“I don’t think so.”
Logan pulled the helmet back toward him, glanced toward the bike, then back to Rachel. His brows drew down over his blue eyes. “Scared?”
“Cautious.”
“Me, too.” He gestured toward the helmets. “C’mon.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. Anybody who’d ever worked in an ER had seen the damage riding, or rather crashing, on one of these could cause. And, that’s if you didn’t end up dead. Which happened often enough.
Logan tipped his head to the side thoughtfully and nodded. “I’ve been riding since college, I took the motorcycle safety abate course, and did very well. I always wear a helmet. Always. I obey all traffic laws. I also teach Driver’s Ed when they need me. And,” he said, leaning toward her, “I always watch where I’m going.”
She didn’t unwind her arms from her torso. She looked at him, to the motorcycle, then back to him.
“Just a little ride around town.”
She pinned him with a stare. “Why?”
He lifted one corner of his mouth and stepped toward her, lifting the helmet. “Why not?”
He had a point. Why not? She had no doubt Logan would be careful and safe. If for no other reason than he valued his own life. She chewed her lip and caught his eye.
Well, why not. She rolled her shoulders back and, casting one more look to the bike, she brought her gaze to Logan and nodded, taking a step closer to him. She didn’t miss his smile. It wasn’t smug—like he’d tricked her, but pleased that she’d decided to spend the afternoon with him, trust him.
He settled the helmet on her head. The weight was unfamiliar and surprisingly heavy. It didn’t cover her face but was like a big hollowed out canon ball on her head. He brought the straps together under her chin, grazing her skin, his hands lingered there. Her eyes drifted closed while he fitted her sunglasses onto her face. The weight of the helmet sent her head floating back on her shoulders.
Logan stepped toward the bike and put on his own helmet. Then he easily straddled the powerful machine. He put up the kickstand, balancing the weight of the bike between his strong thighs. He extended his hand and beckoning her forward.
She drew in another breath. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. One step forward and then another, she reached her hand out and he accepted it. His touch was warm and strong and at once both reassuring and exhilarating.
She awkwardly swung her leg around the back, trying not to bump him but having to brace one hand on his shoulder for support. When she was on, she had to concentrate on holding her head straight to avoid knocking her helmet into his.
He started the bike. A deafening, throaty roar emanated from the engine and pulsed along the tailpipes. The engine’s vibrations radiated through her legs, her butt, and lady bits, which happened to be nestled up nice and snug to Logan’s backside. She tentatively brought her hands down to rest lightly against his hips.
“Hang on,” he shouted over the engine’s roar.
He rolled his hand back on the ends of the handlebars and worked his foot on what she presumed was the bike’s clutch. The bike glided forward, the motion smoother than she would have imagined. When they reached the sidewalk he slowed the bike to a crawl, the bump-bump down from the sidewalk to the road although slight, still sent her helmet into his. “Sorry,” she shouted.
He braked at the stop sign, looked both ways, then started slowly down the street. Rachel couldn’t help herself, she checked for cars, too.
Logan maneuvered the big bike up Bakers Street, shifted gears, and gently increased speed.
At the intersection of Bakers and Vine, Logan turned left, and Rachel realized he was taking them out of town.
Logan never would have guessed this was Rachel’s first time on a motorcycle. For a moment there, he didn’t think she was going to get on. Standing in his driveway, with her big green eyes the size of saucers and her lips parted as if the words “No and Way” were working their way out, he’d been certain she was going to tell him exactly that. But she hadn’t. He’d known the precise moment when she’d settled on her choice. Just like in the council meeting, and at The Spoon, in her motel room when he’d taken over her phone call, and with the belly dancers, her chin had come up, she’d squared her shoulders, and made her choice.
A part of him reveled in being the one to take her on her first ride. Maybe he could teach her how to ride.
If she’d be around long enough.
