Night Driving (6 page)

Boone slid a melted-butter gaze over her, slippery and hot. He couldn’t believe how much she rattled him with that beguiling smile of hers and that chirpy go-getter attitude. She had the body of a professional dancer and she smelled like a strawberry patch—all ripe and juicy. Why did she have to be so damn appealing?

Stop thinking about her. It’s not like you can act on the attraction. No bedroom activities for you. Not with that bum leg. While you’re at it, stop staring at her.

He shifted his gaze out the side window, saw rows and rows of cornfields. Nothing in the scenery to distract him.

Think about Jackie. She’s the reason you’re here. You’ve got to make it to Key West before she marries that coastie.

It had been a while since he’d tried to call his little sister. Maybe she’d relented and turned on her voice mail. Maybe she’d come to her senses and realized getting married to someone she barely knew was a huge mistake. Resolutely ignoring Tara, who was stretching the kinks from her neck muscles, Boone took his cell phone from his front pocket and punched in Jackie’s number.

It rang and rang and rang. No voice mail picked up. Finally, after the twentieth ring, he hung up. His sister must still be royally ticked off at him. With a growl, he switched off the phone and stuck it back into his pocket.

They hadn’t moved an inch in the traffic jam. They were behind a white Chevy pickup truck loaded down with a small cement mixer. Tara had her left elbow propped on the door frame, the left side of her head resting in the open palm of her hand. She was still humming.

“Snow on a shingle,” Boone grumbled. “This is ridiculous. How long have we been sitting here?”

“Chill, dude. It’s only been five minutes.”

“Of not moving one inch. What are they doing up there? Rebuilding the entire freeway?”

“There’s nothing we can do about it. Might as well make the most of a bad situation. Wanna play a game? I spy with my little eye—”

“No, I don’t want to play a game. I want to drive. I want to get the hell to Key West. I want to sit down with my sister, face-to-face, and convince her to call off this crazy wedding.”

“Something red.”

“Marriage isn’t something to take lightly. It’s not a lark. It’s a commitment. You shouldn’t go into it thinking it’s going to be all pancakes and morning sex, because it’s not.”

“I spy something red and very close.”

“Divorce is painful and costly.”

“I spy—”

“I’m not playing the dumb game! It’s for children,” Boone roared, louder and more harshly than he’d intended. He wasn’t mad at Tara. He wasn’t even mad at Jackie. He was mad at himself. For not being there for his sister. For getting injured. For not taking care of himself properly and having to have more surgeries. For losing control. That’s what angered him most. How he’d lost control over his own life.

“Why not?” she asked calmly. “You’re acting like a big baby. You don’t get your way and you pitch a fit. I told you it’s not a good idea to travel when Mercury is in retrograde.”

“And you’re acting like a total fruitcake.” Boone snorted. “Mercury in retrograde. What a load of horse manure.”

“Horse manure, huh? What about the bread truck accident we narrowly missed? And now a big construction holdup. Mercury. Retrograde. It’s a thing. Look it up.”

“It’s coincidence. It’s got nothing to do with planetary misalignment. That’s nonsensical thinking.”

“And you’re the last word on what’s nonsense?”

“In this case, yes.”

“You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. Each detour is taking me farther away from my sister.”

“I don’t think distance is the only obstacle between you and your sister.”

“No?”

“The crux of the problem could be your sanctimonious attitude. Believe it or not, Boone, you don’t have all the answers.”

“Yeah? Well, you ignore the damn questions. You stick your head in the sand, pretending the world is a good place.”

“The world
is
a good place.”

“Wearing rose-colored glasses doesn’t change reality.”

“What would you have me do?” she exclaimed. “Sit on my porch and glare at everyone for the mess the world is in? Dwelling on problems and difficulties doesn’t make the world a better place. Bitching and griping doesn’t improve things. My positive outlook might not feed a starving child in the Congo, but it damn well makes my world a better place to live in. I light up people’s lives, that’s more than you can claim, Toliver.” She stared straight ahead, hands gripping the wheel, her chin quivering slightly.

Friggin’ hell, he’d hurt her feelings. Okay. He was a jerk. He admitted it. Why had he taken his anger out on her? She was an innocent bystander and he’d lashed out at the nearest person.

Well, what did she expect? He’d tried to warn her off. He was damaged. Couldn’t she see how messed up he was? Why did she try so hard to salvage him? He didn’t deserve her attempts. Why had he bitten her head off? He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. In fact, he’d wanted to do the exact opposite. Pull her into his arms. Kiss her until neither one of them could stop. He was a control freak know-it-all whose world had been knocked topsy-turvy. He was a lost cause and he resented her trying to save him.

