Forever Together (23 page)

“Have you found the people responsible?”
Loretta asked.

Dan shook his head. “Not yet, but we’ve got
some good leads.” He looked down at Kate. “Are you ready?”

She nodded and picked up her jacket. “As long
as we’re not eating in a
five-star
restaurant you can take me anywhere.”

Dan held out his arms. “Does this look like
five stars?” He’d changed into jeans with a black leather jacket
and boots thrown into the mix. He looked sexy and dangerous. Maybe
even a little rough around the edges. Maybe even a little like
a…

She leaned over the back of the sofa and
peered out of the front window. “We’re riding a
bike
.
A
motorcycle?”

“And here I
was
thinking
you were just a pretty face. You got a problem with
my Harley?”

“I didn’t know you owned a motorcycle, let
alone a Harley. What if it rains?”

“It’s the middle of May. We’re more likely to
get caught in a dust bowl than a
thunderstorm
.”

Kate looked down at her skirt and top. “I’m
not dressed for a bike.”

Loretta smothered a chuckle. “You two can
debate your mode of transport outside. I’m getting ready to close
up for the night.”

“Come on. What have you got to lose?” Dan
walked outside and Kate followed.

“We can take my car. It’s parked around the
corner and I filled up with gas before work.”

“You’re not scared are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Good.” Dan undid one of the containers
strapped to the side of the bike. “Put this on.” He passed a
leather jacket across to her. “And after you’ve done with that you
can put this on too.” He lifted a bright yellow helmet out of the
same container.

“This isn’t what I imagined when you said
you’d take me out for dinner.”

Dan ignored her. He pushed a black helmet
onto his head, swung his leg over the bike, and turned it on. A low
rumble filled the street. “You coming?”

“This is so not me,” Kate said as she pulled
the leather jacket on. “Just don’t go too fast.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Even from behind his helmet she could see
Dan’s grin. He thought it was funny, risking life and limb on the
back of a metal monster. All for a dinner date at who knew
where.

“I hope this jacket didn’t belong to one of
your ex-girlfriend’s?” Okay, so now she sounded peeved. Not a good
look when she was about to swing her leg over the bike.

“It’s Anna’s old one.”

“Your sister rode a Harley?”

“Only when I let her, which wasn’t often.
She’s more of a daredevil than I am.”

“
Anna? Anna’s a daredevil?”
Kate
couldn’t imagine her stepmom going crazy over anything. She was
quiet, reliable, and sensible. No daredevil in sight.

“You’d better put the helmet on or we won’t
be going anywhere.” Dan revved the bike and Kate jumped a foot in
the air.

“Did you have to do that?”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, baby.”

Baby?
The high octane gas had gone to
his head. She jammed the helmet on and jumped on the back of the
bike. Her skirt rode up to mid thigh, showing more leg than Dan had
seen in the last couple of days.

He turned and grinned at her. “Hold on.”

She grabbed him around the waist, forgot
about her itsy-bitsy skirt, and prepared for the worst.

He sat
behind
a car for all of two minutes, then powered around
the driver. The stores whizzed by and the air felt cool and crisp
against her skin. And she loved it. Loved the speed, the smell of
the air, the way everything blurred around the edges and
disappeared before her eyes.

When Dan slowed and turned onto a dirt
track,
she was almost
disappointed. He kept driving, missing the worst of holes, but
still managing to make the bumps and dips part of the thrill.

When he
stopped,
she wanted to jump up and down. The ride had
been so good, so awesome, so totally amazing, and she wanted to do
it again.

Dan took his helmet off and smiled. “What did
you think?”

“Can I drive back?”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Only if
you want to get me in trouble with the Highway Patrol.”

Kate tried wiggling off the seat
gracefully,
but gave up when her skirt
refused to budge. Dan swung off the bike and picked her off the
seat, standing her on the ground like a surprised sack of
potatoes.

She straightened her skirt then looked
around. “Where are we?”

“I promised you dinner, so here we are.”

