Harlequin Superromance August 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: What Happens Between FriendsStaying at Joe'sHer Road Home

by Beth Andrews

  But that was all background to the roar in his ears, as he shot himself into her, deep, where she began. Finally, she was his. All his.

  * * *

  SHE LAY ON NICK like a blanket, both of them trying to get enough air to sustain life. Deep inside her, unknown muscles spasmed in sparkling aftershocks. Nick responded, twitching. Eventually, her breathing slowed. Her muscles lay slack, so relaxed she felt boneless.

  Nick made a contented sound, a combination growl and purr.

  She lay, head on his chest, adrift and becalmed, floating in a warm sea.

  “I love you, Sam.”

  She felt the words in his chest, even as her ears heard them. But the warm sea rocked her. The sweet peace deep inside her answered, “And I love you.”

  Hearing her own words, her muscles tightened, inside, outside.

  Have I lost my mind?

  She wanted to slap a hand over her mouth, but she was so scattered, she wasn’t even sure where her hands were. “I did not say that,” she whispered as she slid off him, wanting to melt into the mattress, into the floor.

  But Nick wouldn’t let her go far. Arm draped across her rib cage, he pulled the disheveled sheet over them and settled, leaning his cheek on his fist. “It’s okay, Sam. Even biker chicks are allowed to say it.” He grinned, smug.

  Maybe so, but I don’t—er—didn’t.

  She felt stunned—her world had been suddenly and truly rocked. Love? Was this even possible? Bina’s words whispered through her turmoil. Why couldn’t she grab the good stuff for herself? Hadn’t she earned it?

  A home. Nick. Maybe sometime in the future, a wedding? A vision danced in her mind. Her and Nick, standing on the mariner’s compass, in front of the fireplace, a man with a bible before them. A white dress, Jesse at her elbow, Nick in a suit, Carl standing beside him...

  And while she was letting herself want, maybe kids, someday? A warm safe heat curled in her chest. God, she sounded like a high-schooler. Next she’d be practicing her signature.

  Mrs. Nick Pinelli.

  “We’ve got a lot to talk about.” Nick’s smile faltered, then fell. The muscles of his face tightened, forming furrows between his eyebrows and beside his mouth. This is what Nick would look like, old. Her happy bubble popped.

  “But I need to tell you something first, Sam.”

  “Just tell me, Nick.” She lay, bared in every way possible, waiting his next words, knowing they had the power to change her future.

  “They’re letting my father out of jail.”

  That was so not what she’d thought he’d say that her brain ground gears like a student driver on a steep hill. “What?”

  “The end of January, he’ll be set free. They say my father will have served his debt.” He spit out the poisonous words.

  Her brain caught the proper gear. Thoughts whirred, and after a few seconds, slipped into place. The answer lay before her, shiny and perfect.

  * * *

  NICK WATCHED. SAM’S SMILE didn’t begin; it burst on her face, fully formed, lighting her from within. She looked like an angel. An angel with the answer. He caught his breath, awaiting the benediction her smile promised.

  “He’ll never find you, Nick.” Her words were soft. She extricated her hands from the covers to touch his jaw. “You can hire someone to manage the shop. Then, after the party, I’ll put the house up for sale. We’ll be gone before he gets out.”

  Leave? What? I’m looking for support, to help me stand and face him, and she’s talking about running again? What, running is okay if two do it? How could she think I’d leave?

  I’ve been living this little dream, all by myself. She doesn’t know me at all.

  Gathering steam, she barreled on. “How do you feel about San Francisco? They need towing and repair there, too. You could open a second shop.

  “We could drive up the coast in the Jeep. Or in the Love Machine, if you’d rather.” Beaming, she raised her hands in a ta-da gesture. “What do you think?”

  Nick knew what it felt like, seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and a few seconds later, being flattened by the train. His brain felt bruised by its impact with reality.

  You should have known. He rolled away to stare at the ceiling as the shiny future he’d held cupped in his hands sifted through his fingers.

