by Stacey Keith
Suddenly, with a fluttery feeling in her belly, she knew. Brandon was making an effort. He was trying to be a better man. She had no way of knowing yet why he was doing it or how sincere his motives were, but instinctively she knew he’d never done it for any woman before.
The correct response would be to not read anything into his visit. Maybe even to forget it had happened. But all April felt was…
Warmer.
Chapter 11
The worst part of taking on Joanna’s casework while she was on maternity leave was that April couldn’t read her notes. Doing an early-morning follow-up for Joanna on a student at Cuervo Middle School shouldn’t have been hard, but as April trotted down the steps leading to the parking lot, she had Joanna’s case files right in front of her and…nothing. Only one word in five resembled English. The rest were hieroglyphics.
April put the stem of her glasses in her mouth so she could rearrange the files, putting the least decipherable one on top for easy access. Maybe someone at the office was fluent in Joanna and could translate.
She heard the low guttural thunder of a Harley and froze.
Brandon idled at the curb in front of the school. She briefly considered running back up the steps but he’d already seen her. Why give him the satisfaction of knowing she cared? Especially after that awful home visit when she’d made a fool of herself.
He wore a black T-shirt that showed off his muscular arms and jeans that displayed the long swelling curve of his thighs. The crackling retort of the Harley’s pipes was in perfect sync with her heartbeat. April felt her brain go fuzzy. She couldn’t think of a thing to say. But every cell in her body screamed like a teenager at a rock concert waiting for the show to start.
She closed her eyes to steady herself but he was still there, imprinted against her eyelids like a photo negative. When she opened them again, Matthew was clambering off the bike. He re-shouldered his backpack and said, “Oh, hi, Miss April. See? I’m at school with my homework done and everything.”
April swallowed hard. “I’m glad to hear it. But aren’t you a little late?”
Matthew exchanged glances with his brother. “Traffic,” he said with a grin.
Was that a code word for I was late because my brother was having an orgy? April didn’t want to think about it. “Let’s try to get to school on time from now on, okay?”
“Sure.” Matthew’s gaze went to Brandon again and then rested on April with a look she didn’t recognize. Was it pity? He ran up the steps and then, ominously, she and Brandon were alone.
For once, Brandon’s green eyes weren’t mocking, and they clearly held a gleam of male approval. Even from this distance she could smell the gas fumes mixed with heat coming off the Harley’s engine. It was the same smell as her dad’s garage and gave her a strange sense of the familiar.
“He missed the bus,” Brandon said with a faint smile. “Are you going to bust him for it?”
In her head, April said something witty. In reality, she just stood there trying to think her way through this, except she couldn’t. Her brain was in the off position, just like Brandon’s Harley when he turned the switch. The bike sputtered and died, leaving birdsong, and from a distance, the sound of young voices reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
She came down the last few steps slowly, acutely aware of each nerve ending as it stirred and tingled. How could being near someone make you feel as though you were sliding down a rain-slicked mountain, faster and faster, before that final dizzying freefall into the abyss? She had no control over it.
A soft breeze lifted the edges of Brandon’s hair. She’d never seen him wear a helmet. Why would he? Brandon didn’t do what people told him to do. This should have been the part where she wanted to run, but her limbs felt heavy and slow.
For the first time in her sad, pathetic little life, she let herself stand in the full heat of her desire for him. With Joanna gone, Maggie gone, Cassidy gone, it felt as though no one was watching what she did.
She was free from everyone’s scrutiny.
“Matthew’s got a motocross race this weekend,” Brandon told her in that smoky, sinful voice of his. “I want you to come.”
He was asking her out? “I can’t,” she said softly. “For a lot of reasons, I can’t.”
Brandon studied the ground for a moment, clearly trying to choose his words. “If this is about what happened…I’m not going to pretend I haven’t always lived my life the way I wanted to. But if I had known there was even a chance with you…”
There it was again, the admission that he’d thought of her like she had thought of him. April smiled vaguely at some point over his shoulder before letting her eyes drift back to his, mesmerized by their dark heat, moved by it. “It would be an unforgivable violation for me to see you socially. I could get stripped of my license.”
Maybe she shouldn’t use words like stripped. Not when they slid so sensuously across her skin. She could tell her admission surprised him. Brandon, who followed nobody’s rules, was clearly mystified to find someone who did.
“I met your dad,” he told her. “Gotta say the dude knows his shit.”
Ever since her mom had told her about that meeting, April had burned with curiosity. Just the idea of Brandon being anywhere near her childhood home was enough to make her wonder if she’d ever see it the same way again. Brandon had a tendency to suck all the oxygen out of a room just because he entered it. He left a pheromone signature a mile wide.
April glanced around. Were people looking? She didn’t see anyone who might turn her in. What could they accuse her of—speaking to a client in front of a public school?
Still, she felt as though she were doing something very bad.
“What would be so wrong with you going to Matthew’s motocross event? Isn’t that part of your job, spying on people?” Brandon asked her. “Big off-road track like that. Hell, it’s over an hour out of town. I doubt you’d see anybody you know.”
