by Mindy Klasky
She was Lindsey. Just Lindsey. Ryan might have been interested in her—half the guys on the team might—but she was totally off limits because Ormond would break any guy’s nose if a player was stupid enough to even sniff in her direction.
As Ryan watched, she opened her trunk. She shoved in the dress and veil, jamming them into the cramped space around the car’s battery. “Okay, then,” she said, slamming the trunk closed.
“Okay.”
“Go on,” she said, and then she seemed to remember the rules, seemed to remember that she was supposed to be proud and brave and not at all upset that she’d been left at the altar like a girl in one of those bad novels he was supposed to read in high school English class. She ran her fingers through her stiff hair and frowned when they snagged on hairspray or gel or whatever shit she’d used to make it work. “I’m fine,” she said. “You can tell Zach you got me all settled. Tell him I’m fine, and I’ll call him in the morning.”
It was the smile that got to him. The perfect, blinding smile, like she was competing for Miss America or something. She actually held out her hand, and he shifted the champagne bottle to shake it. He wasn’t supposed to feel the tremor in her fingers. He wasn’t supposed to see that her chin was shaking. He wasn’t supposed to notice the wash of tears that made her eyes shine like tiny mirrors.
“Drive carefully,” he said.
“I always do.” And she actually made herself laugh.
Shit. It was like torturing a kitten, standing here with her. Everything he said, everything he did just made it worse because she had to keep on acting, had to keep on pretending, when he could see that all she wanted to do was get some place alone, wash that crap out of her hair, scream and cry and probably get drunker than she’d ever been in her life.
So he walked over to his car. He let himself in without looking back. He keyed the ignition and then he sat there, steadying the champagne on the passenger seat like it was a patient in an ambulance.
Because he couldn’t just drive out of that lot. He had to make sure she was all right, okay to drive. Sure enough, after her headlights flicked on, she backed up a little too fast. She skidded on a patch of gravel, but anyone could have done that in the twilight. She raced across the asphalt to the exit, like she was dying to put some distance between them, to get away from the church, and men, and everything that had turned to shit in her life. And anyone could have done that, too, driven too fast in an almost empty parking lot. Without stopping at the edge of the lot, though, she started to pull out into the street, only crashing to a halt when a horn bellowed and brakes shrieked. A minivan swerved around her in the gloom.
Sure, Lindsey Ormond was fine. Perfect.
Ryan couldn’t sit there and watch her drive away like a bat out of hell. He caught up with the Prius at the first traffic light, but he hung back in the left lane, trying to stay out of sight. She barely waited for the light to change before she was gunning her engine, heading for the freeway and the fast track out of town. He settled low in the Ferrari and followed her, keeping just far enough back that she’d never have any idea he was there.
CHAPTER 2
Lindsey reached down to crank up her tunes, but stopped because she was still on the interstate. Zach had pounded that responsibility into her head when he taught her how to drive: Always be ready to respond to an emergency, able to hear a siren, capable of hearing another driver’s horn that might save you from disaster.
Great. If only there’d been another driver warning her on the road of her love life.
She pinned her gaze back on the road, forbidding herself from glancing at the phone she’d tossed into the cup-holder between the car’s bucket seats. I’m sorry. Who blew off his wedding by text? Who thought it was remotely reasonable to type out a message like that?
Will should have called. He should have left her a voicemail at the very least. That’s what Doug had done.
Right. Like there was a good way to be jilted.
There. The turnoff for the county road. She signaled her exit and took the off-ramp carefully. Zach would approve. At least there was something she was doing right on this miserable, messed-up day.
She flipped on her high beams and punched up the volume, now that she was on the scarcely populated road. Roy Orbison sang straight to her, hitting her in the pit of her loneliness. Every drawn out note of “Crying” tugged at something deep inside her. Her throat tightened, and her eyes welled up, and she needed to scream and wail and sob.
She was ten minutes from the farmhouse she’d grown up in. Ten minutes from unlocking the front door, from running a cool bath in the deep, claw-footed porcelain tub, from cracking open a beer and folding a towel behind her head, and letting loose the tears that might never stop. She could cry as hard as she wanted. She could even scream if she wanted; no one would hear her. No one would worry.
That was the beauty of her old family home, quiet and peaceful in the middle of the North Carolina fields—she could be alone with her misery there and no one would ever know the difference.
But she wasn’t alone. There was a car following her. A car with obnoxious headlights that were far too bright in her mirror.
She eased her foot off the gas pedal, hoping the other driver would pass. The car, though, kept perfect pace with her.
She edged over toward the shoulder, giving the other vehicle plenty of room. When it still didn’t pull around her, she actually tapped her brakes, wishing she could send a command in Morse Code—go around me, already! The other car didn’t get the message.
A swell of unease twisted through Lindsey’s gut, fear that was the identical twin of nausea. The tightening in her belly reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since grabbing a quick sandwich in the middle of the morning, and even then she’d only managed to choke down a few bites before Grace had rushed her off for her mani-pedi, for her hair appointment, for their early arrival at the church.
