Here Comes Trouble (25 page)

One she’d done of the Arizona desert just outside of Sedona. As majestic as a sunset over the desert was, something about it was a little bland. Maybe she’d break open her box of colored pencils and add a little pizzazz to the sky.

 
The second was of an eagle perched on top of a tree. Most times when Lacy went looking for inspiration, she’d take her camera with her to capture the moment. One afternoon, while driving, she spotted an eagle soaring through the air before landing on the highest branch of a nearby tree. Something about the way the bird’s cat-like eyes scanned every square inch around him had been so mesmerizing that Lacy had pulled over, grabbed her camera and shot half a dozen pictures. Later that day, she uploaded the photos to her computer and sketched the bird from the images on the screen.

The third drawing was of the historic governor’s mansion in Cheyenne. Her original reason for the sketch had been a sentimental one. When she’d been about six or seven, she, her father and Ray had driven into Cheyenne and on a whim took a tour of the historical building. While the tour had bored her to tears, the trip was one of the few happy memories she had of her father. At that point in her life, Dennis had been clean for about two years and had provided for her the way a father should have. Not long after that, he’d fallen onto hard times again and she’d gone to stay with Ray for a few months.

“There has to be something else here I can use,” she muttered as she sifted through random drawings. Maybe she needed to do some new ones. Most she had here either weren’t good enough or were never finished.

With a sigh, she stood from her crouched position and gathered the three sketches she’d placed on the couch. She’d just set them on the drawing table when her doorbell rang.

A quick peek through her peep hole showed Chase on the other side. A pair of dark sunglasses hid his eyes and his big, well-toned body was covered in a black t-shirt and a pair of khaki cargo pants. Why did her heart have to skip three beats every time she saw him? And why couldn’t she breathe normally around him like she did with other men?

“I can hear you moving around on the other side of the door, Lace. Open up.” Even through a thick piece of wood, his deep voice turned her inner muscles into Jell-O.

His deliciously full mouth turned up in a slow, heart-melting grin when she opened the door.

“How did you hear me?”

He tapped the threshold with one large boot. “Your floorboards creak.”

Ah, another thing that was wrong with the house.

She crossed her arms under her breasts and willed her heartbeat to slow down. “What’re you doing here?”

“I want to take you for a ride.” His grin widened when she lifted her brows. “On my bike. Although I’m willing to do the other thing you’re thinking.”

“Not a chance,” she said with a shake of her head.

Both his thick, wide shoulders shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Her eyes dropped down to his powerful thighs and suppressed the memory of them in between her own. She cleared her throat so her voice had a prayer of coming out even. “I’m not a big fan of motorcycles, Chase.”

“But you like mine.” He tugged on a strand of her hair. “I’ve seen you eyeing me on it before.”

Did he have to be so in tune to her every move? His weird sixth sense made it difficult to be discreet about how much she still wanted him.

“All right you want the truth?” He whipped off his sunglasses and pierced her with eyes the same color of the sky. “I still feel bad about the way things ended between us.”

“And you want to make it up to me by sticking me on that thing?”

He tossed a backward glance over his shoulder. “That’s not the only thing I have planned. Come on,” he said when she still didn’t agree. “Live a little. What else do you have to do?”

Well, when he put it that way…

She dropped her arms and turned from the door. “Give me one minute.” This was going to get her into trouble. Her will-power was weak at best where Chase was concerned.

Her flip flops lay discarded on the bedroom floor where she kicked them off last night. She slipped them on, then on a whim grabbed her art bag and walked to the front door. There had to be something among the Wyoming scenery beautiful enough to make it on her sketch pad. She snagged her purse off the kitchen counter and locked the front door behind her.

Chase leaned against his bike like the irresistible bad-ass he was. He held out a monstrous black helmet when she approached.

“Do you have any idea what that’s going to do to my hair?”

“Do you have any idea what smacking your head on the pavement will do to your brain?” One side of his mouth kicked up and he plopped the helmet on her head. “Nothing could make your hair look bad.” His big fingers brushed along her chin and jawbone when he fastened the strap of the helmet. The feel of his skin against hers sent little lightning bolts to her midsection. “Here,” he said and took her art bag and purse off her shoulder. A duffle bag-sized compartment sat on the end of the bike, and Chase deposited her belongings into it.

“You have to get on the bike, Lace,” he said to her after he threw one long leg over the motorcycle and she only stood there.

“Right,” she said more to herself. The bike was taller than she anticipated and her toes barely touched the ground when she mounted. Chase’s body heat felt way too good, not to mention how divinely hard his back muscles would be so she opted for leaning back and grabbing the seat behind her. Spontaneously combusting on a motorcycle in the middle of the open road was not on her “To Do” list.

“That’s not going to work,” he said over his shoulder. “You need to hold onto me.”

No way could she handle being plastered to all that muscle. “I think I’ll be okay like this.”

“No, seriously.” When she didn’t move so much as a toe, he turned in the seat so he could see her. “You’re not afraid to touch me, are you?”

“Of course not,” she said with a weak smile.
Yeah, that was real convincing
.

A heavy sigh radiated from his big body. “Give me your hand.” When she placed her palm in his much bigger one, he yanked it forward until her arm was wrapped around him. He settled it on his abdomen then held out his right hand. “Other hand.” His fingers wrapped around her wrist and gently tugged until her hand rested on top of her other one. “Don’t let go. But feel free to let those drift lower.”

“You’re pushing it,” she growled next to his ear.

His back vibrated against her chest when he laughed. Man, he had a sexy laugh. The low, rough timbre had a way of skipping along her nerves until her bones all but melted. Lacy always tried to prepare herself to never be caught off guard around Chase, but he managed to sneak past her defenses.