“Sitting there spouting happy-happy, joy-joy mantras isn’t going to get us to Miami any faster,” he mumbled, ashamed but not knowing how to back down.

Tara jerked her head in his direction, flames flashing in her eyes. “You want out of this traffic jam?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Fine.” Tara set her determined little chin and whipped the steering wheel hard to the left. The Honda hopped onto the grass median, the U-Haul creaking and groaning behind them.

“What
are
you doing?”

“Making everything right in Boone’s dark world.” She jammed her foot down hard on the accelerator.

The Honda rocketed forward.

Boone grabbed the grip strap, clenched it in his fist. “You’re gonna get the cops after us. You’re gonna bust an axle. You’re gonna—”

“If you can’t say something productive, shut up!” Tara yelled, struggling to control the car.

Shocked, Boone clamped his mouth shut. They bounced and jostled over the uneven terrain. Cars honked at them. Tara’s gaze was fixed straight ahead. He had visions of the U-Haul getting stuck in the median, but miraculously, she traversed it and joined the flow of traffic headed in the opposite direction.

She changed lanes, easing over and taking the next exit.

He started to ask where she was going, but decided against it. He was afraid of what she might do next. She was quicksilver, unpredictable, and damn if that didn’t excite him.

At the intersection, which in Nowhere, Nebraska, consisted of nothing more than a two-way stop sign, she went back the direction they’d been traveling, but instead of merging onto the freeway, she took off down a one-lane dirt road that ran through the cornfields. She sped along, dust billowing out behind them.

“Happy now?” She glared.

“Tara—”

She raised a palm. “I don’t want to hear about it, Boone. You got what you wanted. We’re no longer stuck in traffic and we’re headed south to Miami.”

“Tara—”

“No, I’m not going to listen. I know what you’re going to say. I’m an airhead, a flake. It was a very stupid thing, jumping the median. I probably broke a dozen laws. I’m sure I screwed up something on the U-Haul and that’ll cost money, but you are on your way. You got what you wanted. So be happy. I don’t want to hear whatever criticism you’ve got loaded up for me.”

“Tara,” he insisted softly.

She heaved a big sigh and for the first time since she broke ranks from the traffic jam, she switched her attention to meet his eyes. “What? Just what the hell is it, Boone?”

“I’m sorry.”

5

Wednesday, July 1, 6:55 p.m.

W
ELL
, B
OONE
’
S
APOLOGY
was unexpected. She hadn’t known the man was capable of remorse.

“And thank you,” he added.

She eyed him suspiciously. He didn’t look like he was being sarcastic. Still, he had the power to crush her to dust with his biting commentary, so she didn’t trust his earnest tone.

“I was acting like a tool.”

“Yes, you were. A right contentious hammer. Bam, bam, bamming me flat as an innocent nail.”

“I could blame it on my military training, but I won’t.”

“Contrite
and
taking responsibility? I guess this means I have to forgive you,” she answered, softening already.

She was so easy. She had every right to stay mad at him, but the truth was she hated hanging on to resentment. It was so much easier to forgive than pout.

“You’re right,” he conceded. “I do have control issues.”

She fake-gasped. “Shocker.”

His lips pulled straight back in a wry smile. “The army psychologist said it was because my mother abandoned me, but I don’t believe in that blame-it-all-on-your-mother mumbo-jumbo. Fact is, I can sometimes be hard to handle when things don’t go my way.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I’m working on it. Forgive me?”

Hey, if he had the guts to admit when he was wrong, she had the grace to accept. “Water under the bridge.”

They were traveling deeper and deeper into endless cornfields and they hadn’t passed one single vehicle in the past fifteen minutes they’d been on the one-lane road. The sun was slipping toward the horizon. She suppressed the urge to turn around and go back the way they’d come. Only road construction waited for them back there. This was her bluff to snap Boone out of his grumpiness and she was stuck with it.

Hell, she wished she could turn the car over to him. Give the man the control he longed for. Sit back, relax and not have to worry about the trailer she was hauling behind her. But that was out of the question.

“How’s the knee?” she asked.

“You don’t have to keep asking about it. You’re not my mother or my nursemaid.”

“Don’t get all defensive. I’m asking because I feel guilty for bouncing you all over the interstate.”

“I’ll live.” He shifted in his seat.

She sneaked another quick glance at him. He looked amused and that surprised her. “What is it?”

“You should have seen the expression on your face when you left that highway.” He chuckled. “All iron will and sheer determination, plowing over that median come hell or high water.”

What do you know? She’d made him laugh. It hadn’t been her intention, but she’d managed to make him laugh. Pleased with herself, Tara returned his grin.

“You’ve got spunk, Duvall. I like that about you.”

“Wow. Another compliment. I’m stunned.” She was teasing, but her heart gave a little hop.

