And Then He Kissed Me (20 page)

After he took the money from Casey, he’d returned to Boston and his mom had started chemotherapy. But the cancer was too advanced, and she was in hospice a few short weeks later.

After she died and he and Auggie had buried her on a sodden, overcast day in July, he’d left again. He’d intended to ride to the other side of the country—to the sunshine of California, maybe—but in the end he’d only gotten as far as Wisconsin. He had parked himself in Madison and started attending addiction meetings. Then he sought help with his finances. He started working toward his undergraduate degree at a community college, and got help from a volunteer career counselor creating a sensible résumé out of the fractured pieces of his life.

When the Harley-Davidson headquarters in Milwaukee asked him in for a job interview, he’d ridden north expecting them to laugh him out of the room. They offered him employment instead, the best gig he could have hoped for. The only thing he could think as he shook hands with his new bosses was that Audrey was still with him—at least the part of her that let good things come into his life. It was silly, he knew, but still. Two weeks with Audrey had changed him. Had changed
everything
.

All this time he’d tried to ignore it. He’d tried to pretend that their meeting was just a fluke, and that he would have been able to land on his feet in spite of her. Being back in White Pine, however, made it all too clear. Audrey Tanner was one of the few truly good things that had ever happened to him. This place had happened to him, and so had these people. He liked it here. He liked what it did to him.

The only question was, did anyone else feel the same about him?

Most importantly, did Audrey?

*  *  *

Audrey leaned in closer to Kieran, her face inches from his. She could turn and kiss him, she realized, placing her lips on his wide, wonderful mouth, but she held back. Right now, she was actually interested in what he was
saying
.

“The bike has to be in neutral before you can start it. And this light here says whether or not that’s the case.” He pointed at a small indicator on the motorcycle’s dash, to the right of the speedometer.

Audrey followed the motion of Kieran’s hand, noting the thick, dark-red hairs that covered his forearms and faded to a light blond on his knuckles. Past the motorcycle and down a gentle slope, the Birch River splashed by. The Elks Club parking lot was empty, save for the two of them, and Audrey found herself delighted by the quiet, private lessons.

“How do I get the bike in neutral, then?” she asked, peering at all the instrumentation.

Kieran grabbed the left handlebar. “You press this lever in. It’s the clutch, and that will let you shift gears. But the gearshift is down by your left foot. So you have to press the clutch with your hand, then use your foot to shift. Does that make sense?”

Audrey glanced at Kieran’s thick-soled black boot, which was hovering over a small lever near the kickstand. “I sort of wish it were an automatic,” she replied.

“It takes some getting used to, that’s for sure. But you’re smart—you’ll learn in no time.” He winked at her, and her skin heated at the unexpected compliment.

“The brake is on the other side of the handlebar,” Kieran continued. “When I was first learning how to ride, I grabbed the brake instead of the clutch.” He grinned, showing his even, white teeth. “It didn’t end so well.”

“When did you learn?” Audrey asked. “Who taught you?”

“Tim O’Donnell,” Kieran replied, his green eyes sparkling with the memory. “His brother would ride his bike down to Finnegan’s bar, and Tim and I would steal the hog once his brother was inside. Tim had an extra key, and we’d be gone for hours while his brother was getting sauced. It was months before we ever got caught. We had a ball.”

“Where was that?” Audrey asked, realizing with a sinking feeling that she didn’t even know where Kieran had grown up.

“Southie. Er, South Boston officially, I guess.”

“Do you miss it?”

“I miss my mom, mostly. She died a few years back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have any other family?”

“My brother, Auggie. He’s a police officer. My dad, I don’t talk to. He lost a lot of money gambling when we were growing up. It’s part of the reason—”

Kieran stopped suddenly. The only sound was the wind rustling the leaves on nearby trees.

“Part of the reason what?”

Kieran shook his head. “I’ll tell you, I will, but not now. Today, we’re going to get you on this bike, and we’re going to have fun, and that’s all there is to it.”

Audrey opened her mouth to protest, but Kieran shook his head. “Nope. No arguments. Now, look over here on the right side of the bike. That’s your rear brake. So you’ve got two brakes total, okay? One on the front, that you engage with your hand, and one on the back, where you use your foot.”

Audrey let Kieran redirect the conversation, in part because she wanted to believe that he really would tell her about himself later.

A warning flared in the back of her mind.
Careful,
it signaled. If she got to know him, really know him, she might develop feelings for him all over again. Feelings that went well past raw physical desire.

So instead she focused on the bike. For the next twenty minutes Kieran instructed her about how to engage the clutch, when to use the front brake and when to use the back brake, reminded her to check her mirrors and always wear a helmet, and to “ride like you’re invisible and they’re drunk.” When he finally let her hop on the bike and start it up, her head was swimming in details. How would she know what gear she was in? What if she let out the clutch too fast? What if she hit the gas too hard and did a wheelie? Or, worse, what if Kieran’s bike tipped over with her on it?

“You’re in neutral now,” Kieran said, putting a strong, steadying hand on her shoulder. His touch was firm, reassuring. She relaxed slightly. “And you need to shift to first. So pull the clutch in, and then shift down to first gear.”

She let out the clutch slowly, just an inch, and the bike started to roll. Her heart rolled along with it. “Is this normal?” she asked nervously.

Kieran walked alongside the slowly moving bike, laughing. “Don’t panic. It’s fine. Now, pull the clutch back in, and shift to first.”

He let go of Audrey, who instantly missed the pressure of his hand. She tried to remember the steps.
Think
, she commanded her rattled brain.

She pulled the clutch back in. Nothing happened. What was next?

“Shift with your foot. First gear. Press down.” Kieran walked alongside the bike, watching her.

