All the Way (9 page)

Layla sighed. If she turned off her internal censor whenever she saw Blake, the handsome brute would make her heart flip-flop inside her chest like a fish on land. Interesting that her fantasies of Blake still lingered after a year, instead of her most recent lover, Jack.

Their love life had been subdued, even dull.
She didn’t recall anything vivid about her intimate relationship with Jack. Maybe curiosity still lingered regarding Blake because they’d never made love. Still, only Blake captured her imagination and sparked attraction, the effects
sparking desire deep in her abdomen.

From deep in her soul.

And she couldn’t have him.

Admire from afar. Don’t touch, and you won’t get hurt. The mantra she’d learned to adopt toward Blake. Unfortunately, her
defenses had caught amnesia, her libido was fired up, and her mantra had taken a leave of absence. Dangerous combination for this road trip—hours alone with Blake, while she fought her sizzling attraction to him.

And he seemed clueless.

He his hand to shield his eyes and their gazes met across the stretch of grass between the buildings and the parking lot. He waved her over.

As she came closer, he seemed oblivious to the color in her cheeks, the perspiration at her temples,
the hesitation in her step as she neared his tall form. She breathed deep, glad
for his ignorance. She was having enough trouble meeting his eyes after her fantasy-memory, glistening and real in the back of her mind.

When she was within arm’s reach, Blake guided her in front of him. He pointed at the map he’d spread over the handlebars. “I want you to see our route. So you can have some idea where we’re heading.”

“Okay.” She felt the warmth of his body right behind her. It mingled with the day’s climbing temperature. To relieve the heat she pulled at the tank top sticking to her stomach and breasts, getting some air between her skin and her clothes.

A hoarse sound came from over her left shoulder. Blake cleared his throat. “Right, so…we’re taking I-90 west most of the way. Today we’re going through Ohio and
Indiana. We’ll stop for the night after five or six hundred miles, which will put us at the border of Illinois
tonight.” His long forefinger trace the blue line west across the map. “Then we’ll go around Chicago, up through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and finally we’ll hit Sturgis.” He tapped a dot near the western most edge of South Dakota. “That’s our destination.”

Layla turned bleak at the thought of going such a huge distance on a motorcycle. Not to mention having her arms wrapped around Blake the whole time.

Fissions of awareness shot up her spine when she felt his hand on the small of her back. He murmured, “It won’t be that bad. You’ve already made it three hours. You’re doing great, Layla.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I must fake it well. When we stopped, I’d lost feeling in both legs. I could barely walk to the bathroom.”
For reasons I don’t care to share
.

“That’ll pass, once you get used to it.”

I’ll never get used to being close to you and pretending like it doesn’t matter
. She forced a smile. “If you say so.”

“The worst is over.” His smile held reassurance.
“It can only get better from here.”

Pulling on her helmet, she fiddled with the strap. “Sorry if I have my doubts.”

“You don’t think I can get you there safely?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“If you’re talking about Rob, I tried his cell while you were in the bathroom. He didn’t pick up, muted the ringer.
Which means his phone is on, even if he is avoiding us.”

A different sort of tension knotted inside her stomach. “Why won’t he pick up?”

“Rob’s probably trying to prove himself to the guys he’s riding with. He won’t want them to know there are people out there worried about him.” Blake sighed. “I know it’s not much to go on, but if we stick to our schedule we stand a decent chance of catching up to him.”

Worry invaded her. “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”

“Because Rob is everything to you. And you’d never forgive yourself if anything bad happened to him.”

Touched by
his depth of understanding, Layla looked up and
met Blake’s gaze.
It would be easy to lose herself in the calm promise glowing in his deep green eyes.

In contrast to the noisy hum of cars and the loud voices of motorists, Blake spoke softly. “I’ll try to make sure nothing happens to Rob. Or you, Layla. I know you don’t think you can trust me—”

Pain flashed in her eyes.

