Chasing a Dream

by Beth Cornelison

  “I’m afraid my rearing won’t allow me to take ‘no’ for an answer. My mama would tan my hide if she found out I’d let a woman change a tire in the rain when I could’ve done it for her.”

  She lifted her chin a notch, grabbing for the wrench again. She needed it for a weapon if nothing else. “Well, I won’t tell your mother, if you don’t.”

  His grin blossomed, lighting his face with a handsome smile that caused a flutter in her pulse. He put a hand under her elbow and stood, drawing her to her feet as well.

  “Come on. Stand back. I’ll take care of this.”

  The idea of locking herself safely in the car appealed to Tess enough to let him slide the lug wrench from her hand. “All right.”

  Stepping away from him, she wrapped her arms around her chest to ward off the chill of the rain and the nip of apprehension that shimmied down her spine. She watched him remove his hat long enough to push wavy hair, as black as his Stetson, off his forehead.

  He moved into position beside the flat tire and fit the wrench in place. She heard him grunt as he tugged until the lug nut gave. While he continued working, his attention riveted on the task, she rounded the front bumper to take refuge in the driver’s seat.

  Locking her door, she then searched for something to dry her hands and face but didn’t find anything. Nothing short of a hair dryer and a complete change of clothes from her hastily packed suitcase would do her much good anyway. She surrendered to the idea of being wet and closed her eyes, leaning against the headrest.

  She focused on relaxing her tense muscles and gathering her wits. The car jostled while the dark-haired cowboy finished changing the damaged tire. The full-sized spare that came with the car proved a fortunate option she’d taken for granted when she picked a Jimmy from the dealer’s lot. Basic transportation, something Randall wouldn’t recognize, had been her only concern when she’d switched cars that morning.

  A rap on her window pulled her from her musings, and she opened the window a crack to speak to the man who stood by her door.

  “All done. Where do you want me to put these?” He held out the jack and lug wrench.

  “I’ll take them.” She lowered her window enough for him to pass the tools in to her. Relief that she could now get back on the road mingled with gratitude for the tall, handsome cowboy who’d come to her aid. She fished some money from her purse, and a smile found her lips as she met the man’s blue gaze. “Thank you so much. You don’t know what this means to me.”

  You may have just saved my life.

  Waving off the money, he flashed her a warm smile. “No problem.” He stepped back then paused, narrowing his eyes. “Can I give you a little advice?”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Excuse me?”

  “Gettin’ in the truck while I was working . . . you could’ve made the truck fall off the jack.”

  “Oh.” She stared at him blankly for a minute, until he stepped back from her window.

  “Just remember that next time.” He gave her a wink as he turned away.

  The tension in her chest eased, and she cranked the engine, eager to make up for lost time. When she checked her mirrors for a break in the traffic, she spotted the man on the shoulder of the road behind her car, hoisting a backpack and stooping to pick up a guitar case. While she watched, he turned and struck out along the side of the road, passing the passenger side of her Jimmy and moving on.

  She’d been so preoccupied with worry and her suspicions of him that she hadn’t realized he had no car until that moment. Staring at his retreating back, Tess told herself all the reasons why she’d be crazy to offer him a ride. The risk she’d be taking by picking up a stranger didn’t outweigh the guilt of leaving him to walk in the rain. Common sense forbade her from anything as foolish as letting a strange man in her car.

  But . . .

  Compassion for the friendly cowboy with the lazy grin swamped her, battling with the voice of reason. Tess shook off the jab of tender emotion and shifted the Jimmy into drive. While she waited for a truck to pass and allow her room to pull out, she glanced again at the lonely figure of the man hiking along the side of the road.

  He may have saved your life, but you have to look out for your well-being. You’re on your own now.

  On her own. The thought stuck in her mind. She hated the idea of being alone, of being vulnerable. Randall’s men would be looking for a woman traveling by herself.

  A woman traveling by herself.

