Worth the Trip

by Penny McCall

  In the end he opted for Cross Village. Sure, it was small, and a small town was hard to disappear in, but it had that unexpected angle, and it turned out to be another hour past Petoskey. Less time in a motel room, alone, just him and Norah. And that bed.

  Reluctantly, he headed for the VACANCY sign he spied on the far side of Cross Village. When he found it he could see why. The place was all but deserted, and he was including animal and insect life. The Cross Inn had passed run-down at least two decades ago and was fighting off derelict with its last gasping breath. It was also the only motel around. The downside of choosing small town America.

  “Do you think it’s safe here?” Norah asked, taking her helmet off and leaning even closer.

  No. “Perfectly.”

  “Then I should have my own room.”

  Great, she was feeling it, too. “No.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight.” The trick would be to keep his hands off her. It didn’t help knowing she was worried about spending the night in the same room with him, and it didn’t help that she wasn’t arguing more. “No objection?”

  “I’m freezing. I just want to get warm.”

  Trip chose not to think of the ways he could help with that. He went into the office and made the arrangements, then walked down the row of rooms until he found their door about halfway between the office and the end of the building.

  The last time they’d stopped for gas there’d been a sandwich shop at the gas station. Trip had picked up dinner, but even though it had been hours since lunch, Norah didn’t even look at it. She rubbed her arms and paced the room while he fired up the wall heater, keeping her coat on until some of the chill was off the air. She hadn’t complained about the cold at all, but he realized now that she’d stopped talking entirely a couple of hours before.

  “You should have told me you were freezing,” he said.

  “I figured the temperature was no surprise to you.”

  “Sarcasm works better when your teeth aren’t chattering.”

  “Are you kidding? The chattering is how I knew I was alive for the last two hours.”

  Trip rolled his eyes and stripped off her coat, wrapping her in a blanket from the bed.

  “I’m all right,” Norah protested, and when he began to chafe her arms anyway, she tried to shove him off, just as he stepped back. She tipped forward, off balance, heading for a face-plant with her arms trapped in the blanket.

  Trip caught her and hauled her against him, including her mouth, since it was right there. Her lips warmed beneath his, softened as she gave a breathless murmur and sank into the kiss. Her body relaxed against his . . .

  Just as a knock sounded at the door. Norah stumbled back, fighting one arm free to press trembling fingers to her lips as she turned away.

  Swearing under his breath, Trip went to answer the door. He turned back, the tray the manager handed him enough to kill the awkwardness. Norah dropped her blanket and flew across the room, wrapping both hands around one of the steaming mugs.

  She took a sip, groaning with pleasure. “Chicken noodle,” she said, adding, “thank you,” with enough surprise to piss Trip off.

  “Replaced by a mug of soup,” he said, going for levity and not quite pulling it off, judging by the searching look she sent him.

  Her phone chimed, saving him from the question she’d been about to ask. One he wouldn’t be able to answer without lying, and she’d probably see through that, too, which irritated him all the more. It was bad enough to be stuck with a civilian, let alone a woman, on a dangerous op. Why the hell did he have to get saddled with a psychologist who’d just happened to grow up in con artist boot camp? Not only did she see through whatever spin he tried to put on the situation, she knew why he did it better than he did. Hell, the woman was practically walking around in his brain. He didn’t want her in his brain, or anywhere else, for that matter. She was trouble, plain and simple, and he needed to stop letting his emotions run away with him. So it stung that she thought he’d ignore her discomfort, not to mention the fact that she didn’t complain once, just hung in there like a real trooper. It would only bother him if he let it, and at the moment it was distracting him from a conversation he ought to be listening in on.

  Norah had gone to the other side of the room with her phone and her mug of soup. Trip ambled over, surprised when she said, “Wait a minute, Raymond,” and put the phone against her shoulder to block the sound.

  Raymond Kline was no threat. He should have walked away, but damn it, he wanted to know why she was talking to her ex-boyfriend. “Put the call on speaker,” he said, no-expression, including his eyes, which she studied for a second before she said, “You want to listen in? Because you don’t trust me?”

  “Because it might mean something, and you have to filter the conversation through the relationship. I don’t.”

  She shrugged and did as he’d requested. “Hello, Raymond? I’m back.”

  “You sound funny.”

  “I have you on speaker phone.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause while he wondered who else was listening and came to the conclusion it was Trip. From the sound of his voice wasn’t happy about it. “I just wanted to see if you’re okay.”

  “And?”

  “And you didn’t leave a lesson plan,” he said, sounding put out.

  “You told me to stay off campus until this business with my father is settled.”

  “I could come over and pick it up. I’ve got this bottle of wine, from a rather new vineyard in Michigan, but it’s quite good, and I’ve been wanting to get your opinion.”

  “I’m not home.”

  Another slight pause, then, “Where are you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Looking for the loot?”

  Norah met Trip’s eyes.

  “I see,” Raymond said when he’d concluded neither of them was going to answer. “So we’re not even friends now.”

  “Guilt isn’t going to work,” Norah said.

  “You’re still angry. You’re punishing me for putting you on sabbatical.”

