Joyride

by Patricia Coughlin

  Another time she would have giggled wildly over that archaic prospect. But not today.

  Whatever his reasoning, the indisputable fact remained that there was no future for them together. It seemed ridiculous to say she knew he wasn’t the right man for her when she was no longer at all sure that such a thing even existed. She could say with certainty, however, that he was the wrong man.

  Last night had been wonderful and she wasn’t sorry it had happened. She also wasn’t naive enough to believe that a little good chemistry could compensate indefinitely for a total lack of compatibility outside the bedroom.

  Perhaps if Bolt hadn’t said that he loved her, she could have let things between them drift until they returned home and parted company. But as sure as she was that they would drive each other bonkers in no time, she was also sure that nothing resembling a casual affair would ever be possible with a man as intense as Bolt Hunter. He hadn’t made his declaration of love lightly, and he wouldn’t take her decision to end this thing before it really got started lightly, either. She was prepared to deal with that as best she could for the time remaining.

  And she vowed to do everything in her power to make that remaining time as brief as possible.

  With their bags waiting by the door, Bolt spread the map on the table in the sitting room to check the day’s route one more time. It was something he did like clockwork every morning and the moment Cat had been waiting for.

  She cleared her throat.

  “I, uh, I’m not sure if it affects the route we’ll be taking, but I wanted to mention that I won’t have to stop in Charleston after all.”

  Still bent over the open map, his palms flat on the table, he turned his head to glance at her curiously. “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “A change in plans. I decided the background of the writer I was going there to see was too similar to Madelaine Van der Court’s, so I’m going to skip her. I’ve already called and made my excuses.”

  “All right. If that’s the case, we’ll still take Route 95 south, but push right on through to Savannah.”

  Cat clasped her hands, her damp palms sealed together. “Actually, I’m not going to make the stop in Savannah, either.”

  “Let me guess. A problem with that person’s background, too?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Dixie Union?” he inquired, his eyebrows raised.

  She shook her head.

  Bolt tossed the pencil he was holding across the room. “Don’t do this,” he said quietly.

  “I’m not doing anything. I just want to get home as soon as possible, and since these last few stops aren’t crucial to my story, I decided to pass on them.”

  “And at the same time reduce the amount of time you have to spend with me. Right?”

  “That’s not my intention—”

  “Bull.”

  “All right. It is my intention, but I’m not doing this to hurt you, Bolt. The opposite, in fact.”

  “I told you I’m in love with you. So exactly how is getting rid of me early supposed to keep from hurting me?” he demanded, straightening.

  “All right, maybe it won’t. But if I have to hurt you, I’d rather do it now than drag this whole thing out and do it later when it will only be worse.”

  “What formula is that bit of logic based on?” he inquired in a dry tone. “Pain times number of days equals intensity?”

  “I don’t need a formula,” she shot back. “Some things you just know in your heart are true.”

  A triumphant smile spread slowly across his face, so devastating that Cat almost felt like giving in to the urge to climb into that big bed with him and pull the covers over their heads and stay there forever.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, sweetheart,” he said quietly. “What I know in my heart is true.”

  Lacking any more logical response to that, she tossed her head and looked him straight in the eye and said, “I still want to go home.”

  “Okay. Home it is.” He folded the map as he continued speaking, sliding it into his bag and then hoisting the bag to his shoulder. “We’ll play this out your way.” Before she could duck out of reach, he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced her to maintain eye contact. “Just as long as you understand that this doesn’t change anything.”

  There were at least a hundred different times during the day when Bolt cursed himself for agreeing to drive straight through on what was to be the last leg of their trip. And a hundred times when he considered simply pulling into a motel over her objections and coming up with some reason they absolutely had to stop for the night. The trouble was, the only reason he could think of for stopping was so that he could make love to Cat again. His sudden dearth in creativity was understandable, since thoughts of making love to her had taken up permanent residence in each and every one of his active brain cells, crowding out previous tenants such as logic and restraint. He thought about loving her constantly, with each breath, each passing mile, each highway sign that reminded him in a bold numerical countdown how close they were getting to home and that moment when she would tell him goodbye.

  With Cat having several times reiterated her willingness to shoulder part of the driving, he couldn’t very well claim fatigue as a reason for stopping. He drove most of the day and into the night, moving through North and South Carolina and deep into Georgia. It grew hotter and more humid as they got farther south, but the mood in the car remained at a constant stilted coolness. It was difficult to make conversation when she refused to talk about the only thing that was on his mind.

  He finally let Cat take the wheel late that night, when the traffic had thinned and she was rested from a long after-dinner nap, during which he’d divided his attention between the road and the art of committing to memory every line of her beautiful face. He’d meant it when he told her that returning home would not in any way change his feelings for her or his conviction that they were meant to be together.