  Her breath caught. Her good Samaritan’s presence would provide a decoy, protecting her from the men looking for her. Her hands squeezed the steering wheel, and her head swam as she considered her options.

  How dangerous could a man carrying a guitar be? Would a man with any intent to hurt her have bothered changing her tire? When he’d had a chance to harm her, he hadn’t. He’d proven himself a help, not a hazard. Having the cowboy riding beside her would help throw Randall’s men off her trail and aid her escape.

  Her mind set, Tess blasted the horn and eased the Jimmy up beside the man.

  He cast her a sidelong glance and slowed his pace. When she stopped and rolled down the passenger window, he stepped up to the Jimmy and ducked his head to peer inside.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Would you like a ride?” She wondered if he heard the tremor in her voice. Clearing her throat, she squared her shoulders and added, “It’s the least I can do to repay you.”

  Running a hand over his face to wipe away the rivulets of rain dripping from his hair, the cowboy tugged his mouth in a lopsided grin. “You don’t owe me nothin’. Glad to help.”

  She knitted her brow and regarded him warily. “You don’t want a ride? But . . . but it’s raining and—”

  “I never said I didn’t want a lift, just that you don’t owe me one.” Bracing a hand on the passenger door, he leaned down to meet her gaze more directly. “You sure you don’t mind? I’m awfully wet.”

  Her cheeks twitched nervously when she tried to smile. “That makes two of us.” She licked her lips and nodded. “I’m sure. You can put your pack in the back.”

  For several seconds he studied her. His piercing gaze sent shivers skittering through her, and she shifted uneasily. “Is something wrong?”

  Her question snapped him from his daze, and he shook his head, his easy-going grin returning. “Naw.”

  Moving to the back door, he slid the guitar case across the seat and unloaded the backpack from his shoulders with a fatigued sigh. She watched with interest as he pulled back the protective rain-flap at the top of his backpack and extracted a dry shirt. Next, he removed the plastic grocery bag he’d torn and draped over the top of the guitar case. Using the shirt, he wiped the guitar case dry then opened it to check the instrument. Apparently satisfied everything was all right, he snapped the case shut and closed the back door. Before climbing into the front seat, he removed his cowboy hat, shook the excess rain from it and tossed it on the backseat.

  When he climbed in the passenger’s seat, he turned a kind smile to her and fastened his seatbelt. “Where you headed?”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “I asked you first.” His eyes brightened in good humor, and he flashed her a roguish grin.

  Tess responded with a tight-lipped frown and a cool glance. Anxiety squelched her sense of humor and spawned uncharacteristic impatience in her. She glanced in her side mirror as she pulled back onto the road in front of a large camper that lumbered slowly toward them. “See that camper behind us?”

  He checked the mirror on the passenger-side door. “Yeah.”

  “That’s my parents,” Tess lied, causing an uneasy quiver in her stomach. The fib chafed her conscience. “They just saw you get in my car, and they’ll be behind us every inch of the way.”

  The cowboy faced her with a keen gaze, and Tess’s heartbeat stumbled. Could he tell she was lying?

  “So they’d know, right off, if I tried to rape or murder you.” His expression remained impassive
. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  His blunt reply startled her, but she straightened her spine. “Yes.” It bothered her that he’d read her motives so easily. But she was, admittedly, a horrible liar. Coupled with her distaste for dishonesty, she had little experience with this type of deceit, flimsy as it was.

  Turning his gaze toward the windshield, he wearily rested his head on the seat. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “So where are you going?” Tess repeated tightly. His insouciance and evasive answers chafed. His casual manner seemed to mock the urgency of her situation.

  He regarded her silently for a moment before answering, his expression inscrutable. “Nashville.”

  He returned his gaze to the rain and the road.

  “Nashville? That’s got to be a two-day drive from here. Were you really planning to walk the whole way?”

  Arching one dark eyebrow, he gave her a brief, sideways glance. “If I couldn’t get a ride from a considerate stranger.”