Glancing at her phone, she considered calling her sister. But that was stupid—Grace was probably over at Rachel’s house, helping her put the twins to bed. Her sisters would be slouching around in shorts and stretched out T-shirts, relaxed, content. Lindsey shouldn’t bother either of them any more than she already had that day, with her fiasco of a non-wedding. Besides, what could Grace or Rachel or even Beth do about a creepy driver behind her on the county road?
She could call Zach.
Yeah, right. Call Zach and have him show up at the farmhouse, with a nuclear weapon in one hand and a straitjacket in the other. She wasn’t going to call her big brother to make everything all okay. She was a grown woman. She could handle a tailgating jerk on the road to the farm.
Slowing even further, she snapped on her turn signal before she eased the car onto the shoulder. Her pulse soared as she realized the car behind her was stopping too. This wasn’t some distracted driver following her lead. This was someone following her. Stalking her. What the hell was she supposed to do now?
She could slam her foot down on the gas pedal. She knew this road—it ran straight for miles, past the farm, all the way to Shepardsville.
But those high-quality headlights ran an ice-cold poker down her spine. Lights like that belonged on a luxury vehicle. A car with an engine a hell of a lot better than her Prius. She could never outrun something like that in her car.
She’d just have to wait until the guy got out of his car. If he got to her door, she could pound the gas, leap forward, put some real distance between them before he could recover, before he could get back to his own car and chase her down…
She swallowed hard and told herself she could do this.
She watched in her rear-view mirror as the other driver’s door opened. A dark shape stood out against those blinding headlights, a lean body, black as a panther in the silhouette. He stopped at her trunk, like he was waiting for her to get out of the car. When she didn’t oblige, he took a few steps closer, bringing himself even with her back door, where he stopped again.
That
wasn’t the behavior she expected. It wasn’t the predatory approach she’d braced for. She squinted into her side mirror, trying to anticipate what he would do next. She could just make out the lines of his dark suit, a snow-white dress shirt. She pried her left hand from her steering wheel, turning her palm sideways to block the glare of his headlights in her side mirror.
“Lindsey?”
What the hell?
Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have recognized the voice, but she’d just been talking to the guy, half an hour earlier. She slammed her car into park and threw her car door open. “Ryan Green, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
He leaped back a full step, throwing up his right arm like he was warding off a demon.
She closed the distance between them. “I thought you were trying to kidnap me!” She let some of her adrenaline flow down her arms, stiffening the fingers she jabbed into his chest, forcing him to take another step back.
“Hey,” he shouted. “I thought your car broke down.”
“Sure! Right! And you just happened to be driving along behind me, the friendly local automobile association.” Her voice climbed half an octave, even as her fingertips started to tingle in relief. She forced herself to take three deep breaths, to push back the billowy black curtains that threatened to blow her to her knees.
“I didn’t ‘just happen—’”
“God save me, Zach put you up to this, didn’t he?”
“No, he—”
“He just couldn’t bear the thought of me making a decision for myself!”
“Your brother didn’t—”
“He just couldn’t trust me to drive out to the farmhouse by myself, one freaking time!”
“Hey!” he barked again, and this time his voice was sharp enough that she had to stop her tirade. Her pulse pounded in her ears, the only sound she could hear, even though she knew there had to be crickets and her engine running and dozens of other night-time noises. Ryan pitched his voice low, like he was talking to some frightened animal, a mouse or a rabbit or something. “Your brother didn’t send me out here. I followed you because I was worried. I saw you miss the stop sign at the church parking lot.”
“I didn’t miss the stop sign,” she said.
He ignored her. “I didn’t think you should come all the way out here alone.”
“I am perfectly capable of driving myself to my family’s farmhouse. I grew up out here, for God’s sake. I learned to drive on this road.”
Even in the darkness, she could see his embarrassed shrug. She could hear the unease in his voice when he said, “You’ve had a crappy day. A long one. I just wanted to make sure you got out here in one piece.”
His kindness brought her tears all the way up to the surface. Terrified that she was going to start blubbering like a baby, she straightened her spine and drew on her chilliest acting voice. “Do you have any idea what I thought you were going to do to me?”
He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “Yeah. I mean, I can guess. I’m sorry.”
He looked so sheepish, she had to unlock a little of her backbone. He really hadn’t meant to terrify her. He’d been trying to do something nice. And she had missed that stop sign, not that she’d ever admit it to another living soul. “Okay,” she said at last. “Well, um, thanks.”
“No problem.” His eyes were still serious as he stood there in the dark, his hands jammed in his pockets, his head dipped down like some sort of bashful boy at his first school dance.
She swallowed hard. She was not about to start thinking about any boy at any dance. She was never thinking about another guy, ever again. “So, I’m going to get back in my car now,” she said. “I’m going to use my turn signal, and I’m going to check my side-view mirror very carefully before I pull back onto the road, and I’m going to drive precisely at the speed limit. Is that okay with you?”
That earned her a shadow of a smile. “I’ll follow along. Just to make sure you get to the farm.”
