly game and then bulldozing into sensitive territory she had no business being in.
His hand stayed her before she could turn all the way over. His fingers sought hers and he urged her to lie beside him. With their hands clasped together, they lay side by side looking up through the open skylight at the real midnight stars.
For a long time, he said nothing. Her silent tears subsided as he comforted her with no more than the warmth of his fingers around her own. Her breathing became slower. Her eyes drifted closed.
“Remember I said I don’t ride motorcycles anymore?” he finally whispered in the dark.
For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she was awake or dreaming his words. “I remember.” She sighed, giving his hand a tiny squeeze.
She listened to him breathe. The air came and went, deep and even. She thought he might have eased into sleep.
“Two years ago, I was riding an Aprilia RSV1000R.”
She pictured a sexy red and black machine with hot curves and pure grunt and she murmured an appreciative sound.
“Yeah, it was a blast to ride all right and I constantly fanged it at arrest-me-now speeds, believe you me. But I didn’t get arrested. I wish I had.”
His tone finally registered in Cara’s brain. There was a raspy, raw edge to his voice, a tortured quality as though it physically hurt to push the words out. She mentally cleared away the wisps of dreams and drew herself back to full consciousness, careful not to move or change her breathing and, by doing so, alert him to her sudden vigilance.
“Ever since she started talking, my niece, Bronte, begged me to
take her on the back of my bike. When she was little, it was just a Z250—top speed, seventy-right miles an hour on the flat.” He laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “I would always smile and say I’d take her when she was fifteen. Fifteen seemed forever away. But time rolled around and pretty soon, it was her fifteenth birthday. Teenage girls can be tenacious when it comes to getting what they want and she held me to my promise. I managed to string it out another couple of years, but eventually, Bronte wore me down. My sister, Erin, her mom, said sure, if she wasn’t safe with me, she wasn’t safe with anyone. You’ve probably guessed that she wasn’t safe with me.” His voice was mechanical, a robotic monotone.
Cara struggled to remain still and breathe calmly. She sensed that he was a hairsbreadth from shutting down his confession, turning away from this unburdening, for she knew deep in her bones that he had not spoken this story before and she knew equally well that he needed to tell it. While her question had stemmed from inquisitiveness, she now desperately wanted him to answer for his own wellbeing. Toxic secrets bottled up only festered and ate away at the keeper. She ought to know. They lost their power when you brought them out into the light.
She felt rather than saw his left hand involuntarily trace the scar crossing his left cheekbone.
“We kitted Bronte up in all the gear—lid, gloves, jacket—and Erin took a bunch of photos of her beaming like a billion bucks through the helmet. I’d never seen her so happy. She squealed as we took off and wrapped her arms tight around me, but she was a natural pillion and within a couple of minutes, she had the feel for it. She was hugging the curves right along with me, waving at kids we passed, and laughing with the sheer joy of being on the bike.”
Cara risked a glance at him in the starlight. He paused, breathed hard, scrunched up his eyes, swallowed. She gave his hand a hard squeeze. He rubbed his thumb over hers. When he continued, his voice was even more ravaged, his words heavy and hurting.
“I’d barely gotten as far as the next suburb when it happened. It was like slow motion. A school bus snagged my attention. It had just pulled up on the opposite side of the road and kids were pouring out every which way. I was being cautious, going slow, conscious that any one of them might run out into the street. Because my eyes were on the bus and the kids, I was maybe half a second too late seeing the dark sedan pulling out of the side street, directly in my path. Clearly, the driver didn’t see the bike coming. Even that would have been okay if he had kept going. I hit the anchors, but at that moment, one of the school kids did run out on the road and the car stopped mid-turn to avoid cleaning up the kid. With a school kid on one side and a car in front, there was no place to go but the footpath. I counter-steered and launched the bike over the gutter and around the car. And for a second, it seemed like everything would somehow miraculously be all right. But, as luck would have it, there was some construction work going on and half the pavement was dug up and the other half was blocked off. I literally had nowhere to go. I almost got around the barriers, but I clipped a danger sign and, next thing, the bike was swerving out of control, airborne, then sliding. Bronte and I were both thrown off. I landed in an azalea bush. Broke my arm. Bronte landed on an excavator. Broke her neck.”
Cara held in a whimper of distress. His feelings of guilt were palpable and, in that moment, she would have done anything to take his pain away. Seeing a fellow human in agony was awful, but seeing the man she loved expose the utter devastation in his heart was almost more than Cara could bear. She wanted to reach for him, hold him close, make it better, but he was still in that dark place behind his eyes, behind his ribs, and she knew he was still unreachable.
“She’s been in the hospital in an induced coma for eighteen months now. It’s been the most horrible kind of limbo. No surgeon is game to touch her. Her situation is too dicey. The chances of damaging her brain or causing quadriplegia during surgery are phenomenally high. And yet, the life she has now is no life at all. Long story short, Erin finally found a guy in California who says he’ll give the operation a go. But the cost is unbelievable. If I owned a small country, I’d probably still struggle,” he said without humor. “We’ve knocked ourselves out fundraising, but even with people’s mind-blowingly incredible generosity, it’s barely a drop in the ocean…”
“And that’s why you’re so desperate for money,” Cara said quietly, almost to herself.