She did as she was told, and Kieran clapped. “Good job. Now, give the bike a tiny bit of gas and let out the clutch slowly. Nice and smooth, like I showed you.”

Biting her lip, Audrey concentrated on letting out the clutch with her left hand and giving the bike gas with her right. Easy, easy…

The next thing she knew, the bike was rumbling to life and she was moving—actually
riding a Harley
—across the parking lot. She surprised herself with an ecstatic whoop. It felt amazing! Incredible! So freeing! She glanced down at the speedometer and laughed out loud. She was barely going five miles per hour.

At the end of the parking lot, she turned the bike gently, back toward Kieran. He was smiling broadly. She braked like he’d showed her, using her foot. When a hiccupping sound started in the engine, Kieran called out “Press the clutch again!” With her left hand, she engaged the clutch and the shuddering stopped. The bike purred underneath her.

“Well done,” Kieran said as he approached her. His eyes squinted as he grinned.

Audrey laughed again—an ecstatic sound. She couldn’t wait to do all this again, to go faster next time, and race down open roads.

“
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
” Kieran winked, and a sharp pang of affection nestled just underneath Audrey’s ribs.

“Was that more poetry?” she asked.

He nodded. “Frost.
Two roads diverged in a wood and I—I took the one less traveled by.
Seemed about right, since you looked like you might ride off and leave me. Leave everything, maybe, since you were having so much fun.”

Audrey blinked at him. That was exactly how she’d felt. And here he was, putting her emotions into verse. Her stomach twisted in a way she couldn’t explain.

“How do you know those poems?”

Kieran shrugged, staring at the rumbling bike. “A cousin came to visit us when I was about ten. She was in college—the first of anyone in the extended family to go—and she was studying literature. She left behind this book of poems, and I nicked it.”

“You stole your poetry?”

He grinned. “I said at least thirty Hail Marys in repentance.”

She could imagine his fingers sliding along the glass rosary beads, quick and smooth. “To be fair, I read that stolen book cover to cover, and memorized nearly every single poem. Just because I liked the sound of the words.”

He was so casual, so offhand about being a rough-and-tumble kid who discovered he loved poetry. The idea of this tender-hearted boy growing up memorizing a stolen book of verse was enough to have Audrey’s whole body trembling.

“Did you have a favorite?” she asked.

Clouds drifted overhead as he gave the question some thought. “Probably Coleridge. The things he imagined were so incredible. Fantastical and so beyond anything I’d ever dreamed at that point. I mean, a poor Boston kid reading about Kubla Khan? I found out later that Coleridge had an opium addiction. So maybe that explains where his mind was.”

He grinned and the joy in his expression made her muscles weak.

“Now, enough Frost,” Kieran said, oblivious to the emotional tides threatening to sweep Audrey away. “One more time around the parking lot. Go on, then.”

Audrey did as he asked, and the poems were forgotten in the rush of riding the bike again. She felt as if she was cutting through the spring day, slicing it open and experiencing it in a new way. Good heavens, no wonder men chose Harleys as their go-to in a midlife crisis. The machines were downright liberating.

The thought reminded her suddenly of her business plan for the dealership. Since she hadn’t exactly been able to present her idea to Kieran at the Wheelhouse, she figured there was no time like the present.

“I loved that,” she said after she’d come to a full stop again. “And I bet I’m not the only lady who would be at home on one of these bikes.”

“Definitely. They’re built for men and women.”

“So let’s make that a reality at our dealership.”

“How do you mean?” he asked, reaching down and turning off the engine.

Audrey lifted her helmet off so she could see Kieran fully. “We’re ignoring fifty percent of the population. We’ve got to target females as a demographic. I mean, think about the clothes we carry. The items for women are ridiculous—that stupid bustier you make me wear, for example. Those clothes aren’t functional. You said so yourself. Think about if we actually sold clothes that made women feel sexy and tough
and
safe. And statistics say that a lot of women earn more than men these days. There’s big potential for them as buyers.”

She paused to take a breath. Kieran was watching her, the lines around his eyes crinkling. “You’ve spent some time thinking about this.”

Audrey shrugged. “I have lots of time to think when I’m just sitting there, modeling the bikes. And I can only watch women walk out on us so many times.”

“I didn’t realize it was such a pressing problem.”

“Maybe you just don’t have the right lens,” Audrey replied.

She expected him to tell her they’d talk about it tomorrow, back at the dealership, but instead he was just staring at her. His jaw flexed. His gaze grew intense.

“You think of others all the time,” he said after a moment. “Who you can help, what you can do.” He reached out and took the helmet from her hands, then hung it from the handlebars. “You’re always trying to make things better.” His throat worked, and Audrey watched the movement, mesmerized. Was Kieran getting
emotional
about all this?

She straightened. Surely not. Or, if he was, it was over the dealership, not her.

He reached out and touched her face, and she drew in a breath. Every nerve ending in her body ignited not from his touch, but from the impassioned look on his face.

“Audrey,” he said gently, “I can’t—” He broke off, shaking his head.

He was about to pull his hand away from her face, but she grasped it before he could move. Her pulse raced, and she could hear the alarms in her brain again, cautioning her that she wasn’t being careful enough. That her heart might rupture with emotion for Kieran at any minute.

I will not let that happen,
she thought, turning over his hand. She stared at the intersecting lines on his smooth, white palm, wishing she were a gypsy and could tell the future from the crisscrossed marks. Instead, she brought his palm to her lips, kissing the skin gently. She inhaled, taking in his leather-and-spice smell. She clung to his hand, kissing it repeatedly, working her way from his palm to his fingertips, taking note of how his body had gone rigid, how his breath had turned ragged.