Road Tripping (6 page)

Ashley felt a
bit of a let-down at the shift in mood between them. “Well, I guess you have to
decide what’s more important to you. Fishing or building a new life.”

“That’s a tough
decision.”

Ashley had
always loved fishing, since her father had started taking her early. She’d
followed Mark and Ethan to the creeks and river banks, where they’d fished for
hours.

She’d felt
close to them then. Both of them.

To distract
herself, she put her feet on the dashboard and tried to stretch her legs,
checking out her skinned knees, which were starting to heal already.

“Would you put
your legs down?” Ethan asked, rather tersely.

The afterglow
from their warm gaze earlier was quickly dying away. “Why should I? My legs are
stiff.”

“You’re
flashing the entire highway. Your skirt is down around your hips.” Ethan
glanced over at her bare legs with an expression that Ashley took to be
disgust.

She pulled her
skirt up a little to hide some her offending thighs from Ethan’s disapproving
gaze. “Well you don’t have to be rude about it. Anyway, everyone is flying by
us so fast that no one has time to even notice my legs.” She kept her legs up,
more out of stubbornness than anything else.

If he’d asked
her nicely, she would have lowered her legs immediately, but he didn’t seem
capable of asking her anything nicely.

Ethan clenched
his jaw and waited in silence for a minute. There was definitely a difference
between his grouchiness (which Ashley had to admit was kind of cute) and his
real anger (which wasn’t cute at all). Finally he demanded roughly, “Ashley,
put your legs down right now. They’re distracting, and I don’t want to look at
them.”

“Fine,” she
mumbled and put her feet back on the floor. “There’s no reason to be so mean.
I’m sorry my legs offend you so much.” She felt irrationally hurt.

She turned her
face away from Ethan to hide her expression from him. She must not have done a
very good job because he kept darting glances over at her. “Ashley,” he began,
his tone softer and milder, “I didn’t mean—”

Ashley never
learned what Ethan didn’t mean. For just at that moment the engine of their
dilapidated Thunderbird made a discouraging crackling sound and started to
sputter.

“Oh no!” she
breathed, turning to Ethan in dismay.

Their speed was
reducing, and the car started jerking. “Damn!” Ethan bit out. “Damn! Fucking
piece of shit!”

Despite the
unfortunate circumstances and forgetting her earlier hurt feelings, Ashley
chided, “Watch your language, young man. Or I’ll have to put you over my knee
and spank you.”

Ethan
growled—an angry sound in his throat—and turned the steering wheel to guide the
dying car to the shoulder of the road.

It jerked to a
stop and made a hissing sound. Then kept clicking, as if it refused to
surrender.

“What now?” Ashley
asked glumly.

Ethan reached
under the dashboard and popped the hood. “I guess I can look at the engine,” he
said dubiously.

“Looking at it
isn’t going to help much.”

But he had
already gotten out of the car. So she pulled herself out too, and they both
stood and stared at the smoking engine.

Eventually, Ashley
inquired sweetly, “Working up your power-ray vision to magically put our engine
back to together again?”

“This is
ridiculous. We’ll need to get help. I guess I could call...someone.” He sounded
frustrated and almost helpless.

“Would it be a
good idea to use your phone? I thought the bad guys could trace it. And who
would you call? Triple A? The police?”

He shook his
head. “Not a good idea. We should lay low as much as possible. But we’re kind
of stuck here otherwise.”

“We both have
feet. And there’s an exit with a couple of gas stations less than a mile from
here.”

Ethan stared at
her.

“At least,
that’s what the signs said back there,” Ashley explained, pointing behind them
at the back of the road signs. “We can just walk to one of them and see if
someone will tow our car and then fix it.”

Ethan slammed
down the hood. “You don’t mind walking?”

“Of course not.”
She tried not to think of her pretty, strappy sandals and the eight blisters on
her feet. “Just let me grab my bag.”

She reached
into the back seat and pulled out the tote she’d bought at the drugstore to
carry their toiletries. The bag had “West Virginia, Wild and Wonderful”
scrawled over the front in bright blue lettering.