  She heard a note of challenge in his voice, as if he dared her to belittle his intentions.

  “Well, I don’t necessarily plan to go that direction.” Flexing her fingers then wrapping them back around the steering wheel, she peered across the front seat and met a level gaze.

  The corner of his mouth lifted, and an unexpected warmth lit his eyes. “I didn’t think you were. I appreciate the ride as far as you’re willing to take me, just the same.”

  His unwavering politeness and calm in response to her coolness plucked at her conscience. Despite her nervousness, she had no reason to act rude.

  Dividing her attention between her passenger and the road, she assessed him more carefully. A couple days’ growth of black beard shadowed his cheeks, giving his boyishly handsome face a manly edge. The mellow scent of damp leather from his hiking boots and the clean aroma of June rain clung to him, blending with the new-car smell of her Jimmy.

  Noticing her appraising gaze, he stretched his right arm across his chest to offer his hand. “Justin Boyd.”

  She glanced down at his hand before giving it a quick shake. “Tess Carpenter.” She used her real name without giving it any thought. Randall had insisted she take his name, for business appearances, even though they’d never legally wed.

  “Nice to meet you, Tess. So, where are you folks headed?”

  Tess pondered his use of the plural “you folks” before she remembered her story about the occupants of the camper behind her. “Uh, camping.”

  She winced at the lame response that sprang to her lips.

  “Anywhere in particular or just wherever the mood strikes you?” Humor laced his tone.

  “Colorado.” She blurted the first state that came to mind. “In the mountains.”

  “Never been there. I bet it’s beautiful.”

  Tess, who’d only seen the Colorado Rockies in pictures, bluffed again. “It’s our favorite camping spot.”

  “Where are you from?”

  Clearly he felt it necessary to make small talk, but she grew increasingly uncomfortable with the lies that tumbled unbidden from her lips each time she answered one of his questions.

  “San Antonio . . . uh, formerly,” she amended, realizing she shouldn’t give away too much information about herself.

  Confusion darkened his expression. “Formerly? Where do you live now?”

  “I . . . uh, nowhere . . . yet.” When his puzzled frown deepened, she added, “I’m looking for a new job and . . . I’ll move wherever the new job takes me.”

  “Ah.” He nodded his understanding. “Same here. When I get to Nashville, I plan to take any job that will pay the bills while I work toward my ultimate goal.”

  “Which is?”

  “A recording contract,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he’d just told her the sky was blue.

  “What?” A tiny laugh of disbelief bubbled from her.

  The warmth in his expression faded, and his stony reserve made her swallow her laugh with a twinge of regret. Determination blazed in his eyes then, and he set his jaw with a stubborn rigidity.

  “You’re not the first person to laugh, but you won’t be the last. I will, when my name’s at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.”

  The certainty in his voice and the fire in his eyes convinced her that he just might be right. She wished she had the same optimistic confidence in her future.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at your aspirations. I just didn’t . . . well, it just took me by surprise. It’s not every day you meet a rising star.”

  He narrowed his gaze on her as if trying to decide whether to find any sarcasm in her last statement. “I know it won’t be easy. I’ll be one of thousands beating on producers’ doors. But unlike most of my competition, I have three things on my side.”

  He held up his fingers as he counted them off to her. “Talent and time.”

  “Time?” Tess shot him a questioning glance.

  “I intend to stay in Nashville, beating on doors and playing my demo tape for anyone who’ll listen until I get what I want. I flat out refuse to give up.”

  His dogged determination was the attitude she needed for her own mission. His optimism sparked an ember of hope in her, and the tension squeezing her chest loosened its grasp a bit. She smiled at him for the gift of reassurance he’d unwittingly given her. “That’s two things. You said three.”

  “I did?” His eyes grew dark, and he turned his gaze toward the front to stare out the windshield. “The third one is kind of private. I don’t usually talk about it.”