  “What, Nick?”

  “I should have known.” Bitter bile built at the back of his throat. He sat up. “You’ve never pretended to be anything other than the biker chick I met on the side of the road outside town that day.” He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to rub out the vision of this outwardly perfect woman who, inside, was someone he’d never understand. “It’s been me, trying to make you into something else.”

  When she grasped his forearm, he felt panic in her fingers, digging into his skin. Saw it, on her face.

  “No, Nick, wait. We’d go together. Think about it—what I’m saying makes sense.”

  He scooted to the edge of the bed. “I let what I felt for you, and what I wanted, blind me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He could see she didn’t. “You’re a cheetah, Sam. Running is what you’re made to do. Cheetahs can’t become house cats, even if they wanted to.” He shook his head, devastated for them both.

  “I’m not leaving Widow’s Grove, Sam. Ever. If you understood anything about me, you would have known that.” He looked down on her stricken expression. “I’d hoped you’d stand with me.”

  Her mouth opened, then closed. Her shoulders slumped.

  Grief surged up from his gut into his throat. He had to get out of here. He snatched his jeans from the puddle of clothes on the floor, crammed his feet into them and then his shoes. He snatched his shirt but stood with it in his fist.

  “Nick, don’t. I can—”

  “No, Sam, you can’t.” He shook his head. “You and me, we’re too different—you always go, I always stay. It sucks, but that’s just the way it is.” He reached out to touch her, just once more. But he knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to leave. And then, he’d be lost.

  He’d been lost once before. He couldn’t risk his sobriety, too.

  He dropped his hand to his side and strode for the door before he could do something to embarrass himself further—like throwing a chair through a window.

  * * *

  IT WAS MUCH LATER when Sam sat up in bed. Sinuses swollen, face bloated, it felt as if she’d spent the last hours floating facedown at the bottom of a pool.

  When Nick walked away, she’d wanted to flop out of bed and grab his ankles to be dragged across the polished wood floor, all the while begging him not to go. Pride hadn’t kept her from it. Not having a valid argument had.

  She heard a moan, and at first thought it was coming from her. Sitting up, she listened. A violent wind howled around the eaves of the roof, and rain, hard as pebbles, rattled against the window.

  That’s not me whining, either. She looked over the edge of the bed. Bugs stared up at her, his entire body quivering. “Oh, Bugs, are you scared?” He whined again. She reached over and, grunting, lifted him. Her bed was normally off-limits to quadrupeds, but tonight, they both needed whatever comfort they could find. Bugs turned around twice and lay down beside her head. She put her arms around him and buried her face in his coat.

  What the hell would she have told Nick,to get him to change his mind? That she was wrong? That she’d stay? Oh, sure, the past month or so she’d considered staying—in a daydream kind of way. Her and Nick, playing house. But as he told her why they wouldn’t work, the reality of it smacked her in the face.

  Her damned internal compass spun in lazy circles, one way, then the other. What should she believe? She now knew the old Sam, inside and out. She knew the little girl. But she didn’t know this new Sam. S
he couldn’t trust that she knew what she was doing.

  But she trusted Nick’s judgment. If he didn’t believe she could change, maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she hadn’t.

  She wasn’t normal. She’d never be entirely whole. How could she have deluded herself into thinking her life would become a Disney movie? A happily-ever-after, complete with bounding squirrels and twittering bluebirds, trailing ribbons?

  They’d have ended up sullen and hurt, neither knowing how to break the chain of disappointment, until she grabbed her leathers and helmet, fled to her motorcycle and the road.

  But what if, after leaving, she still couldn’t leave this place behind her?

  What if she’d only swapped one inescapable past for another?

  There’d be no getting this right. Ever.

  But deep inside, that Disney movie still lived. She never would have admitted that before Widow’s Grove.

  So maybe she did have a small soft spot for happy-ever-afters. But she was also a realist. She was who she was. Bina was right; she was the one who built beautiful homes for other people, then rode away.