Temptation had a fiery thrill to it she’d never felt before. It promised to fulfill all her darkest longings. Yet even letting temptation pull at her this way was a sign that she’d betrayed her calling. All the things she’d secretly been so critical of in her clients—like throwing their lives away on a guy—she was in danger of doing, too.
Even if no one found out, she would know what she’d done. How she’d given in to temptation. As Pastor Jim often said, Sin once and the second time’s a charm.
Yet there temptation sat, straddling a motorcycle, chrome handlebars, chrome mirrors, chrome fenders all sparking novas of sunlight. They dazzled her eyes almost as much as he did.
Even as she felt desire burn deep inside, she knew what else she wanted. Not safety. Not duty. Not goodness.
She wanted to make the angels weep. She wanted to hear the rumble of the Harley like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. She wanted danger and excitement and sin. She wanted to forget who she was, what she was, and become the thing she was supposed to be. And maybe she didn’t know who that person was yet. But it wasn’t this. It wasn’t standing here in front of the man she needed like she needed her next breath, yet still lacking the courage to get on the back of his bike.
Strands of Brandon’s long hair blew away from his face as though he were on that bike already, riding away without her. Riding toward some place on the far-distant horizon where another version of reality existed and she was naked in his arms.
“I’ve never asked a woman out before,” Brandon said. “I think I like it. But I’d like it better if you stopped fighting this. You’re only wasting time we could spend doing more…interesting things.”
April felt a furious blush roar up her from the bottom of her feet to the roots of her hair. “Maybe you don’t understand—”
“Bullshit. Excuse me, but you have all these nice ideas about being professional because you have no idea how the world works yet.
It’s not breaking the rules that screws you. Hell, that’s the fun part. It’s getting caught.”
It sounded like something a born cheater would say. “I’m not like you,” she told him haughtily.
“Are you kidding? You’re exactly like me. I saw it from the minute we met. You don’t want this.” The sweep of his arm included her case files, the school, even her clothes. “You want to be free. But true freedom isn’t the same thing as having no risks. It’s about doing what you want, despite the risks.”
April’s heart pounded so hard, she felt faint. It wasn’t true, of course. She didn’t want to be free in the sense that he meant it. Freedom like that was selfish. It was a rejection of all her most basic principles of kindness, duty to others, even family.
Brandon fired up the bike, his muscles rippling as he teased open the throttle. Over the roar of the engine, he yelled, “I’ll give you a day to think it over. But this train’s got no brakes on it, April. And the harder you fight it, the faster it’s going to roll.”
Chapter 12
April awoke having no idea where she was. She lay blinking at her own bedroom ceiling while the morning sun poured through her open window and a puff of wind ruffled the sheers.
Brandon haunted her, even in dreams.
She swept the tangled sheets aside and sat at the edge of her bed. A stuffed unicorn that her niece, Lexie, had given her as a birthday gift gazed mutely from the bookshelf. More stuffed animals littered the bed—a bear and two kitties, all with jaunty bowties. A unicorn poster from April’s middle-school years hung opposite the closet.
A wave of embarrassment crashed over her. No one her age had kiddie crap in their room. Why had it taken her so long to see it? April sprang up, ran to the kitchen and then returned with a cardboard box.
She tore down that stupid poster without bothering to remove the tacks. Now there were bits of paper stuck to her wall. But Lexie’s unicorn and the other stuffed animals she boxed up and put in the attic. One of the great blessings of never bringing home any men was that fewer people knew what a dork she was. Jacey had hung out in her room, of course, but she already knew the awful truth and didn’t care.
Since it was Saturday and there was no rush, April took a long shower, brewed some coffee and then went to work in the backyard. A nest of baby sparrows cheeped from the eaves of her carport. She sat on the kitchen steps and repotted geraniums. The spicy, lemony smell drifted up, reminding her that life went on no matter what your problems were. These were the things that were real. The sun beating down on your head. The red geraniums. The dark, loamy smell of the soil. Had she forgotten how good it felt to get her hands dirty?
And she was doing a great job of not thinking about Brandon, despite the dreams that stuck in her mind like cobwebs.
“Not going there,” she mumbled to herself. “Not going there. Not going…”
A sly thought crept in that maybe the purging of her bedroom had more to do with Brandon than she was willing to admit. But that was ridiculous. She’d just seen it through different eyes was all, like she had with her old wardrobe. These tiny improvements were all a part of the new new April.
She went inside for a glass of water. The minute she opened the door, a bird flew into her kitchen.
The poor thing was terrified, wings flapping, feathers raining down in a storm of white. April’s heart pounded as she watched its horrible distress. It lit on top of the ladder and then the spice rack. It flew toward the window above the kitchen sink, switching directions at the last second when it realized escape was impossible.
April stood frozen in the doorway. The bird’s beak was open as if it were panting. Even though she kept the door wide open, the creature was too panicked to see the way out.
She grabbed a towel out of the bathroom and stalked the prisoner. Every time she threw the towel over its tiny flailing body, the bird managed to get away. After half a dozen clumsy attempts, she finally seized the thing and carried it, squirming, to the backyard. The minute she unwrapped it, the bird flew away.