“When I saw your script, it seemed like a way forward. If we can get this surgeon to perform the operation, there’s a small chance we can get Bronte back. Now that we can jazz up the plot a little, we’re one step closer to saving Bronte.”
“Oh, Levi,” she said, and drew him to her. Their lovemaking was earnest and ardent. They held each other’s eyes and clung to one another as though to affirm their aliveness. It was magic and heartbreaking, gentle and desperate all at once.
“No wonder you don’t ride,” she murmured as she stroked his hair and traced his jawline afterwards.
“I lost my nerve, Cara. Gavin, a young neighbor, was just shy of scoring his bike license. He bought a 125 out of the paper and needed someone to ride it just three blocks from the seller’s place to his home. I said I’d help out, but when I saw the bike, I went to pieces. Sweating, nausea, the whole box and dice. I was shaking so badly I wouldn’t have been able to get the key in the ignition, let alone hold the bike up. It was embarrassing. But it was also devastating. I’ll never ride again.”
Chapter Fourteen
They were careful with one another the following morning, like a couple of china figurines tiptoeing round each another, almost afraid to touch in case they broke the fragile strand of true intimacy that had been threaded between them during the previous night’s conversation.
He graciously offered to fetch her Gearsack from the main house while she showered. She filled two plates with breakfast from the trestle table outside the back door while he took his turn in the bathroom. He cleared the foldout table of what she now recognized as medical bills and they ate quietly with only perfunctory remarks. The mood was not so much strained or uncomfortable as careful and considerate.
Cara was afraid that he might take any show of empathy as pity, which she knew, as a proud self-sufficient man, he wouldn’t want. She was scared of saying the wrong thing, in case she inadvertently shut down his newfound openness, when all she wanted was to be closer to him. The glimpse she had been granted of the vulnerable depths of Levi Callister had her more intrigued and entranced than ever. And his demonstration of trust in sharing his story with her created a kernel of hope and courage in her heart. It was the seed of a kind of love that she had always thought might be possible for others—like chick flick heroines and the “in” girls at school—but she had never imagined would be available to a guarded, damaged person like herself.
The polite veneer of distance was something they both seemed to need to regroup after Levi’s starlit confession.
“Need a lift to your sister’s?” Levi asked as he took her empty plate and filled the sink with soapy water.
“I’d love a ride if it’s not too much trouble. My niece Freya is celebrating her twelfth birthday today. Of course, you’re welcome to come to the party.”
He surprised her by accepting her invitation, and they left Flinders’ Keep together in the late morning.
He drove her across the neck of land and they were just passing the school when she saw it—a flash of red up a side street. He whipped his head round at the same moment, his eyes tracking the streak of red metal. With a calm he couldn’t possibly feel, he eased the truck to a stop. There was no mistaking her bike, the air-cooled v-twin parked at a jaunty angle with its back wheel hard against the curb. For a moment, they both simply sat, agape, taking in the sight of it. While the moment lengthened, unexpected and surreal, Cara ran her eyes over the familiar lines, noting a new scratch on the faring, a crack in the side mirror, and matching scrapes on the foot peg and rear indicator. Other than that, the bike seemed unscathed.
Her heart pounded, her eyes teared up, and her hands itched to touch her flying dragon.
Levi interrupted the stillness by motioning for her to look to the right where a scruffy young guy in a flannel shirt was exiting a takeaway, trying to juggle a cheap helmet, keys, a coffee, and a brown grease-spotted bag. Everything from his scrawny frame to his scraggily beard made her prickle with distaste. Rotten, no-good thief!
“I’m going to kill him,” Cara growled, reaching for the door.
She heard the click of the child-lock and tugged uselessly on the door lever. Before she could even voice a protest, let alone strangle him, Levi was out of the truck. He’d locked her in the damn car! Where the hell was the lock release?
Leaving the engine running, Levi leapt down to the tarmac and, in three fast steps, he collared the rider. Coffee and bagels went flying down the pavement as the two men wrestled. The lurid green helmet bounced into the gutter and the keys followed as the long-haired thief tried to take a swing at Levi. Bigger, stronger, and faster than the young punk, Levi smashed his powerful fist into the young man’s solar plexus and the guy doubled over, gasping and staggering backwards. Before Levi could throw a follow-up punch, the thief backed out of reach toward the silver Tacoma. As he approached, staggering backwards toward the truck, Cara could see the gang tattoo on his forearm. She could also see the knife he was fishing out of his back pocket.
She wanted to scream in fear and frustration. She needed to warn Levi! Her fingers were shaking, but she managed to unclip her seatbelt and clambered across the console toward the driver’s side. She hit random buttons, desperate for the child lock release. She heard the tell-tale click, but simultaneously activated the driver’s window control.
“Knife!” she shouted through the gap left by the descending glass.