It slashed across his heart. He looked away as he finished. “But I’ll do whatever I can to get everyone back to Cleveland in one piece.” He reached for his helmet. Then he added, “I’d never do anything on purpose to hurt you. I wish you’d believe that.”

“Please, Blake. Don’t bring up the past.” Inside her helmet her cheeks blazed bright red. He noticed she couldn’t meet his eyes again. “It’ll only make this trip harder.”

The armored plate across his chest that he’d begun to peel back slammed down into place. “You’re right,” he agreed coldly. “It’s got nothing to do with this trip.” He straddled his Harley, ready to leave. “Sorry I said anything. Won’t happen again.”

Famous last words.

There were just some things he’d never be able to do around Layla. Trying to pretend their past meant nothing was one of them.

He’d promised Tanner he’d straighten out the truth with Layla. Even if they didn’t stand a chance of getting back together, she still meant a lot to him. Probably always would.

He started up his Fat Boy and revved the engine.

Regardless of what might happen between them during this trip—whether they took their unresolved feelings to the physical level, or went their separate ways in the end—they’d be on the same page the whole way. No more secrets. No more holding back. So there’d be no more looking back.

He maneuvered his motorcycle through the parking lot, steering toward the highway.

Whatever it took to get the past out into the open, he’d do it. For both their sakes.
Before he did something totally reckless.

Like falling for her all over again.

They were on the highway at dusk when Blake
admitted he had to quit putting off the inevitable. He steered onto an exit ramp.

He’d been dreading this since they’d gone from smooth sailing into treacherous waters at the rest stop. But they had to stop for dinner. Even if it would be torture sitting across from her at a restaurant.
A reminder of their dates when they were together. She’d been up for anything, and he’d had a great time introducing her to different cultural cuisines, with so many unique restaurants within the ethnically diverse region of Cleveland Heights.

Welcome to flashback hell
.

He parked the bike, this time helping her off to make sure she could walk right after another three-hour stint on the motorcycle. The silence between them was thick with unsaid thoughts.

They’d never had that problem when they’d dated, he recalled, holding the door open for her as they entered the chain restaurant. He never got tired of hearing about her life, learning how her mind worked, appreciating the depth of her thoughts. So many of the women he’d dated seemed shallow in comparison to Layla. She’d been through so much hardship and loss in her life. Yet her attitude was that she had come out stronger and wiser for it all. He admired that.

They followed a hostess to their table. Sliding onto
the green pleather seat of a booth, he noticed the collection of odd junk slapped on the walls, a fishing net and snow shoes next to a picture of Dean Martin. The waitress came and took their drink orders, after which he noticed something else.
Layla hadn’t looked up once. She just stared at the menu in front of her.

Peering at her, Blake began to realize that something had been off since they’d split at that rest stop—other than their typical communication deficit.

Layla hadn’t said a word.
She
always
had something to say. Especially to him.
But not one smart-mouth comment had escaped her lips. As his gaze raked her face, he noticed something had changed.

Her skin seemed bright, dewy. A soft blush blossomed on her cheeks. Her hairline appeared damp, her ponytail askew. A few loose strands framed
her exotically beautiful face. She looked exactly how Blake had fantasized she would after he was done making love to her. The unbidden thought made him shift on the cushion too limp to support a guy his size. About the only limp thing in the booth.

Conversation. That always cooled his jets. “What’s with you?” he asked.

“Wh-what?” she stammered. Her glance flicked to him, but the contact was brief.
Her blush deepened. “Nothing.
Why?”

“For starters.”
Blake flipped her menu from the brown cover to the first page. “Funniest thing, they read better when they’re open.”

“Thanks, wise guy.”

“Hey, I do what I can.”

“More than you know,” she murmured like he wasn’t supposed to hear.

He’d heard.

She cleared her throat. “You said the fried chicken sounded good? I’ll try that.”

He hadn’t said a thing. “Layla, are you okay? Has the trip been that hard on you?”

“You can’t imagine,” she whispered and bit her lip sexily.

His temperature soared. “Will you quit mumbling?”