“What is it with you ballplayers?” she shouted.
“I hear there can be some pretty nasty stalkers on this road.”
She gritted her teeth, resenting the way he threw her ridiculous fears back at her. It was time for more regal acting. “Don’t you think a woman is capable of taking care of herself?”
“You’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself,” he said, his voice so quiet she had to catch her breath to hear him. “But I’ve already come this far. And I’d hate if you got a flat tire between here and the house.”
“I can change a freaking tire!” Her voice broke on the last word. Of course she could change a tire. Zach would never have let her behind the wheel to take her driver’s test if she couldn’t change a tire.
“Come on, Lindsey,” Ryan said. And there was something about her name on his lips, something about the way he balanced those two syllables, halfway between a laugh and a sigh. She heard determination in his voice and amusement and an endless vault of patience.
But even more important was what she didn’t hear. She didn’t hear pity. She didn’t hear kid gloves, like he was afraid she was going to break into a million little pieces because Will had left her at the altar, the same way Doug had.
“Fine,” she said, surprising herself by how good it felt to agree. “You can follow me home. But that’s it. I don’t need anything else—from you or anyone else!”
“Fine,” he said, echoing her.
So she did what she’d said she would do. She drove the last five miles to the farm like she was taking the test for her license all over again—perfectly matching the speed limit, perfectly centering the car in her lane, perfectly timing her turn signal.
And the entire time, she told herself it felt right to be the good girl. It felt good to follow the rules. She shouldn’t have been so rude to Ryan; he was only trying to help. He was only trying to be nice to her on a day when absolutely everything in her life had gone wrong. She’d been out of line, pushing at him like that, then screaming at him like she was some sort of maniac. Glancing in her rear-view mirror, she barely recognized the haunted eyes that stared back at her.
~~~
What the hell had he been thinking, tailgating Lindsey on a deserted country road? Of course she thought he’d been ready to attack her. And how long would it take for that story to get back to Zach? Ryan could kiss his dreams of getting his father the coaching job goodbye.
Lindsey turned on her flasher and slowed by an oversize metal mailbox. He considered driving on, just staying on the country road until he reached a place where he could safely turn around. He could get back to the city, back to his own house, safe and sound, before it got too much later.
But he really should apologize one last time. Maybe Lindsey would decide that Zach didn’t need to hear anything about this entire goddamn trip.
He followed her up the driveway.
She was climbing out of her car as he braked to a stop. Her hands settled on her hips, and she planted her feet like she expected trouble. He took a deep breath and stepped out to try one last apology. “Lindsey—” he began.
“Forget it,” she said. “I was being a bitch.”
He raised his eyebrows, ready to protest, but she shook her head before he could say anything.
“Can I make it up by offering you a beer?”
He shrugged, and she led the way to the front door. “Have a seat,” she said, gesturing toward the pair of Adirondack chairs that filled half the porch. So, Lindsey was comfortable enough to offer him a drink, but she didn’t trust him inside her house.
Fair enough.
He sank back in the wooden chair as she slipped one hand under a potted plant. Coming up with a brass key, she wasted no time unlocking the door. In moments, she came back with two dark glass bottles. She caught the screen on her hip as she pulled the front door closed behind her, the action as automatic as if she’d done it a thousand times before. Which, he realized, she probably had.
She passed him his d
rink before she dropped into the other chair, leaning forward long enough to clink her bottle to his. As she collapsed against the high wooden back, she took a single polite sip, enough that he felt entitled to gulp a few swallows of his own. He tried to figure out what to say while she stared at the long driveway, at the distant, deserted county road.
When she finally spoke, her voice was low, throatier than he remembered. “What a crappy day.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Even though he hadn’t done anything wrong. Even though he wanted to say that her no-show groom was a goddamn idiot.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about. You’re not the jerk who backed out of his own wedding. You’re not the freaking director who waited three extra days to post your casting decisions and then decided not to put me in the lead role for Itsy Bitsy Mouse.”
“I thought you hadn’t heard about that yet.” She gave him a curious glance, and he shrugged. “I heard your sister talking about it, back at the church. She thought you were still waiting to find out.”
“Yeah,” she said, and she drank again. “I figured there was no reason to tell everyone I’m a loser. Not on my happy wedding day. Ha, ha, ha.”
“Come on,” he protested, because he had to say something. “It’s one lousy play.”
“It’s been three plays,” she said very precisely. “Three plays in the past nine months. The Brave Duckling in Ducklings on the March. The Happy Puppy in Puppy’s Big Day. And now the Mouse.”
“I don’t think I read those in school.”
At least she realized he was joking. “They’re kids’ plays. At CRT.”
“That sounds like some kind of medical procedure.”
And that earned him the tiniest of smiles. “Children’s Repertory Theater. It’s a co-operative theater company providing high-quality dramatic presentations for children under ten.” She frowned when she finished reciting that last line. “We share all the jobs. I work in the box office, so I can perform in the plays. When the director actually, you know, casts me in a role. I had the lead in three shows last year.”