  “I won’t be put on the defensive either. Honestly, Raymond, this isn’t about you. I’m still hoping I have a job, but I understand why you did what you did, and I’m sure I’ll be fine either way.” And she sounded surprised enough, Trip decided, to really mean that. “I have my practice and my writing—”

  “Now, Norah, of course you have a job here.” He paused for effect, Norah feeling no need to fill the silence. “If you still want one.”

  “We’ll talk about that later, all right?”

  “Really, Norah, the board wants you to come back, and of course, so do I, but at the moment I’m worried about you. Please tell me where you are.”

  “I’m perfectly safe, Raymond.”

  “But—”

  “I have to go, Raymond, my dinner is getting cold.” And she disconnected.

  “You played that well,” Trip said.

  “I didn’t play anything,” she said, and she was looking him straight in the eye. “It just occurred to me that I don’t need that job as much as I think I do, and I won’t be an emotional hostage. I’ve been supporting myself since I was a teenager, and I have a lot more options now than I had then.”

  Trip crossed the room to pick up his sub, but really he was mulling the change in Norah. Somewhere between Chicago and the middle of nowhere she’d done some thinking, and some concluding, which could be really good. Or it could be trouble. “A lot of people are suddenly interested in your whereabouts,” he said, deciding to concentrate on the op, where he had some control. Or so he told himself.

  “I noticed that,” Norah said, “but if you’re talking about Myra, you can relax, or stand down, or at ease, or whatever FBI agents do.”

  “I’m undercover. It depends on the situation.” And since the situation involved Norah, at ease was not an option.

  “Myra is my agent and my friend. She’s ju
st worried about me because you showed up out of the blue and she doesn’t have any idea who you are.”

  “It didn’t seem to bother her when we met.”

  “That’s because she saw you and, well, you’re you.”

  Trip grinned. Her directness had its perks at times.

  “Ted Bundy,” she said, and he lost his grin because Ted Bundy was good-looking and smooth and seemingly harmless, right up to the moment he became a murderer.

  “Once you were gone she remembered that you’re a stranger,” Norah continued on the subject of Myra Newcastle. “And Raymond is only worried about the college. It’s all he cares about.”

  “Then he’s an idiot,” Trip said, turning to unwrap his sub because her eyes were already on his face.

  He glanced back and knew it was too late. She held his eyes, and there was no confusion in hers, no expectation, either. She’d not only found herself, she’d made some decisions, and he was involved, judging by the way she was looking at him.

  Then the look turned hot, and he didn’t give a damn about consequences, because he was across the room, kissing her, his hands framing her face, then slipping around to bury in her hair as the kiss went deeper, wilder. She tasted like chicken soup, salty and hot, scorching when she kissed him back, putting her whole body into it. And it was some body. He found that out firsthand because they were both peeling off clothes as they backpedaled to the bed, and fell on it.

  Trip dragged his mouth from hers to drop to his knees, tearing off her boots, then her jeans, leaving her in a bra and panties because her sweater and shirt were already gone.

  “White cotton,” he said, her laugh trailing off into a moan as he laid his mouth on the inside of her thigh, inching down white cotton so he could take his mouth to her.

  She bowed up, hands fisted in the bedcover, so responsive he nearly lost it. Watching her, enjoying the way she came undone, was too much to resist. So he stood the pain and pleasure, let them burn in his blood until his skin tingled and every breath he drew was fire in his lungs, until she collapsed bonelessly, so wrung out she could barely breathe. But she reached for him anyway, and he went to her, fumbling at his jeans like a teenager desperate to get them off, never mind his boots.

  “Condom,” she said, and had him jerking his wallet out of his back pocket, ripping out the condom and fumbling with it, the little foil package beyond hands that were suddenly all thumbs.

  Norah took it from him, tore it open, smoothed it on. And had his eyes rolling back in his head, the heat and softness of her touch sending him over the edge. He caught her hips and surged into her, stopping when she cried out, so damn glad to discover it was pleasure, not pain, on her face, pleasure as he slipped her bra straps down and took one hard peak into his mouth. She bowed up again, her hips meeting his in an ever-faster, more desperate rhythm until her breath caught in the back of her throat as he felt her constrict around him, once, twice, again and again before he buried himself in her, and let himself go with her.

  “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”

  Norah floated back down, found herself wrapped in Trip’s arms, and thought, Oh yeah. Since she was still fighting to regain her breath, she only nodded in answer to his question, but the concern on his face pushed her to say, “Why wouldn’t I be?” When his expression didn’t change, she smiled. “I’m fine, Trip. Better than fine.” She stretched a little, loving how deliciously used her body felt, how relaxed. Even the stress she carried around constantly in her neck and shoulders was gone.

  Her head was on his shoulder. If she stretched, just a little, she could have kissed him. But it would be a kiss that conveyed more than she wanted it to, and definitely more than he’d be comfortable with. This was just sex. She’d decided that before she allowed herself to become intimate with Trip, and even if the decision to go there had been torn from her by a hunger she couldn’t have resisted, it was still a deliberate choice. Trip was part of the ADVENTURE, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to let herself go, and she refused to have regrets.