The motorcycle rumbled to life and sent her loins vibrating to match the rest of her body.
Chase maneuvered them down the driveway then sped down the street. Within ten minutes, Trouble faded into the distance and all that surrounded them was the vast openness of the Wyoming foothills. Lacy kept her arms tight around the man in front of her, more from fear of falling to her bloody death than savoring the feel of him. Of course the fact that he was so gosh dang masculine made clinging to him much more enjoyable.

He handled the bike with the ease and grace of someone who’d been born on top of one. The machine fit beneath his steel-like, lean muscles like he’d had it custom made just for him. So, he’d caught her watching him ride his bike a time or two. She hadn’t denied it because he was right, and they both knew it. Watching him roar down the streets of Trouble had been a temptation too great for her to pass up. She’d indulged in her fantasy. So sue her.
Thirty minutes or maybe an hour had passed before Chase took a side road off the main highway. Thick, white clouds drifted across the crystalline sky as though they had a particular destination in mind. Aspens and other species of trees Lacy couldn’t name bent from side to side in the pleasant breeze. Summertime was really the best time of year in Wyoming. Although the temperatures tended to skyrocket, the wind didn’t blow so badly.

As the scenery flew by them, Lacy allowed herself to be pressed as close to Chase as she could get. Her arms tightened around his torso. Her inner thighs gripped his bigger, harder ones and her breasts smashed into the sculpted muscles of his back. This was the closest she’d been to him since the last time they’d spent the night together. Not that she’d thought about those nights with the dreamy intensity of a teenager. Because she hadn’t. Nor had she remembered how simply divine he felt on top of her or how his skin burned hers up. Or how he had the skill of perfectly synchronizing his kisses to his pumping hips so that she didn’t have the wherewithal to form a clear thought.

No, she hadn’t thought about
any
of that. Not even a little.

Sometime later, Chase turned down another road then came to a stop at a manned gate with a sign in the front that said, “Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area.” He dug his wallet out of his back pocket and paid the uniformed ranger the necessary fee to enter the park. Once the arm of the gate lifted, the two of them set forth again.

Their surroundings opened up to brilliant red cliffs that reminded Lacy of the Grand Canyon. Although well known throughout the state, Lacy had never been to the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area. Chase seemed to know where he was going. Another significant chunk of time went by with the two of them speeding past more and more cliffs until they came to a body of water.

“This is the Green River,” Chase said after he shut the bike off and dismounted. “I come here sometimes to fish.”

“You fish?” she asked as he helped her off the bike. Chase, the restaurant manager. Chase the bad-ass who rode a motorcycle. Chase the expert at giving orgasms. But Chase the fisherman? Never would she have guessed.

“When I can get away.” He took the helmet from her and hooked it over the handlebars of the bike. “Which isn’t very often. Here”–He opened the back compartment and pulled out her art bag–“What’s in there?”

“Stuff I like to travel with sometimes.”

Chase didn’t know about her sketching, much less seen any of her pictures. Her self-consciousness tended to dominate when it came to drawing. If she planned on showing her stuff to the general public, then surely she could show them to a man who’d seen her naked more times than her own mother had. Plus, she could really use this time to capture something worthwhile to go with the others.

He eyed the bag with something akin to interest and speculation and pulled more stuff out of the bike’s compartment: a blue plaid blanket and a grocery bag full of to-go containers.

She lifted her chin toward his things. “What’s all that?”

“Well, I can’t cook worth a damn so I brought some of Trouble Café’s home cooking.”

“So this is like a picnic?”

His seductive mouth turned up in a grin. “I suppose.”

She narrowed her eyes and followed him to the shoreline of the small lake. “You’re not by any chance trying to court me are you?”

“Why, do you want to be courted?” he asked as he walked ahead of her. Her eyes remained glued to his world-class ass.

“No,” she replied when they stopped walking.

He set the bag of food down then spread the blanket. “That’s not how you felt a few weeks ago.”

The blanket was huge and had patches of holes where the earth beneath poked through like little fingers. She kicked her shoes off and sat herself down. The blanket may have been old, but the fibers felt like feathers beneath her legs.

“That’s not what we were doing. We were –”

“Fucking?” he supplied as he sat down next to her.

A sigh flowed out of her. “That’s not how I’d put it, but yes. Either way there was no courting involved.”

His blue gaze jumped to hers as he opened the bag of food. “So the moral of the story is you don’t want to be courted?”

She took one Styrofoam container out of the plastic bag and set it on the blanket in between them. “I would appreciate that, yes.”

“I live to serve you, Miss Taylor.”

He unloaded three more containers from the bag and spread them out on the blanket, along with two sets of plastic utensils. He then placed two bottles of water next to their food.

“What all did you get?” Whatever it was smelled fried and pretty damn good.

“Fried chicken wings, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls and apple turnovers.” He grinned at her. “All the basic food groups.”

“I know I’m too skinny but geez.”

His bone-melting gaze dropped to her thighs. “You’re not too skinny. Dig in. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“No plates?”

He handed her a plastic fork and gestured to the open containers. “These are our plates.”

Worked for her. The food smelled too good to debate whether or not they had dishes to eat on. The aroma that drifted to her nose prompted a low rumbling in her tummy.

The chicken was crispy and tasted like Cajun seasoning. The mashed potatoes were creamy with a few lumps, and the bread practically melted on her tongue. Lacy’s childhood lacked a lot of things and home cooked meals were one of them. The extent of Ray’s culinary skills didn’t usually go beyond a microwave or prepackaged oven meals. Never in her life had she tasted anything like this; as though the person who prepared it put their heart and soul into the food. Each of the dishes complimented each other in a way that made them taste that much better.