  But wait, before that...I stayed, then. I took care of Dad.

  Yes, she had. And look what that had cost her.

  Bugs tried to lick the salt from her cheek. She turned her head, laid it on his warm, pudgy side and listened to the wind howl.

  * * *

  SUNDAY MORNING, SAM woke with a crying-jag hangover and the stench of dog breath in her face. She peeled open sticky eyelids to see Bugs’s snoring mug on the pillow next to her.

  “Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose and rolled out of bed. The sky through the window was powder-blue, with only a few wind-torn clouds.

  She patted Bugs’s shiny coat. “Come on, dog. I feel a bout of frenzied distraction coming on. After a shower. And coffee.”

  Bugs closed his eyes.

  “Do not get ideas about these sleeping arrangements becoming permanent, bub. Not happening.” She dragged him, claws digging for purchase, to the edge of the bed, then lifted him down.

  When she stood, an ache between her legs brought back the bittersweet memory of yesterday in high-def detail.

  You did it!

  Well, technically, Nick had “done” it, but she was right there with him the whole time. If it happened once, that made it possible. God, she hadn’t known an orgasm could take the top of her head off. He’d played her body reverently, like an irreplaceable violin. Well, until the end. Her face heated with the memory of their frenzy. And she’d loved every bit of it.

  Without her barriers in place, Nick had slid inside of more than her skin. She’d never snuggled up against someone else’s soul.

  Another ache blossomed. She put her hand to her chest as cold tentacles wrapped around her heart and squeezed.

  Looking at the dirty, rumpled, dog-drooled sheets, her stomach turned over. She needed a shower. Bugs needed to go out. But she couldn’t live with the evidence of yesterday’s triumphant failure one more minute. Leaning over, she ripped the bottom sheet off, rolling the bedding into a giant wad.

  The smell of sex and Nick billowed up, filling her head. She breathed in the sweet pain, knowing the memory would have to last a long time. It would be all she had of him. She could have cried—if her body wasn’t a wizened shuck.

  * * *

  AN HOUR LATER, clean and dressed, she stepped onto the back porch. The gale-force winds of last night had tapered to a chilly breeze.

  “Whoa.” At the edge of the property, the root-ball of a huge eucalyptus confronted her.

  Bugs scooted around her legs, bounded down the stairs and across the yard, barking at the tree as if it were a burglar.

  Coffee cup steaming, she crossed the yard to survey the damage. The tree stretched into the field a good forty feet, and yet the root ball wasn’t much wider than the tree trunk itself. She shuddered, remembering Nick’s explanation of how they got the name “widow-makers.”

  Guess a tree that tall can’t survive with that small a root system. She snorted, and shot a look at the sky. “You know I get it, right? Blatant analogies are overkill, don’t you think?”

  Studying the huge trunk, she pictured a winter fire roaring in the fireplace. The wood would need to dry out and season first, but she could pile it on the back porch, out of the weather.

  Not that she’d be here to enjoy it, but someone would.

  Feet dragging, she headed for the garage, and her chain saw.

  * * *

  “SONOFABITCH!” THE WRENCH clanged to the floor, and Nick grabbed his barked knuckle. He knelt on the cold cement floor of the garage, rocking the pain away, glad there were no customers on Sunday to hear his outburst.

  When the pain lessened, he surveyed the damage. Not too much blood, but the long bruise was going to ache for days. He glanced up at the dented gas tank of the Vulcan, and the damned frozen bolts that held it.

  “You’re as stubborn as your owner, and just as painful.” He sucked his knuckle, then picked up the wrench and tried again. He’d located, purchased and installed new rims, but had no luck finding a tank that was less damaged. As much as the idea rankled, he was going to have to repair this one. He only had a couple of weeks.

  It was only right that Sam leave town the same way she came in.

  And it was his own stupid-ass fault if it left him wrecked.