“Hold on,” she
called out to Ethan, who had already started down the road. Ashley pulled out
the sunblock she had purchased as an afterthought. She squirted out a little
and rubbed it onto her face and bare arms. Then squeezed out some more on her
hand.

Ethan had
walked back over to her. “Are you coming?”

“Come here.”
When he took a few slow steps over to her, she pulled his head down toward her
and rubbed the sunblock into his cheeks, nose, and forehead.

“For God’s
sake, Ashley,” he groaned. “That stuff smells horrible.”

She sniffed his
skin. “No, it doesn’t.” She finished her massage of his face and patted the top
of his head. “It smells like the beach. And you’ll thank me later when your skin
isn’t burned to a crisp. It’s noon, the sun is blazing, and it must be a
hundred degrees out today. You’ve got red hair, so I bet you burn easily.”

That comment
got a cool glare.

“Fine,” he
said, touching his face, as if he was making sure it was still there. “Can we
go now?”

They went.

It was
swelteringly hot, cars kept whizzing by, they both were sweating profusely, and
Ashley’s blisters starting to break open.

Before they had
reached the exit, she was pretty sure the blisters were all bleeding. She could
feel wetness around the straps of her sandals, and it felt like the leather was
rubbing against raw skin. But she didn’t look down to see. She wasn’t about to
call Ethan’s attention to her injuries.

Once they got
off the exit, the nearest gas station was still a distance away. Every step
felt like hell for Ashley. It was all she could do to keep from sobbing from
the pain.

But she had
always been stubborn. Always been proud. And there was no way she was going to
act like a weakling in front of Ethan.

He grumbled a
few times about her not keeping up, but in general, he was too focused on their
crisis situation to pay much attention to her.

The gas station
was—miraculously—full service, and there was a garage and a tow truck
available. By the time they approached it, Ashley was gasping from the pain,
and there were tears in her eyes, but she refused to brush them away. Not in
front of Ethan.

A middle-aged
man in a dirty work shirt stepped up to greet them. “Howdy,” he drawled. “Y’all
have some trouble?”

Ethan briefly
explained the situation in clipped tones.

“Fifty dollars
to tow,” the man said, eyeing them as if they’d come in from another planet.

It was a
reasonable price, and they had no other options. “Good,” Ethan agreed. “Is
there anywhere for us to wait?”

“Some chairs
next to the desk there. And there’s a Coke machine in front. Looks like y’all
could use a cold drink.”

“We could use
something stronger than Coke,” Ethan muttered under his breath.

The man seemed
to have heard him because he hid an amused smile.

Before he
turned away, Ashley asked in a voice that only broke a little. “Do you have a
restroom?”

“Outside. Round
the back. They’re not locked.”

Ashley hurried
around the back of the building as fast as her injured feet could take her.

She opened the
door to the women’s bathroom and stepped inside. Then she jumped back outside
and took an urgent breath.

She had never
smelled anything quite so foul as that bathroom, and it looked like it hadn’t
been cleaned in months.

But this was an
emergency, so she took a deep breath and summoned her courage. She rushed in,
hovered over the toilet so she could pee without contaminating herself on the
seat, then flushed and opened the door again.

Glancing
around, she saw a large rock. She used that to prop the door open, so she could
have some fresh air as she tended to her feet.

She wet down
some paper towels and wiped off the toilet seat so she could prop her foot up
on it. Then she dampened some more paper towels, took off her right sandal, and
looked at the bloody mess on her foot.

She seemed to
have developed more blisters along the way, and those had broken open as well.

Wiping off the
blood as much as she could, she mentally screamed at herself for not buying any
bandages at the drugstore the day before.

“What the
hell?”

Ethan’s voice
was the last sound she wanted to hear just then, but there was no way she could
get away.

He entered the
bathroom, wrinkling his nose at the stench. He was glaring at her feet. “Damn
it, Ashley. Why didn’t you tell me your feet were hurt?”

Ashley was in
no state to argue with him. “What good would it have done to whine about them?”

“Of all the
stubborn, infuriating females…” And then he stormed out of the bathroom.