Right now, though, she was sucked up against him tight as anything. And, he liked that just fine. He hoped she’d get used to the weight of the helmet soon, though. She was butting her helmet against his with every crease in the pavement.
He was glad he’d asked her out. In spite of everything with the event, he enjoyed her company. She wasn’t the rich brat he’d accused her of being. Not once had he seen her throw a fit over less than luxurious accommodations, and, except for that time at Molly’s—that glorious day when he’d caught her in her underwear—she hadn’t done any shopping that he was aware of. In fact, as far as he knew, she was either here in Redemption planning the tribute, or in Denver working.
And, if she was in Redemption, she’d been with him.
Damn if he didn’t like that. A lot more than he cared to admit.
And, honestly, since he was being honest, he didn’t care if she went shopping or what she bought. In fact, he’d like to be the one to buy her things. Like one of Sasha’s costumes.
Too bad Rachel was leaving.
Or maybe it was for the best. She was still a Delaney-Tolbert, and no matter what she said, a Delaney-Tolbert didn’t belong with the offspring of Mean Gene Hastings.
They were heading east on thirty-four, nothing but rolling fields of pasture land as far as the eye could see. The sky was clear and the wind felt like heaven on his face, freedom.
The big bike ate up the pavement between Redemption and the Colorado state line. He was right at the speed limit. He could feel Rachel lift up a little, lean a little, and he knew she was checking the gauges. She’d never ridden before, or if she had, it hadn’t been a good experience. Her pale face and wide eyes had pretty much confirmed that. But here she was, nerves and all.
And, all that was pressed up against him, her thighs snug to his.
He may never get off this bike.
Since they weren’t wearing full face helmets, they could easily, well, fairly easily speak over the roar of the engine. He tilted his head back and asked if she was okay.
She clunked her helmet against his, which he took for yes.
They passed the state line and crossed into Nebraska, only about ten miles east of Redemption. Logan rolled to a stop at an intersection, signaled, and turned into a rest stop.
He parked the bike, leaning it slowly onto the kickstand, then he climbed off, careful not to send Rachel to the ground as he lifted his leg over the bike. She remained on the bike, locked in cruising position.
Logan reached out a gloved hand and cupped her shoulder.
She turned to him slowly, her head tipped back slightly. He couldn’t see her eyes with her sunglasses on, but he could feel her looking at him. He reached for the straps of the helmet and unfastened it, pulling it off as gently as he could, but her glasses still twisted on her face. Several strands of hair stood up with static and she had a crease from where the helmet had squished her forehead. She was magnificent, sitting astride all that chrome. Powerful. He’d love to see her sitting on his bike naked.
She righted her glasses and began smoothing down her hair, tucking it behind her ears. He waited.
“Well?” he asked finally.
She raised her green eyes to him and said, “Again.”
He waited, not entirely sure what she was saying.
“I want to do that again!” And then she smiled. Not a slow, tentative, cautious smile. But a full-out, got-the-world-by-it’s-tail grin. Something in him tightened, and it wasn’t south of his belt buckle, more like the center of
his chest and he didn’t want to go there. So he said, through the smile on his own face, “Want to stretch your legs?”
She nodded and reached out a hand to steady herself as she climbed off the bike. He held her forearm, helping her to keep her balance until she was on two feet and standing next to him.
“That was great! Seriously, Logan.” She tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears while he hung her helmet on the handle bars, next to his own. Then he opened the leather saddlebags and grabbed a blanket and a brown paper bag.
“Come on, Easy Rider.” Logan steered her away from the bike. “I want to show you something.
She walked next to him and before he could think anything of it, he reached for her hand and she welcomed his, giving a little squeeze.
They walked in companionable silence along the dirt path that led from the road into the pasture and up to an old barn nestled in a grove of trees.
“Who owns this?” she asked.
“The state. Used to belong to a farmer, but when he died, there was no family to claim it and ownership passed on to the state.” He unrolled the blanket, spreading it out under the trees. “Want to sit? Have a picnic with me?”