  Trip tapped on her forehead. “What’s going on in there?”

  “Honestly? Nothing.”

  “Why not?”

  Norah leaned back so she could see his face better. “What do you think should be going on in there?”

  “Nothing,” Trip muttered, just sulky enough to make her smile.

  “Do you want me to cry and make a scene? I can call your handler and tell him you took advantage of me, if that helps.”

  “You could have told me you’d already decided you were okay with this.”

  “It’s not like we took the time to discuss it.”

  Trip laughed a little. It was a nice sound, as nice as the way his fingers trailed softly up and down her arm. “Maybe I can manage a little foreplay next time.”

  “The whole day was foreplay.”

  “Scoring one-o-one,” Trip said, “get a woman on the back of a motorcycle and you’re in.”

  Norah hummed in the back of her throat, part amusement, part contentment. “I think it had more to do with being wrapped around you, but the bike might have played a part. Tomorrow we get to see if it works on men.”

  “Because?”

  “You’re teaching me how to drive a motorcycle. Just in case,” she added before he could argue.

  He didn’t, probably because he knew she was right. “Just in case,” he repeated.

  Progress, Norah thought, pushing herself up on one elbow. “Now about that foreplay . . .”

  chapter 12

  GOOD SEX TO MAKE UP FOR THE LAST . . . OKAY, her entire adult life, an excellent breakfast to make up for the dinner she hadn’t had, and she was going to spend a good part of the day wrapped around Trip on the back of his motorcycle. What, Norah thought the next morning, could be more glorious? Okay, the skies were boiling like Shakespeare’s cauldron, the temperature had passed arctic and was heading for deep-space cold, and the motorcycle-driving lessons had been a complete failure—she had to do what with her left foot, left hand, and right hand all at the same time? But she was looking on the bright side.

  “Are you sure we should do this?” her practical-and pessimistic side asked anyway, bolstered by the sight of Lake Michigan to her left, with its white caps and churning surf.

  “Weather report says it will clear later this morning,” Trip said back, via Bluetooth.

  “Okay,” she said, trusting him implicitly. “Ever think of becoming a meteorologist?”

  “Everybody hates those guys.”

  Not in your case. If Trip said it would be beach weather in January, everyone in his viewing area would be walking around in swimsuits. Or at least all the women would be.

  “Those guys are always wrong” was all she said. “That’s why everyone hates them.”

  “That’s just a cliché. Like you can’t trust a federal agent.”

  “Clichés happen for a reason.”

  Trip chose not to respond, which made her feel a little guilty, but only for a second. After all, he’d brought it up.

  “Where are we going to get a boat this late in the season?”

  “Kizi.”

  “What’s a Kizi?”

  “I asked the manager of the motel when he brought breakfast, and he said Kizi can get me anything I want.”

  “What are the chances Kizi goes through legal channels?”

  “Ignorance is bliss,” Trip said.

  Norah had to agree. She’d been getting quite the education since Trip had come into her life. About some things she’d have preferred to remain blissfully ignorant; other things had just been bliss.

  They took 119, a stretch of road that alternated between views of Lake Michigan and a tunnel of trees famed for its fall color, but almost leafless now with the storm that had blown in overnight. 119 led them to Cross Village, the last town on the shore until Mackinaw City, which sat at the foot of the bridge connecting Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.

  Cross Village had been founded where Father Jacques Marque
tte, during his missionary travels, had planted a cross on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. That small cross had long since disappeared, but a large cross, visible for miles out into the lake, had taken its place.

  It was a quiet town filled with quiet people, a bastion of the remaining Ottawa Indian population, and home to Blissfest, a folk music festival that drew visitors from across the nation. The sun hadn’t fought its way very far over the horizon, but even at that time of the morning the place seemed to be hopping, people having breakfast, buying papers, or trading hellos as they met on the sidewalks. They all stopped to stare at the crazy people on the Harley. Not to mention they were outsiders.

  “So much for flying under the radar,” Norah said.

  “I didn’t count on so many early birds.”

  “Be grateful it’s not hunting season yet. Half these people would be carrying rifles, too.”

  Trip didn’t have a comeback for that, but she could feel his relief. “Where do you suppose Kizi is?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Trip said, and kept going right through town.

  “I thought we needed Kizi,” Norah said. “He’s going to get us a boat.”

  “We’ll find one,” Trip said. “There’ll be vacation homes peppered all along the shore. Someone will have a boat still in the water.”

  “You’re going to steal a boat?”

  “We’re going to steal a boat.”

  “That sounds great in theory, but my job doesn’t come with a get out of jail free card.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Wait until spring?” Which she knew wasn’t an option. What she didn’t know was why she wanted the delay. Was it because she was afraid of drowning, or of Trip leaving just when she’d begun to find this new side of herself? And there, she concluded, was a question that could wait until spring.

  119 had ended in Cross Village. Trip kept to whatever roads he could find along the coast, taking the time at each one to check for a boat. Finally they came across a house with a tent-covered structure next to the dock. Trip guided the bike into the drive and left her there while he walked down to scope it out. He came back with a smirk on his face.