  He took his frustration out on the bolt, hauling on the wrench until he felt the blood pounding in his face. “Arrrgh!” The bolt broke loose with a high-pitched squeal that sounded like his pain. He unscrewed it the rest of the way and dropped it in the handleless coffee mug he’d brought for that purpose.

  But she has changed.

  The tough biker chick he’d met lying in the mud in February had morphed to someone softer. Someone who adopted a repugnant stray, became best friends with the queen of Widow’s Grove’s social scene and helped out local kids. More than all that, she’d faced the demons of her past and seemed to be defeating them.

  And yesterday, she’d let him in. In that massive bed, there had been no barriers between them. They’d touched a lot more than skin. In those few moments before he’d blurted his hideous news, they’d been closer than he’d ever been to another person.

  He lay in awe of the power of that woman.

  Realizing he was going about these bolts the hard way, he stood and walked to the workbench that spread along the back wall. He lifted a rubber mallet from its slot on the pegboard. Pounding would be so much more satisfying. He returned and knelt beside the crippled bike.

  If she’s changed that much, she could—

  Just stop.

  That path would twist, back and forth, and end in a swamp full of scotch.

  Widow’s Grove was an experiment for Sam—if it all went bad she could bail, and start over at the next place. She was like a beautiful wild mare that, the past months, had taken shelter with a domestic herd. She’d even allowed him to throw a saddle over her and ride. And that had been a watershed moment for him.

  But as much as he wished it—wanted it—he had no illusions Samantha Crozier had been tamed. Even if she offered to take him along, her first answer would always be to run. Even if she agreed to stay, he’d always be waiting for the next problem, the next disaster that would spook her and drive her back to the road.

  You can’t tame a wild thing.

  He pounded the wrench with the mallet, and was rewarded with the screech of the next bolt loosening.

  He remembered her, looking down on him, wonder on her face as she came apart.

  He pounded on the next bolt. It didn’t move.

  Would he really want that wild spirit tamed?

  It was a moot point. And at the same time, he was glad that decision wasn’t his to make. Because he knew what he’d choose—her by
his side, in his bed. In his life. No matter if domestication diminished her. He was just that selfish.

  He pounded the wrench, the vibrations making his bruised hand throb.

  Finally the bolt let loose with a screech.

  “Welcome to the club, you sonofabitch.”

  * * *

  “OUCH, JESSE! MY HAIR may look great for the party, but if I’ve got burn marks on my forehead, it’s going to ruin the look, don’t you think?” Sam rubbed her singed hairline.

  “Oh, quit your whining.” Jesse continued wrapping Sam’s hair around the steaming curling iron. “My aunt always told me, it hurts to be beautiful.”

  “In that case, can we just do it until I’m pretty? Beautiful is going to kill me.” She’d managed to stay busy, and off Jesse’s radar, the past week. But with the party a week away, Sam needed help—stylish female help. Jesse’d come over today to decorate the tree.

  Somehow they’d ended up in the bathroom, drinking hot chocolate and demoing new hairstyles.

  Jesse sat quiet for at least thirty seconds.

  Having never experienced this in Jesse’s presence, Sam looked up.

  Jesse’s expression oozed sadness, like those cheap prints of big-eyed stray cats. “Aren’t we friends, Sam?”

  The look lasered through Sam’s brain to her guilt center. Damn, she hated that. “What?” Maybe, somehow, the news that Nick dumped her hadn’t gotten out in the nine days and fourteen hours since it happened.

  “Well, I’m not sure I should say anything.” Jesse grabbed another lock of hair and wound it around the curling iron.

  Jesse, hesitant to talk? This was serious. “Just tell me.”

  “No, hon, you tell me.”

  Of course Jesse knew. She probably knew when Sunny’s hamster farted. Sam fidgeted in the chair, thinking evisceration was looking like a better option than talking to Jesse about this.

  In the mirror’s reflection, Jesse’s eyes held Sam’s.

  “Okay, you want to know?” Sam threw her hands up. “Nick dumped me. You happy now?”