“Kind of sad, you know, not having anybody to pass family heritage on to.”
Logan shrugged. “That’s how it goes sometimes. That’s how it is for you and me.”
She studied him. “I guess you’re right. You got the house from your dad.”
She didn’t miss Logan’s sharp inhale. “Yeah, lucky for me. A dilapidated mess and even messier memories.”
She sat down on the blanket. “I noticed the new windows. Did you do those?”
“I have a contractor. I help out with the stuff he’ll let me.” He popped open a soda and passed it to her. “I’m tearing out most everything. Gutting the bastard. There’s nothing there worth saving.”
Rachel took a swallow of soda but didn’t taste it. How different the two of them were. She was trying to preserve her grandmother’s memory, her heritage and he was doing all in his power to obliterate his.
Yet, they were similar, too. They both held tightly to their beliefs and what they believed was right and true. And, they valued children and the value they gave to the world. She couldn’t fault him one bit for wanting to see his players have a successful season. But, she couldn’t give up on her plans, either, because it was for Nana.
“You got what your grandmother passed down to you. I know the home place was sold off, but you got the money from that, right?”
She listened to his words for the usual underlying distaste that typically laced his words when he spoke of her grandma and her family’s money. She didn’t hear it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
“Logan, do you want to know what happened to that money? The inheritance, the money I told the town council about?”
He looked away from her, studying the side of the barn. She waited for him to meet her eyes. When at last he did, she said, “I never saw a dime of it. I told the lawyers I didn’t want any of it. It was all given to the Delaney-Tolbert Foundation the day she died. I didn’t want it.”
He shot a glance to her.
“That’s right. I’m not who you think I am. I’m just a girl, a struggling physician, actually.” She laughed without humor. “Struggling to finish my fellowship, to get a job, to do what I feel is right by Nana.”
Her voice trailed off and she studied the ground, picking up a small branch, which she dragged in the dirt.
“I’ll never forget, Rachel.”
That brought Rachel’s head up from her search. “Forget what?”
Logan stood. He walked a few steps away from her and she watched his muscles bunch with each step. Tension radiated off of him. When he walked back, his face was drawn and his eyes were bluer, shiny even. “That night.”
When she started to shake her head, he pointed at her and said, “That night in the gas station, when dear old dad passed out on Nana’s caddie and Jonesy had to close down the station while he called me to come get him.”
Logan was no longer that fourteen year-old boy. But revisiting that memory brought it all back. All at once, he was scared and angry and humiliated. He’d driven into town to pick up dear old drunk Dad. It’d been Fourth of July weekend. The fireworks had always set off Mean Gene’s PTSD, like a scared dog launching through a screen door, his father dove into a bottle.
When Logan had arrived at the convenience station, his dad was passed against Gloria Rose Delaney-Tolbert’s shiny white Cadillac. Logan had gotten his height and build from his dad, so leaning over the top of a parked car was a pretty good, or so it’d seemed to Gene, place to take a nap. Fit his form anyway, even if it was cold, hard steel and in the middle of a public building with bright white lights showcasing the whole humiliating scene. Not to mention that the car was occupied and Gene’s big ass had the occupants trapped.
Mean Gene’s dirty, torn overalls smudged the white paint and window where he’d evidently fallen against the car. The denim had been stretched tightly over his dad’s backside giving him a monster-wedgy, which the old man had been too drunk to notice or care.
Gloria Delaney-Tolbert had sat trapped in her car, her back stick-straight looking like she’d swallowed a lemon, her eyes shooting daggers.
Logan’s stomach had plummeted to his knees and, even though he was too old to cry, he’d wanted to. He’d wanted to collapse on the hard cement. Why hadn’t Mean Gene kept walking? He could have slept it off anywhere else. Why Gloria Delaney-Tolbert’s car? Why had she been getting gas just then? Why had his mom left? Why couldn’t his dad handle her leaving like other men? Why did he need to drink? Too many questions. No answers.