  He didn’t yet know how he was going to bring her around to his way of thinking on the subject, but he was resigned to the fact that high-pressure tactics would never work on Cat. Even if they would have, she was in much too fragile an emotional state at the moment for him to even consider such measures. He had made up his mind that for Cat’s sake he was going to have to—at this late date—learn patience and the art of compromise. Even if it killed him. He also accepted the fact that such a strategy of restraint might temporarily result in his going days at a time without seeing her. That was his reason for memorizing her face so diligently.

  Just once during the day did he think he glimpsed the elusive black Mustang. It temporarily roused all his cumulative concerns about Cuba and the car he was driving and the men who had hired Cat to bring it to them. The longer he knew her, the more she seemed an unlikely choice for the job. The black car turned out to be a Firebird, and once again his daydreams about the woman he loved overwhelmed him. They were stronger and more persistent than any distraction, especially one that had proved to have little if any basis in fact. He even felt a little ridiculous for some of the sinisterly suspicious thoughts he’d entertained along the way.

  Somewhere in southern Georgia, with Cat at the wheel, he nodded off. When he awoke they were in Florida, headed south on Interstate 95, with his watch reading 1:45 a.m. He stretched lazily until he caught sight of a sign announcing they were twenty-eight miles from Tampa. Instantly all sense of ease drained from him like water being poured into a hole dug in beach sand. He frowned as he gazed outside, not wanting to believe the sign, but sure enough, he recognized enough familiar landmarks as they streaked past to accept the fact that they were almost home.

  “You’re awake,” Cat observed.

  “Yeah.” Bolt rotated his shoulders to loosen the muscles there. “I didn’t mean to zonk out on you like that.”

  “No problem. It gave me time to think.”

  His quick glance was hopeful. “And?”

  “And I decided it ma
kes sense for me to drop you at your place in Tampa and then go on to Sarasota myself.”

  “No,” he said, thinking only how that would mean he had even less time left with her.

  “Trust me on this one, Hunter. It’s the perfect plan.”

  He welcomed the note of humor that had returned to her voice even if he hated what she was saying. “Explain to me how your driving another hour by yourself is any kind of plan?”

  “Because it means we both get to sleep in our own beds tonight.”

  “Is that supposed to be an incentive for me to agree?” he couldn’t resist inserting dryly.

  She silenced him with a look. “That is, if I can even get to sleep after all the coffee I’ve drunk in the last few hours. It also means I’ll be able to deliver the car first thing in the morning and be done with it.”

  “Where’s the drop-off?”

  “I have to call Gator and he’ll let me know.”

  “That figures,” he drawled. “I still can’t help wondering what this guy is skimming off the top as his incentive. Maybe I ought to be with you when you see him.”

  “That really isn’t necessary,” she assured him, her overly sweet tone alerting him that a zinger was to follow. “But if I do decide I need a macho, overprotective, thickheaded ogre to come along, I’ll be sure to go straight to the best...Uncle Hank.”

  Bolt scowled out the window. He was no expert at this game, but it would seem that being lumped so unflatteringly with her uncle wasn’t to his advantage. Sure, she loved old Lucifer, but he had sort of protected status in her life. Bolt didn’t. Not yet.

  Compromise, he reminded himself, working up an agreeable smile. When in doubt, compromise.

  “All right, I get the message,” he said. “You can handle things yourself from here.”

  “Actually I could have—”

  “Handled them yourself from the start,” he finished for her. “I know that now. Thanks for letting me tag along.”

  She slanted him a look that said she wasn’t sure if he was being sincere. When his smile assured her that he was, she gave him a rueful grin. “I hope it wasn’t too bad for you.”

  “Not at all. I wouldn’t have missed taking this trip for anything.” It had changed his life for the better, and forever. In return, he was going to change hers the same way. But she wasn’t ready to accept that yet.

  “You’ll have to give me directions to your place,” she told him. “All you’ve said is that you don’t live too far from the office.”

  She seemed surprised and relieved when he didn’t argue any further about who was going home first. Bolt told her what exit to take and directed her the short way to the apartment complex where he’d lived for two years but had yet to hang a single picture or unpack his personal belongings except for those he needed to survive.

  He already knew he was going to invite her to come in and he already knew that she was going to refuse. As much as he would prefer her to spend the night, there was a bright spot to her refusal. He wanted Cat’s love, not her pity, and he knew that the latter was what would be stirred by the sight of the bleak way he’d chosen to exist since leaving the Army.

  This way he would have time to hang a few things on the walls and stack the bookshelves before she saw the place. It was time, he decided. He smiled to himself as she followed his instructions to turn into the parking lot behind his building, thinking he would even buy a coffeepot and real coffee and some of those muffins Cat liked.

  It was late and the parking spots closest to the building were all taken. Bolt could have had her pull up in front of the door and wait while he grabbed his bag from the trunk, but he didn’t.

  “There’s a spot over there on the end,” he told her, pointing at the last spot in the row across from the building, where the bright glow from the streetlights didn’t quite reach.

  “Better turn it off,” he warned when she shifted into park and let the engine idle. “You’re getting low on gas.”