“I’ve got a few more,” he mumbled.

“How lucky can a girl get? What else do you like about me?”

“Your smart mouth. That’s another thing.”

“You like my smart mouth?”

“Oh, yeah.” His gaze was fixed on her lips.

Her gaze was fixed on his eyes fixed on her lips. She wasn’t watching where she was going, didn’t see the board lying in the middle of the road, but she heard it.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Felt a jolt.

Followed by a rapid-fire popping sound. Once. Twice. Three times.

The car lurched, swerved. Startled, it took a moment for Tara to figure out what had happened.

Blowout.

Fudge crackers! She’d had a blowout.

Boone swore under his breath and he was already unbuckling his seatbelt.

Tara pulled over as far as she could on a one-lane dirt road with cornfields on either side. Simultaneously, she and Boone opened their car doors, but she was out before he was. He had the metal knee brace to contend with.

She walked to the rear of the car. Not one blown-out tire. Not two. But three flats. Both back tires of the Honda and one of the tires on the U-Haul were swiftly going flat. Hands on her hips, she went to investigate the heavy board lying behind the trailer and discovered a heavy two-by-four studded with nails.

Boone swore. He’d come around the opposite side of the trailer looking completely disgruntled. “Is the whole damned world against me?”

Tara shrugged.

He held up a finger. “Don’t say it. Don’t tell me Jupiter is in retrograde or—”

“Mercury,” she said. “It’s Mercury.”

“I don’t give a damn if it’s Pluto. The planets did not cause this.”

“Then what did?”

“A board with nails in it.”

“That’s small-picture thinking.”

“What?” He shoved angry fingers through his hair, managing to appear both disgruntled and devastatingly sexy.

“On the surface, it appears that a board with nails caused our misfortune, but how did that board get here? On this particular one-lane road, just when we happened along? I mean, what are the odds?” She argued. “Bigger forces are afoot.”

“You really believe in this zodiac stuff?”

“I do.”

“What the hell does
retrograde
even mean?”

“Moving backward.”

“So Mercury is moving backward?”

“Exactly.”

“I fail to see how that can affect us.”

“The moon affects the tides, right?”

“That’s different.”

“How so?”

“It’s because the Earth and the moon are attracted to each other like magnets.”

“If that’s possible, why not Mercury? When Mercury is in retrograde, it can force fate upon us, usually in regard to something in the past that we need to resolve. Like your relationship with your sister.”

“Let me get this straight. We have three flat tires because I have unresolved issues with my sister?”

Tara shrugged. “In a nutshell.”

“Whacked.” Boone shook his head, pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “The lemonade lady is whacked.”

“Your cell’s not going to work.”

He glowered. “And why not?”

“One, because we’re in the middle of nowhere and I haven’t seen a cell phone tower in a long while. Two, Mercury is in retrograde and it affects travel plans and communications.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”

She swept an expansive hand at him. “Be my guest.”

Boone punched in a number, put the phone to his ear. A few fleeting seconds passed. He swore under his breath. Checked for bars. “Zero,” he spat.

Tara pressed her lips together to keep from saying “I told you so.”

He turned away from her. Limped out of her line of sight behind the U-Haul.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Detour,” he called out.

Puzzled, she frowned, and then realized he was probably going to relieve himself, but didn’t want to tell her that. The man had a skewed sense of pride. “Everybody needs a bathroom,” she hollered after him. “It’s okay to say the word.”

A long moment passed. She leaned against the side of the U-Haul, crossed her arms over her chest and stared west out over the cornfield at the setting sun.

Reality sank in.

It was going to be dark before long. They only had one spare tire, and even if they’d only had one flat, Boone was in no shape to change a tire. There was no cell phone reception and it was a very long walk back to the freeway. Not a trek Boone could make. They were stuck here until someone came along. No telling how long that might be.

The sun slipped a little lower. The air smelled loamy. Somewhere in the distance, a cow mooed. Tara drew a circle in the sand with the toe of her sandal, clutched her arms behind her back and swayed, waited.

Boone sure was taking his time. Honestly, no one needed that much time to do what he was doing. Tara nibbled her bottom lip, edged toward the cornrow. “Boone?”

He didn’t answer.

The cornstalks threw eerie shadows across the road. She rounded the other side of the U-Haul, but he was nowhere in sight. Where had he gone?

“Boone? You there?”

Nothing. It was as if he’d simply vanished.

She thought of all the horror movies she’d seen. In horror movies, bad things always happened in cornfields.

“Boone?” she called again, surprised to hear her voice come out shaky. She wasn’t a scaredy-cat by nature, but what if something had happened to him? He could have fallen in a gopher hole. He could be out there in the field, alone in the gathering dark, his knee wrenched, in terrible pain.

