Country Roads (26 page)

J
ULIA DROPPED HER
shopping bags and flopped backward onto her bed at the inn. “I had no idea shopping could be so exhausting,” she said to the ceiling.

Carlos would have a coronary when he saw the bill. Her personal credit card was maxed out, so she’d had to put it on her business card, the one she used for art supplies. Her uncle paid that bill so he could keep track of the tax deductions, or something like that. Now she would have to take it over, along with all the other business tasks. She found herself looking forward to learning the ins and outs of that side of her art career.

Although they’d chatted nonstop on their shopping expedition, she and Claire had not discussed Julia’s need for an agent or Paul’s brother, both topics she was burning with curiosity about.

Her cell phone shrilled. Groaning at the effort of finding her purse somewhere among the heap of bags on the floor at her feet, she rolled off the bed and knelt to retrieve it.

“Am I interrupting your painting?” Paul’s voice came through the line.

Guilt struck at Julia. “I wish. I haven’t painted a stroke all day and I promised Claire something for the auction.” She plopped back down on the bed. “All I’ve done since I left your office is shop.”

“You’re complaining?”

“You’d be amazed at what hard work it is.”

“So are you too tired to go for a spin on my Harley?”

Julia sucked in a breath. “Your Harley is a motorcycle, right?” She was playing for time. Riding a motorcycle was another one of those things a person with epilepsy was strongly advised to avoid. Since the opportunity had never come up before, it hadn’t been hard to follow the doctors’ restriction. Now she found she wanted to try it. With Paul.

“It’s not just a motorcycle. It’s a 2002 Harley-Davidson VRSCA V-Rod.”

The pride in his voice overcame the last of her qualms. “I just got my second wind. Bring on the Harley hot rod!”

“V-Rod. I’ll be there in ten. Wear jeans and boots, if you have them.”

Galvanized by the prospect of the new experience, Julia scurried around the room, hanging up her new purchases and changing into her jeans and green cowboy boots. Biker chicks were supposed to wear black leather, but she had to make do with a black silk T-shirt under a gray hoodie. When she glanced in the mirror, she burst out laughing. She looked about as tough as a marshmallow.

She was walking down the stairs when the sound of a powerful engine roared through the front door of the inn. Bursting onto the porch, she saw Paul swing one long leg over the bike to dismount. Like her, he wore jeans, but his were topped by a black leather jacket. He pulled off his helmet and ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair before he turned and saw her.

The way his face lit up made her heart expand to nearly fill her chest. Even she, in all her inexperience, could have no doubt he was happy to see her. She flew down the steps and hurled herself against him. He staggered slightly at the impact as he caught her in his arms. “That’s what I call a hello,” he said.

She tilted her face up. “Now say hello to me.”

He bent her back over his arm nearly to the ground and kissed her on the lips. As he brought her back upright, she felt light-headed and grabbed at his arms to steady herself. A clutch of panic tightened her throat, but she fought it down. It was just the sudden change in altitude that made her dizzy. Nothing more serious.

“You okay?” he asked, the laughter in his eyes fading as he scanned her face.

“Just breathless from your kiss.”

He bent to kiss her again, this time slowly and deliberately. When he lifted his head, she was holding on to him because her knees had turned to jelly for a different reason. He looked down at her with heavy-lidded eyes. “Maybe later you’d like to ride something besides my bike.”

She felt the blood flushing the skin of her neck and cheeks. “Depends on how good your driving is.”

His laugh held a slight rasp as he brushed her cheek with his finger. “Let’s get some leather and a helmet on you.”

He took her hand and led her toward the gleaming silver motorcycle parked in the circular drive. A study in curves, it dazzled in the bright sunlight. She especially liked the two chrome exhaust pipes that whooshed from front to back, widening as they went. “Wow! It looks like it’s going a hundred miles an hour even when it’s standing still.”

He patted the engine. “One hundred fifteen horsepower at eight thousand, two hundred fifty rpm. This hog can move.” The passenger’s seat had an extra helmet and jacket strapped to it. Paul freed them and held out the jacket. “From when I was a skinny teenager. It’s still going to be too big, but better to have the protection.”

She pivoted and slid her arms into it, pulling it around her to zip it. The sleeves fell past her fingertips and she struggled to roll the heavy leather up.

“Let me,” he said. She obediently held her arms out, loving the sight of his long fingers deftly coaxing the leather into neat folds.

“Your hands are so beautiful,” she said. “I’d like to do some studies of them. See if I can capture the strength under the elegance.”

He gave the sleeve a last turn and held his fingers out wide as he examined them. “Can’t say I’ve ever thought of them as anything other than useful.” He looked up at her with a wicked grin. “Especially for getting a certain reaction out of my favorite artist.”

She fought down her blush this time. “Yeah, they’re good at that.” Which is why she’d like to have some sketches to take home with her. It would make the memories more real.
Now why’d she have to start thinking about that when she just wanted to enjoy the experience ahead of her?

She reached for the helmet and gave him a lascivious smile. “I can’t wait to feel this baby between my legs.”

“Caught in my own trap,” Paul said.

He adjusted the helmet and showed her how to climb onto the back of the motorcycle while he held it steady. He settled into the seat in front of her, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled up against the leather stretched over his back. The front of her thighs fit against the back of his like puzzle pieces. When he kicked on the engine, a flutter of nerves made her lace her fingers tightly together over the flat muscles of his abdomen.

This would be fine.
She’d been off her meds for two years without a seizure. But those two years were lived in the carefully controlled environment of her home and studio. She’d never done anything even remotely as dangerous as riding a motorcycle.

If Paul got hurt because she had a seizure and dragged him off the motorcycle, she’d never forgive herself. “Paul! Let me—”
The bike surged forward with a roar that drowned out her request to get off.