‘Here’ amounted to a big open field in the
middle of nowhere. Wildflowers grew in clumps across the pasture,
blooming in the late afternoon sunshine. In the distance an old
barn tilted to one side, bent and broken after generations of
snowstorms
and summer drought.

Dan flipped the lid on the second container
on his bike and pulled out a rug and basket.

“You brought a picnic?”

“Got a better idea?”

He started walking, crushing the wildflowers
under his size fourteen boots. He kept going, heading toward
something she couldn’t see. “Why did you bring me out here?” Kate
yelled as she ran to keep up.

“We need to talk. I figured a little fresh
air and no neighbors would work best.”

“Who owns this land?”

Dan stopped beside a stream,
threw
the rug open, then started taking his
boots off. “It’s mine. I bought it a couple of years ago.”

Kate held her hand up to her eyes and looked
around. She couldn’t see any boundary fences, no trees to show
where one property ended and another began. No houses dividing the
land into parcels. “All of it?”

“Pretty much.” Dan’s feet ended up in the
stream. He sat back, wiggling his feet in the water like he didn’t
have a care in the world.

“Why did you buy a piece of land in the
middle of nowhere?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’ve got thirty-five acres
of prime Montana soil,
a good
water supply, and I’m only twenty minutes from Bozeman. It’s some
people’s idea of heaven.”

“You’re missing one thing.”

“What?”

“
A
house.”

Dan
stared
downstream. “It’ll happen eventually. Are you going to stand there
with your hands on your hips or come and join me?”

Kate looked at the gurgling water. She
flipped her sandals off and dipped her toes in the river. “It’s
cold.”

“Comes straight off the mountains.”

She sat beside Dan, hugging her knees to her
chest. She tried to relax, tried to concentrate on the sunshine
seeping into her bones and the smell of the flowers and grass
around her. But all she could think about was Dan, the fact he
thought she’d stolen money from Kaylee, and his hurried apology at
the salon.

She plucked a bright yellow daisy
from
its stem. The petals pulled apart easily
and she threw them into the river, watching them drift
downstream.

“I’m sorry,” Dan said.

She looked across at him and frowned.

“I saw Tom outside the hospital. He found the
fundraising check on Monday morning and deposited it.”

Kate
let
go
of the breath she’d been holding. “So the money’s safe?”

Dan nodded.

“Thank goodness for that.”

“I shouldn’t have accused you of stealing the
check.”

Kate glanced at Dan. “I could understand why
someone else might think I’d taken the money, but I thought you
knew me better than that.”

“I gave up thinking
around
you a long time ago,” Dan muttered.

Kate didn’t bother asking him what he meant.
She shouldn’t care, she really shouldn’t. He had his own life to
lead and it didn’t include her.

Dan threw a stone in the water. “Why didn’t
you get your juvenile record sealed?”

“California law is different to most other
places. You have to apply to have your record sealed. I did things
I’m not proud of. It won’t change what happened.”

“But it will change what people think of
you.”

“Only those that look,” Kate said
quietly.

Dan didn’t say anything.

“What about your employment records?” he
asked. “Who’s going to give you a job when you’ve been convicted of
theft?”

“People that understand what it means to make
a mistake. I’m not going to ask to have my record sealed.”

She could feel Dan’s frustration. It zipped
through the air, made knots tighten in her stomach, made her regret
getting on the back of his bike.

“You’re stubborn,” he growled.

“No, I’m hungry.” She threw the last of the
flower petals in the water and stood up.

Dan pulled his feet out of the water and
stared at her. “Sealing your record doesn’t mean
you’re forgetting
about Lily. You’re not
responsible for her death.”

“I know that.”

His level stare annoyed her. She felt like
stamping her foot. He didn’t know her, didn’t understand her, and
didn’t want to try. She moved across to the picnic rug, sat down,
and opened the basket. She pulled plastic containers out, left
plates and glasses where Dan could reach them, and settled down for
a meal she was determined to enjoy.