  “All right.” She understood painful secrets, private motivations for desperate acts. Turning her attention back to the highway, she acknowledged the escalating jitters inside her. The more she learned about Justin, the more the restless flutter grew. But why? Shouldn’t she feel calmer with more evidence of his harmlessness? In fact, her predicament posed him far more of a threat than he apparently posed to her.

  A flash of understanding followed on the heels of that thought. Guilt yanked her gut in a knot. Her desperation to have a decoy, her selfish motivation for offering him a ride, didn’t justify putting this man in danger. She’d fled Randall because her morals and her deeply rooted ethics wouldn’t allow her to stay with a man so void of decency or conscience. She couldn’t live with the guilty secret he’d sprung on her. Literally. Randall would kill her to keep her silent.

  The thud of her pulse echoed in her ears. Her conscience castigated her for putting Justin in harm’s way. A dull ache of remorse settled in her chest.

  A moment of thick silence passed before he spoke again softly. “The third reason is an angel . . . named Rebecca. She’s with me. I know she is.”

  He flicked an uneasy glance toward her. The fleeting smile she gave him seemed to reassure him.

  “This was as much her dream for me as it was my own. She bought me the guitar when I was ten.” Affection, tinged by sorrow, filled his voice. The low, even timbre resounded inside her and increased the guilty ache in the center of her chest.

  He’d trusted her enough to confide in her. His unwarranted faith in her made her selfish endangerment of him even more unconscionable. Though she knew that the anonymity of strangers sometimes made such openness easier, his honesty and trust in her created an unwelcome bond with him.

  She saw pain in his eyes when he looked at her, and her heart wrenched. Then slowly, like the sun spreading its rays across the horizon in the morning, his lazy grin returned, and a gentle warmth shone from his eyes. “With Becca on my side, I can’t lose.”

  His optimism calmed her. He’d managed, if only for a minute, to distract her from the daunting fear that had set her on the road, fleeing for her life. His easy-going charm made her smile, and his confidence and tenacity encouraged her. “You know, Justin Boyd, I believe you just might be a rising star at that.”

  For a moment he appeared stunned by her compliment. Then he curled his mouth in a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I get a little carried away sometimes.”
He lapsed into another brief reflective silence. “Nobody that I left behind shared my faith in my dream. Rebecca’s the only one who ever did. I tend to get defensive out of habit.”

  Tess’s gaze drifted to him again before returning her full attention to the road. “No offense taken.”

  In fact, she admired the conviction and aspirations of this blue-eyed, stubborn cowboy. That’s when the irony hit her.

  He wanted fame, and she needed obscurity. He was aiming for the spotlight, and she had to find the shadows. While Justin chased a dream, she was running from a nightmare.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Justin watched in the side mirror as the camper that had followed them for the last couple hours pulled off at an exit Tess didn’t take. She drove on, oblivious to the loss of her tail, and he grinned. He’d suspected she invented her tale of camping with her parents, but he now knew without a doubt that she’d lied. Not that he blamed her for devising a ruse to dissuade a would-be attacker.

  The camper’s departure brought Justin back to his initial reaction when she’d offered him a ride.

  Why?

  The milk of human kindness didn’t usually override the potential danger a hitchhiker posed to a woman traveling by herself. Most women would have passed him by without a second thought.

  Something had her spooked. A simple flat tire couldn’t account for the tension that wound her tighter than a guitar string. Gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles blanched, sitting ramrod straight and checking her mirrors more often than a fashion model, Tess vibrated with enough anxiety to set him on edge as well.

  As if to prove his point, her cell phone rang at that moment, and Tess jerked at the muffled trill. Her hazel eyes widened with apprehension, and she stared at the phone as if she’d discovered a rattlesnake in the truck. Catching her lower lip in her teeth, she glanced back at the road, ignoring the ringing phone. She’d already eaten off all her lipstick, chewing her lip until it looked ready to bleed.