“If you quit yelling at me.”

“I’m
not
yelling. It just seems like you’re having a conversation with yourself.
Care to let me in on it?”

She slapped her menu shut. “I can’t talk about it. Telling you would only complicate things.”

After a double-take, he demanded, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re yelling again.”

His nostrils flared. “Sue me.”

Layla crossed her arms and sat back in the booth. Blake regarded her intensely until recognition emerged. There were a few times in the past when Blake had put that look on Layla’s face. Maybe while he’d been immersed
in the past, she’d been thinking about it, too.

Which part of our past is on your mind, Layla?
The question hounded him with curiosity.

Something told him he knew the answer. No wonder she looked so sexy to him right now…and, well, pretty much all the time.

Blake knew more about Layla than she’d probably give him credit for. He recognized all her little subtleties, every emotion stamped on her face there for anyone
who paid attention to see.
He knew so much of what made her who she was.

He knew when to make her laugh or rile her up or throw out a disarming compliment that made her eyes get all wide and soft.
Then he’d get snared by those huge blue spheres,
feeling like she’d caught him with his fly down, exposed. The only woman who could suck the breath out of his chest with one look.

But there was so much more to her than that. He knew she sometimes took a glass of wine onto her porch, where she’d stare off into some dream. He wished, just once,
that he could see it, then
find a way to make it come true. He knew where she went to sit alone in her car, to hide her tears from her brother when things got to her.

Those were the times he left his front door open. In case she got tired of being alone.

Apparently, being alone held more appeal than being with him.
He frowned.
Why was he such a sucker for a woman who wanted nothing to do with him?

Although, if he’d read the signs correctly, Layla wanted one thing to do with him. Or wanted him to do one thing to her.

Perfect. That’s what he’d been hoping for, a chance to give them what they both needed. Then this impossible-to-quench ache for her would be gone, and he could move on with his life.
Forget all about her dreams that he would never know, or the door he left open that she would never walk through.
One night—tonight.
It would be enough.
It
had
to be.

Too starved to stay annoyed, Layla flipped open her menu again.
She tuned Blake out and tuned into the restaurant music, apparently set on an early 90s loop.

As she scanned the menu and ordered a cob salad with fried
chicken
when the waitress came to take their order, she listened to Duran Duran sing about their “Ordinary World,” Sting walk through “Fields of Gold,” and Extreme croon about love in their song “More Than Words.”
Layla found the tune selection very apropos.
She’d left her ordinary world to traipse through fields of gold to
South Dakota with a man who bore a striking resemblance to one of the singers in Extreme. Really gorgeous with long chestnut hair and strong, linear features, very Native American.

“Oh,” she said, struck by a revelation.

Blake’s iced tea paused halfway to his mouth.
He raised a brow.

“I think I know why the people in the Handle Bar called you Chief.”

“Nothing gets by you,” he drawled, still sounding a little tense.
He polished off half his drink in three gulps.

“So, are you Native American?” she asked, realizing this had never come up in before.

“Got some Native blood in me.
But besides a hefty dose of Italian, I’m your typical mutt. Do you have any Native American in you?” A sly grin tipped his mouth.

“No.
Why?”

“You want some?”

She threw him a glare. Blake had the nerve to grin.

“Why do you have to be such a
guy
?”

“You say that like it’s some incurable disease.”

Layla threw her arms up.
He was hopeless.
“It must come as a shock to look around and wonder what happened to your kind, the ones with elongated craniums, running around grunting, ‘Ugh, me want woman.’”

Laughter glittered in his green eyes.
“There’s the girl I know. I wondered when she was going to come out and play. It’s about time, baby.”

Her lips twitched with a smile. “Well, you’ll have to excuse a brief intermission in your entertainment. I need to make some calls, check on the status of things.”

“Some emergency I don’t know about?”

She scooted to the edge of the booth and paused. “Kristin is waiting to hear from me. She’s checking my answering machine while I’m gone. If Robby calls I can’t miss his message.
I’m also hoping work called to say my last shifts are covered.”