  She glanced at the fuel indicator, which was at three-quarters full.

  “I’ve been noticing that it sticks there and then shoots down all of a sudden,” he lied. “Better to be safe than sorry.”

  She chuckled as she turned the key to off. “Boy, you really are like Uncle Hank.”

  Bolt bristled in silence.

  “I guess this is it,” he said.

  Cat nodded, her hands dropping from the wheel to rest lightly clasped in her lap. “I guess. I want to thank you, Bolt, for everything. I really mean that, no matter how I might have felt about having you along at first.”

  “Hey, I understand. I wouldn’t have liked having someone forced on me that way, either.”

  “But it turned out all right...for me, anyway—I mean, it was nice having someone with me. Especially...”

  “I know,” he said softly, longing to reach out and pull her into his arms and tell her that if she’d let him he would always be there with her, for the bad times and the good times and all the times in between.

  “So, thanks.”

  Her tremulous smile pierced his heart. “Anytime, Tiger. Anytime.”

  “Fine. The next time I’m asked to drive a car here from Canada, I’ll give you a call.”

  “You do that. But next time, do me a favor and make sure it’s really coming from Canada, will you?”

  “You got it,” she agreed, wrinkling her nose above an impish grin. Bolt opened the door, knowing that each moment he sat there made it harder to leave her.

  He pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the trunk to get his bag, slamming it afterward. Hitching the strap over one shoulder, he walked to the driver’s side to return the keys to her.

  “All set?” she asked, reaching for them.

  Bolt held them just beyond her grasp. “Except for one last thing,” he told her, chaining her suddenly wary gaze with his in the darkness.

  “Bolt, please—”

  “A goodbye kiss,” he interjected. “That’s it, I promise. I think I’ve earned that much.”

  She folded her arms, looked at the keys dangling from his finger, then tipped back her head and closed her eyes. “Go ahead,” she grumbled.

  “Nice try,” he retorted, yanking the door open and her out of her seat. “I want a real kiss from you.”

  He got it...and along with it the answer he needed to take away with him. Cat’s resistance to him had no more substance than cotton candy in the rain. It melted the instant his mouth claimed hers. She opened to him, letting him taste the heat and passion of the night before, urging him closer with her tongue and soft, breathless sounds even as her hands remained splayed against his chest.

  It would take little effort or expertise to tip her into the backseat, he thought as he made love to her mouth the way he longed to make love to her right there in the car. Only slightly more finesse would carry her into his apartment and his bed. But he didn’t want to seduce Cat or trick her. He wanted her to come to him with her eyes open, understanding what this was between them and wanting him in the same way he wanted her. To be his partner, his lover, his soul mate. Forever.

  When he lifted his mouth from hers at last, he raked his teeth gently along the sweet hollow of her throat, a pleasure too tempting to resist.

  Bracketing her face with his hands, he smiled at her tenderly.

  “Cat, I’ve spent my whole life trying to figure out where I belong in the world, trying to find something I could do or have or be that was mine alone, that someone else hadn’t done first and better. After not knowing what was right for so long,” he declared, “I’m not likely to make a mistake when I find something that is. So don’t try to tell me this isn’t happening.”

  “Okay, I won’t,” she agreed between deep, telltale breaths. “Just so long as you understand that this doesn’t change anything, either.”

  Cat had never felt so utterly alone as she did driving away. It was understandable, she told herself, trying to grip the wheel with sweaty palms and trying to ignore th
e still churning heaviness in her belly. She was alone, for one thing, in a big old car, without another set of headlights in sight anywhere. She was also still grappling with what she had learned about her parents, still plagued by dozens of painful questions that only her uncle could answer, still bowed under the weight of knowing that those answers were also probably going to be painful.

  All of that was nothing, however, compared to the stark and frightening realization that the ice-cold loneliness at her core had to do only with the man who stood reflected in her rearview mirror, standing watch as she drove out of sight.

  Bolt was right. She did feel something happening when he kissed her, just as she had felt something when he made love to her. Novice though she was, she had read articles and heard stories about first-time disasters, and she knew that her first time had been singularly perfect. She would always be grateful to Bolt for making it so.

  That didn’t mean she liked the way he was addicted to scheduling and routine or the way he barked orders or cut his hair, for that matter. Petty as those things sounded, she knew that once the glow of infatuation wore off, it was exactly that sort of petty concern that either made or broke a relationship.

  She hadn’t lived with Bolt long enough to discover all his annoying habits and stringent beliefs, but she’d lived with her uncle Hank, and the two men were indisputably cut from the same mold. Sparks would fly outside the bedroom when Bolt’s predilection for neatness and order collided with the pack rat tendencies she had no intention of giving up.

  She sighed, staying in the slow lane as she headed for Sarasota and home. In a way, they were both right. Bolt was right about the attraction between them, and she was right about its dim prospects for the long haul. Certain parts of her body, which were still warm and sensitive from his touch in the parking lot, clamored for her to forget about the long haul and go for the moment.