Ashley stared
dumbfounded at the empty doorway. “Talk about infuriating,” she muttered. “Come
in and yell at me, and then stomp away in a snit.”

She started
mopping up the blood some more, since more had seeped out of the torn skin.
Before she could do much, Ethan had brought with him a box of Band-Aids, a
bottle of antiseptic wash, and some gauze.

“Oh,” Ashley
said, when she saw he was planning to help her.

He was shaking
his head and muttering under his breath, but he started preparing his first aid
supplies. He poured some of the antiseptic wash onto a piece of the gauze.

Ashley was
about to reach over to take it from him, but before she could, he knelt down on
the dirty floor, took her ankle with his hand, and started treating her
injuries himself.

There was no
excuse for her reaction. No reason for it. No justification. No way she could
explain it away, to herself or anyone else.

But Ashley
panicked. She just absolutely panicked. It wasn’t just Ethan’s warm hand on her
bare ankle. Or his submissive position before her. Or his inexplicable gesture
of kindness and compassion. But it was perhaps the combination of all of them.

Frantically,
she tried to pull away from him.

It wasn’t a
good idea. She was standing on one leg, and Ethan had a firm grasp of her other
one. Her abrupt movement made her lose her balance, and she couldn’t get her
other foot down to the floor to support herself.

Ethan jumped up
in time to catch her before she toppled over. “Damn it, Ashley,” he roared.
“What the hell are you doing?”

She was
confused and upset and disoriented, and her feet were hurting. And Ethan’s arm
was now around her waist. “I can do it myself,” she said, gesturing at the
first aid supplies.

“Well, you
aren’t going to do it yourself,” Ethan gritted through clenched teeth. He was clearly
stressed and at the end of his patience. “You’re damn well going to suffer my
touch long enough for me to make sure you don’t get an infection. I’m certainly
not trying to make a move on you—so there’s no need to behave like an outraged
virgin. Now stand still and stop acting like an idiot.” He knelt back down on
the floor and started applying the antiseptic, which stung the raw flesh.

The tears that
had been lingering in her eyes started falling, and it wasn’t because of the
pain. Ethan was focused on her feet, so Ashley surreptitiously brushed them
away. She didn’t think he had noticed.

He covered her
right foot with Band-Aids, helped her back into her sandal, and then started
working on the other foot. Ashley endured his touch in silence. Tried not to
look at him kneeling beside her. Tried not to feel his strong clasp on her
ankle. Tried not to recall his harsh words. Tried to concentrate instead on the
physical pain—that was far more comfortable.

When he finally
put on the last Band-Aid, he stared at her bandaged foot for a few more
seconds. Then he picked up her sandal. Studied the leather straps that were
bloodied in several spots. Glared at the sandal like he wanted to murder it.

Then he put it
back on her foot.

“Thank you,” Ashley
choked out, as Ethan got to his feet again. Then she turned to leave the
bathroom, hoping only for escape.

She was stopped
by Ethan’s hand on her shoulder. He turned her around until she was facing him.
Brushed away a stray tear on her cheek with his thumb. “Ashley,” he said, in a
low voice.

Taking a deep
breath, she made herself meet his eyes. “I don’t think you needed to talk to me
that way, but I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my feet.”

He took her
face between his hands, tilting her head up toward his. She lost her breath at
his touch and at his intense expression. “Ashley, I’m sorry I talked to you that
way. I’m having trouble…controlling myself. But I never wanted to get you into
this, and now there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re in this together,
though. That means we have to help each other.”

She nodded,
almost mesmerized by his husky voice and the look in his eyes.

“But that also
means we accept help from each other. I don’t ever want you to hide something
from me that I should know about. How do you think it makes me feel that I made
you walk more than a mile on bleeding feet?” His face was strained and damp
with perspiration, and he was still holding her head between his palms. “And
then I complained that you were walking too slow.”

Suddenly seeing
his perspective, Ashley felt a wave of guilt wash over her. “I’m sorry. I was
just being stubborn. Didn’t want you to think I was a wimp.”