Throwing caution to the wind, she plowed through the field. Cornstalks slapped against her shoulders. The setting sun blinded her. Panic built a dam in her chest. Why wasn’t he answering?

“Boone!”

“What is it, Tara?” His deep voice sliced through the shivery cool twilight.

She spun around. Spied him standing behind her. Relief spilled into her bloodstream. “I thought...” She paused to catch her breath. “I thought you got lost. You’re awfully stealthy for a big guy.”

“Military training.”

“Where’d you go?”

“I was looking for a place to set up camp.”

“Set up camp?”

“Clearly we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. It’s best to make camp while we still have daylight left.”

“Okay,” she agreed. He was much calmer than she expected. She thought he’d bust another gasket over this current snafu like he had over the traffic snarl.

“Let’s get some supplies.” He turned to head back to the U-Haul.

Forty minutes later, they had set up camp on fallow ground just beyond the cornfield. Boone used blankets and curtain rods gleaned from the trailer. Tara had to do much of the work requiring physical dexterity because he had trouble navigating the uneven terrain of the field. Boone was the tent’s architect. She was the builder.

He made a fire using a piece of flint and a folding knife fished from his pocket. He used the same knife to open a can of stew from the pantry items she’d packed for her move. If she had to get stranded, a quick-thinking soldier was the one to get stranded with. Boone was actually kind of fun when he had a mission. She even caught him whistling under his breath as he stirred the stew.

“Interesting,” she said.

“What is?” He glanced up, and the last rays of sunlight caught his cheeks, bathing him in a red-orange glow that accentuated his rugged masculinity.

“You’re not freaking out about this delay?”

“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me,” he said lightly. “Besides, it’s my fault that we’re here. If I hadn’t been complaining about the construction log jam, you wouldn’t have taken off down this side road to nowhere.”

“True,” she said, admiring his ability to admit his mistake. “But I’m just as much at fault. I let you get to me. I should have kept my cool.”

“I guess we both overreacted, huh?”

“Stress can make anyone cranky. Too bad we’re on a time crunch.”

“I did the math. Worse case scenario, even with taking a day out of our travel to deal with this situation, I should be able to make it to Key West by early Saturday morning. The wedding isn’t until the evening. That’s enough time to set Jackie straight and put a stop to the whole thing.”

She wondered how his sister was going to react to Boone swooping in and trying to stop her wedding. She started to say something to him, but it wasn’t any of her business, so she just clamped her mouth shut. The stew smelled good and she realized they hadn’t had anything to eat since they’d left the truck stop that morning.

Boone positioned a blanket on the ground near the fire and they sat side by side while he stirred the pot of food. He had his right leg stretched out in front of him and he’d taken off the heavy metal brace. Tara had her knees drawn up to her chest and she studied the dancing, orange-hot flames.

“This is nice,” she said. “In spite of our circumstances. I like camping.”

“Me, too. Or, at least I did before I went into the military.”

“That changed you.”

He shrugged. She could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, so she didn’t say anything else. Tara reached up to massage the kinks out of her neck. She was still sore from all that moving. If she was this knotted up, she could only imagine what shape Boone was in.

“Sore neck?” he asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“C’mere,” he said. “I’ll rub it for you.”

“Will you?” she asked gratefully, before she understood what she was getting herself into.

He patted the blanket in front of him.

Tara edged over and sank down between his legs. The fire was in front of her, Boone behind. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Then his big hands touched her shoulders and began a gentle massage. She melted at the very same time she stiffened. Part of her wanting to relax into the moment, the other part on guard against the way his touch made her feel.

His fingers hit a tender spot.

“Ooh,” she moaned.

“You’ve got a big knot there.” He pushed in deeper, probing her sore muscle.

All the air left her body in one swift whoosh.

“Too hard?”

She shook her head. “Hurts so good.”

“More?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He increased the pressure. “How’s that?”

“If it gets any better it’s gonna be illegal.”

His thumb made circular motions against her skin. “I can’t believe how tense you are. You seem so loosey-goosey.”

Yeah, except for when a sexy man was massaging her neck. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

“You can say that again,” he murmured.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” she quipped, because his hands were moving lower, settling on her shoulders and she was getting some decidedly sweet sensations spreading over her.

“You’re irrepressible.”

“Like a wrinkled cotton shirt?”

“More like a bedspring.”

A wild thrill fluttered against her ribcage, her skin tingling everywhere his fingers caressed her. “Coiled and ready for action?”

His laugh was so deep and rich, the flutter turned into an avalanche. The sensation was more than she could handle. She scooted away from him. “The stew is bubbling. I’m starving. Let’s eat.”