But Logan hadn’t cried. It wasn’t who he was. He didn’t run, he didn’t hide. Family was family, blood was blood. And, right then his blood was facing a night in jail. Logan had climbed from the truck and stood tall. No matter what, he would take care of what was left of his family.
Jonesy had been standing on one side of his dad, trying, ineffectively, to get Mean Gene off of the car door. But, all he’d succeeded in doing was eliciting a loud, wet snore from Mean Gene.
He remembered how Gloria Rose had hollered for Jonesy to call the police. Thankfully, Jonesy hadn’t. Instead he’d tried pleading with Gene to step away from the car, and Logan was left wondering exactly how he was going to get Gene off the car. Heft dad over his shoulder and toss him into the back of the truck?
Which is exactly what ended up happening. Jonesy and Logan wrestled his dad’s passed-out body away from Gloria’s Caddie and settled him, none to softly, into the bed of the truck. Then Logan had driven him home. But, not before noticing that Nana hadn’t been the only one in the car. Rachel had been sitting in the back seat, a witness to the entire thing.
“Your grandmother was staring at him, at me, as if we were something to scrape off your shoe. He was a disgrace. It was humiliating. And you were there. For the whole thing. Just sitting in the front of your fancy car, watching, staring, judging.”
“No. I remember that night. But not the way you think I do.”
“I saw it!”
Rachel stood and moved toward him. He was too raw just then for her touch. He backed away. Might as well have slapped her for the look she gave him.
“I tried to talk to you, to tell you—”
“Tell me what? What could you possibly have had to say to ‘poor Logan Hastings,’ Mean Gene’s son?”
“I had plenty to say to you!” she shouted. “I wanted to tell you how brave I thought you were. How much I admired how you took care of him, took care of both of you. I wanted you to know . . .”
“What?” He took a step toward her, his body pulsing with unbridled emotion. “What did you want me to know?”
Rachel shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Not now. You’ve already decided. You’ve decided who I am, what I’m about.”
He turned away from her, fisting his hands on his hips, letting his head dr
op back on his shoulders. This afternoon he’d wanted a motorcycle ride. Not a trip down memory lane.
“You think I felt sorry for you, don’t you?”
Logan spun around and said, “Don’t you? How could you not?”
“Sorry for you, but not pity. I tried to tell you at school, but you . . . you . . . you were mean to me.”
Logan remembered that, too. He’d been a teenage boy, hardly capable of processing the mess of his family life, let alone when the richest girl in the school tried to talk to him about the single most mortifying moment of his life. Yeah, he’d dismissed her, ignored her. It wasn’t behavior he was proud of, but it had been necessary. Self-preservation. Survival.
He’d gotten real good at putting up protective walls.
She’d just been one in the long list of people on the other side of one of those walls.
He didn’t want her to see his vulnerability. This woman had managed to tear down those protective walls and no way was he going to show her how open he now was. He drew in a deep breath and threw up those defense mechanisms he’d relied on all his life.
The clouds that had been growing increasingly darker as if the heavens were modeling their behavior opened up and rain poured down in thick sheets. Logan and Rachel stood there, staring at each other, water dripping off their noses.
“Come on,” he said gruffly, “let’s get out of this rain.”
He picked up the blanket and shook it, sheltering it under his arm, then he grasped her hand and pulled her along behind him. They were just a few yards from the barn and he led her inside. They stood there, drying and quiet, waiting for the weather to pass.
Chapter 21
The rain and wind rattled the old barn. Neither of them said a thing to each other, just took up their own corners in the barn, left to their thoughts and revelations. As soon as it was done falling and the weather system had passed, Logan signaled for her to follow him and they made it back through the mud to the bike. He stopped a couple of times to help her over fallen logs and hold her hand as they negotiated the heavily washed out path. But neither said a word.
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