A distracted frown creased his forehead.
“I know the feeling about work.
Desanto Landscaping has tripled its business in the past two years.
Tanner and I are both going to Sturgis and leaving a mound of paperwork.”

Layla ventured, “Are you still doing all the design work?”

“Yeah, I’ve been lucky. I get to use my talent doing something I enjoy. Pretty rare, considering I went to a liberal arts college, majored in useless and minored in double-useless. Art and philosophy, respectively.”

She’d never pinned him as the sensitive, artist type. “Seriously?”

Arching an eyebrow, he implied, “Is that my cue to dazzle you with Da Vinci and ply you with the Socratic Method?”

“Nothing like the classics to get a girl all hot and bothered.”
She smiled, appreciating
the Renaissance Man side of Blake.

He shook his head.
“And they say college prepares you for the real world. They ought to say, ‘Idiot, get a degree in business, something remotely useful.’ But I love what I do, and my business is successful, so that counts for a lot.”

Layla brightened at the mention of college. “Before he left,
Robby was talking about going to the local community college.”
That meant going down to one or
two classes herself toward her degree, but somehow they’d squeak by financially.

Blake nodded. “I think the college has its own police academy. That’s what Rob mentioned to me.” Blake tapped his fingers on the side of his glass and leveled a look across the table. “But what about the rest of your degree?
Don’t you only have two years to go?”

“You remember that?” It was a dream that hadn’t left her heart in seven years.
She’d been working toward her BSW. Then she’d take the test for LISW licensure to
become a psychiatric social worker, to
help women like her mother. Women who needed medication and support to stabilize their lives, to bring them out of their depressive
and manic phases, or psychotic breaks, and lead a relatively normal life. If she could spare even one other family from what she and Robby
had endured…

The sound of Blake’s sincere tone pierced her thoughts. “I told you, I remember a lot of things. More than you might think.”

The intimacy of his tone made her fidgety. “I have to call Kristin. I’ll be back before dinner arrives.” Blake’s eyebrows lowered. “Ten minutes, tops.”

Despite Blake’s logical conclusion back at the rest stop that Robby wouldn’t be able to take or return her calls, Layla was too worried not to try his cell again. She got his voice mail, just like Blake had. After leaving him a heartfelt message, a ball of hope gathered in her chest when she scrolled through her phone to Kristin’s number.
Layla’s knees nearly buckled at the sound of her friend’s voice. “Hi, it’s Layla.”

“Hey! How’s it going? Where are you guys now? What’s it like?”

“We’re in Indiana, one state closer to Robby.
It’s not much different than Ohio, though a little flatter. Farmland, fields, the occasional urban sprawl.
So…any news?”

“I meant, what’s it like on the bike?”

Layla shrugged against the phone. “We’re still alive. So far.” Through the speaker above her head, the Beach Boys belted out “Good Vibrations.” She glared at it, flushing at the song’s reference. She mentally shook herself.

“You’re a trooper,” Kristin said. “I don’t think I’d have the guts to ride across the country on one.”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice. Are you stalling because you have bad news about my brother?”

Kristin sighed. “Sorry, Layla. No
messages from Rob. But you know what they say, no news is good news,” she offered.
“There were two messages, though, one from Janice at the diner. She’ll pick up the last two shifts you haven’t filled.”

“Finally something is going right. What about the second message?”

“Layla, who is Uncle Rex?”

“Rex used to be really close with Kenny and my mom. He’s a truck driver from Utah.”

“Oh, then it makes sense now. He left a message saying he was sorry, but he’d be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so he couldn’t ‘swing his rig up yonder’ to
Sturgis this weekend. Were you planning to come home with him, instead of Blake?”

Layla had learned from past experience to never be without a plan B. Her heart sank in her chest. “I’d called Uncle Rex
to ask if he could pick up me and Robby in South Dakota, so we could ride back with him to Cleveland.”