April sat on the steps, shaken. She’d never been that close to a wild bird before and hadn’t expected to feel everything it felt—panic, confusion, a desperate need to be free. She would never forget those overbright eyes and the sound of wings flapping. It had all happened so fast and now it was gone.
But her kitchen was a mess. She stood, trying to think where the broom was so she could clean it. But as she turned to go up the steps, she heard the low rumble of a Harley.
April clutched the towel against her chest as if it might save her. She knew the Harley was Brandon’s, and she knew why he had come. In a way, she had always known. They were connected. She could feel him thinking about her, just as he could feel her thinking about him.
This train’s got no brakes on it, April. And the harder you fight it, the faster it’s going to roll.
There was still a part of her that resisted. She had to.
Brandon angled the hog up her driveway with that little crook to his mouth and a cool, assessing gleam in his eyes. He clearly knew that he had a fight on his hands. And she knew that he would win by patiently wearing her down. When she saw him, her heart beat frantically, like the wings of that bird. It tore around inside her chest, looking for a way out.
He turned off the ignition, just as he had in front of Matthew’s school, so they could talk without yelling. “You ready?”
There was amusement in his deep voice, probably because he already knew she was coming with him. It made her feel oddly vulnerable. She glanced around to see who was watching. On this side of the house, they were safe from the prying eyes of Mrs. Felps, but the distinctive growl of a Harley could wake the dead.
“You know I can’t,” she said tonelessly.
“The bridge at the bottom of Dry Gulch Road,” he said. “Drive your car there and park it. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Please.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “There’s no point in starting something. We know that. And we both know how badly it will end.”
“Do we?” Brandon lanced her with his all-seeing, hundred-proof gaze. He didn’t look quite so amused now. “My friend Long Jon is meeting us at the track. He’s there with Matthew. The way I figure, with the four of us all together, it won’t seem quite so…” He smiled his unholy smile. “Suspicious.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” April said. Even from the safety of the stairs, she could feel how unescapably he pulled her in. Something blisteringly hot moved through her. She’d never felt anything like it before. It made her weak. How could you want someone this badly and not have it tear your guts out and leave you for dead?
“Think you can get there in fifteen minutes?” he asked.
“I’m not going,” she replied.
“Fifteen minutes,” he repeated as though he hadn’t heard her, as though he weren’t asking her to gamble her life away on a roll of the dice. “Don’t wear a dress.”
Brandon walked the bike backward to the street. The look he gave her before starting the engine was one she knew she would remember for the rest of her life. There was heat in it, but more than heat, there was the lazy confidence of a man who knew what he had to offer. Adventure. Danger. Lawlessness. Sex.
All she had to do was reach out and take it.
Her whole life she’d done the right thing. The safe one. She’d done it in an effort to avoid the mistakes of her sisters, sure, but she’d also done it to spare her parents the pain of seeing another daughter fall flat on her face. And maybe—just maybe—because she wanted to be the good daughter, the one they never had to worry about.
It had all brought her to this. And this had a strange sense of destiny to it, as though no matter how hard she fought and screamed, there was no getting away from this man who was fated to show her to herself. He had handed her a mirror and now it was impossible to avoid looking into it.
She took a shaky breath and trudged back up the steps. Had she been faking all this time? Pretending to be good when, in fact, she was exactly as Brandon saw her—a sadly repressed, overly conscientious young woman in desperate need of a thrill?
April washed her hands at the kitchen sink. She went to her bedroom closet, pulled on a pair of jeans, boots, and a lightweight sweater. When she did look at herself in the full-length mirror, she recognized the reflection, but she didn’t recognize herself. She had no idea who this person was.
The whole time she kept telling herself she wasn’t doing this, even as she swiped her keys out of the loose change bowl in the kitchen, locked up and went to her car. She wasn’t somebody who risked everything she’d worked for, everything she believed in, just to feel a man’s scorching heat. It was some other woman who stabbed her key in the ignition, started the car and then drove to Dry Gulch Road, hands shaking, insides heaving, her entire understanding of herself and the world turned upside down.
She saw Brandon waiting for her on the Harley with that sleepy, mysterious smile that he used to get across ideas he was probably too lazy to put into words. Since Dry Gulch was a deserted farm road, they were the only ones there. He’d done that on purpose, of course. If her terms were absolute secrecy, Brandon was obviously okay with that. He was probably used to it.
Next to Brandon was the underpass of a small stone bridge that had been in Cuervo since its cattle-driving days. There had been a creek here once, long since dried up, which was now blanketed in wildflowers. Red-and-yellow Indian paintbrush nodded faintly in the breeze. Purple phlox made a mass of color on the sun-covered slope of the old bridge. Even a few yellow sunflowers had raised their heavy, graceful heads. April stared at it as though she’d never seen it before
She parked her car in a small clearing and sat with her heart booming, her ears ringing, her hands gripping the wheel. Somewhere deep inside her brain was the idea that she would turn the car around and go home. But then she watched herself get out and pocket the keys. The air smelled of warm earth. Insects whirred from the tall dried grasses that grew beside the road. She was walking toward him now, toward her deliverance and damnation.