She buried her face in his back and forced herself to breathe deeply as Paul guided the motorcycle onto the main street. The speed limit was only thirty-five miles per hour, and he seemed to be sticking to it, so she felt the bands of panic loosen their hold around her chest. She sucked in more air and turned her head so she could see the scenery sliding past. Although Paul’s broad shoulders sheltered her from the brunt of the wind, it still whooshed in her ears.

As they passed the last of the Victorian houses on Washington Street, the engine noise ratcheted upward, and she felt the speed increase as well.

It was fine. She was still fine.

The passing scenery became a blur and the wind yanked at the ends of her hair where they emerged from her helmet. She tightened her grip.

The bike tilted left. She felt Paul’s body leaning with the motorcycle and tried to follow his lead as he had instructed her, but every instinct in her body screamed to lean right to counteract the disorienting slant. She swallowed a sob of relief when the motorcycle righted itself.

The relief was short-lived as Paul leaned to take the next curve. She felt fear begin to clog her lungs and the old terror claw at her mind.

She couldn’t do this over and over again. The stress would bring on a seizure and she would fall off the bike like she had the horse all those years ago…only this time she might drag Paul with her.

The panic ratcheted higher, so she closed her eyes and focused on the feel of Paul’s body against hers, the shift of muscles in his shoulders as he guided the heavy vehicle under them, the way he sheltered her from the wind and anything else being thrown at
them by the road. This was Paul, the man she had come to trust as an advisor and as a lover.

She felt him lean and this time she went with him, channeling all that trust into her rebellious muscles. The feeling of being melded into one with the man and his powerful machine was like nothing she’d ever experienced. She opened her eyes and laughed out loud in sheer exhilaration.

She had no idea how long they rode, lost as she was in the thrill of speed and trust and risk taking. At some point Paul turned off the highway and wound down a back road before bringing the bike to a grumbling halt in a turnoff area beside the single lane byway.

“Here we are,” he said, killing the engine and holding the bike rock steady as she climbed off.

She pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair, the grin she couldn’t wipe away still tugging at the corners of her mouth. “That was incredible!”

He unzipped his jacket and lifted off his own helmet. “You’re a natural. Once we got past those first couple of curves, I could tell you got into it.”

“It was scary at first. If I thought you could have heard me, I would have chickened out and asked to stop. But this is an experience I wouldn’t have missed for anything.”

He took her helmet from her and pulled her into his arms, the leather of their jackets creaking softly as it rubbed together. “I’m glad I could give it to you.” He bent his head and kissed her gently at first, then more intently.

The adrenaline already coursing through her body carried the pleasure in waves. She clutched at the open edges of his jacket and pulled herself inward against his chest, so she could revel in the heat of him. That wasn’t enough, so she released his jacket and slid her hands up under his tee, feeling the muscles of his abdomen contract as her palms traveled over them.

His hands slid down to her behind, and he pressed her hips against his as he ended their kiss and tilted his head back, half moaning her name. He stood like that, letting her explore his skin beneath the shirt, as his breathing grew more and more ragged. She skimmed her palms upward to brush over his flat nipples. His grip on her tightened convulsively, so she could feel his erection harden between them. When she came back for another pass, he released her and backed away as he caught one of her wrists. “We need to cool off, and I’ve got just the place to do it. Come with me.”

He turned and tugged her onto a path threading between trees undergirded by dense bushes. The sound of moving water drifted between the leaves as the dirt track tilted sharply downhill. As they burst out of the trees into bright sunlight, a river spread out in front of her, its dark-green water slipping past like glass.

Paul pulled her up onto a huge flat boulder jutting out into the water. “The mighty Limestone River. It may be a tad cold, but I could use that right now.” He shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it on the rock before he moved behind her to slip hers off her shoulders.

“What do you mean?”

“Take a swim.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head.

“But I don’t have a bathing suit.” She also wasn’t much of a swimmer, since that was one of those things that didn’t combine well with epilepsy. She had been allowed to paddle in a swimming pool under the watchful eye of a relative, but their vacations had been planned to avoid oceans—and rivers.

Paul’s shirt-tousled hair gave him a rakish look. “You ever hear of skinny-dipping?”

“In broad daylight?”

“Do you see anyone around?”

She followed his sweeping gesture, taking in the tree-lined banks, the sounds of birdcalls, and the ever-present whisper of water.

“You can wear your bra and panties, and it’s no different from a bikini.”

She took a deep breath as she stalled. The idea of being naked bothered her less than the thought of swimming in moving water. “Don’t people around here have boats?”

“Sure they do,” he said. “But there’s a waterfall just upstream from here that keeps away anyone but extreme kayakers. The next easy put-in for a boat is about half a mile down. I used to come here to drink beer with my buddies when we were under-age. That reminds me, I forgot something.”

Julia watched him disappear back into the bushes before she walked to the edge of the rock and looked down. Near the shore, she could see the outlines of water-rounded stones, so it must be fairly shallow there. At the rock’s farthest jut, the water was as opaque as milk glass and ran swiftly.

She had trusted Paul on the motorcycle and look how great it had been. He would be with her in the water. Naked. That made up her mind. She toed off her green boots and sat down to yank off her socks.

He reappeared, dangling a plaid blanket in one hand and two long-necked beer bottles in the other. He scrambled down the bank to wedge the beers in a shallow spot in the water. “Mother Nature’s refrigerator,” he said before climbing onto the rock and snapping the blanket open to cover a section just behind her. “We’ll let the sun warm it up for afterward. The swim wasn’t in my original plan, so I didn’t bring towels.” He dropped down beside her to tug off one of his heavy boots. “I see you’re getting into the spirit of the occasion.”