Dan walked toward her. Anyone watching him
would think he was cool, calm, and collected. Until you looked in
his eyes. Heat and fire were gathering speed, waiting to burn her
whole if she wanted to go there. But she didn’t. She was hungry.
For Food.

He sat down, far enough away that he wasn’t
crowding her. Close enough that she could almost feel the heat
pouring off his skin. “My Army Psychologist said I had a habit of
compartmentalizing my life. Sticking things in boxes and locking
them away. Worked for me, so I didn’t see it as an issue. But the
trouble with boxes is that they keep everything separate and life
doesn’t work like that. It’s all interconnected. I figured you
might as well work with it instead of against it. If you don’t,
you’ll spin in circles and get nowhere.”

“Are you saying I’m going nowhere?”

“No. I’m saying you need to throw open a few
of those boxes and see what happens.”

“I’ll start with the chicken.”

Dan frowned, then looked at the plastic
container Kate held toward him. “What am I going to do with
you?”

Kate smiled as she bit into a chicken leg.
“Nothing. I’m perfect just the way I am.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“What I don’t understand,” Kate said around a
mouthful of chicken, “is why you haven’t got a
wife,
or at least a girlfriend. Just because it
didn’t work out once before doesn’t mean it can’t happen
again.”

Dan’s face turned red. “You like changing the
subject, don’t you?”

“And you like avoiding answers.”

“Match made in heaven.”

Kate
choked
on her chicken leg. “Only if you like living dangerously.”

“I don’t need another girlfriend.” Dan wiped
his hands on a paper towel. “One’s enough to keep me on my
toes.”

Kate was glad she’d swallowed the rest of her
chicken leg. She stared at Dan, not quite believing what she
thought she’d heard. “You’ve got a girlfriend?
A
girlfriend?
” She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe she’d
slept with a man, was having dinner with the same man for cripes’
sake, when he already had a girlfriend.

She let herself wallow in misery for all of
thirty seconds. And then she got angry. Angry for all women having
dinner with two-timing men who should have been put out of their
misery years ago. She picked up the food containers and threw them
back in the picnic basket.

Dan grabbed a bowl of pasta salad, holding it
to his chest. “What are you doing? We haven’t finished eating.”

“Wrong,” Kate said. “
We
have
completely finished dinner.
We
have completely finished
everything.
We
do not fiddle with someone else’s man.”

“Who’s fiddling with someone else’s man? Are
you telling me you’re dating someone else?”

Kate glared at Dan. He had the audacity to
sit there looking mortally
wounded,
as if the entire conversation was her fault. “I
wouldn’t dream of dating someone with the manners of an alley cat.”
She sent him a pointed look, hoping his two-timing body parts got
the message.

“Then what are you yelling about?”

“I’m not yelling,” Kate screeched. She closed
her eyes and practiced her ‘only for emergencies’ yoga breathing
exercise. She inhaled, thought about her lungs inflating, ribs
expanding, and her breath moving through her nasal passage. It was
at the nasal passage stage that everything fell apart.

She didn’t care if her blood pressure shot
off the Richter scale. Daniel Carter was a two-timing slime ball
that deserved all of the bad karma she could throw at him. She
didn’t have any bad karma available, but she did have a nice cold
cup of juice.

“
Shit.”
Dan jumped off the rug and
glared at her. “Have you gone mad? What the hell has gotten into
you?”

“Nothing has gotten into me except a good
dose of common sense. I do not sleep with men that have
girlfriends. Next time,
buster
,
I’d suggest you keep your pants on or you could end up with more
than you bargained on.”

“What are you talking about? The only
girlfriend I thought I had
was
you, but I’m having second thoughts.”

“
Me?”
Kate dropped the plastic cup in
her hand. “I’m your girlfriend? When did that happen?”

“About the same time you slept with me.”

“But you accused me of stealing Kaylee’s
check. You didn’t trust me.”

“That was after I slept with you. I was an
idiot. I like you now.”

“
Well,
that’s just wonderful.” Kate picked up her cup and put it beside
the salads. “You switch on your trust meter and I’m supposed to be
profoundly grateful?”