Yours Forever (Bayou Dreams #3)

Chapter 1

“How did I end up here?”

Tamryn West stumbled over a clump of dried mud as she walked along the dirt-and-gravel road.

She did her best Statue of Liberty impersonation as she pointed her cell phone skyward and tried to find a signal.

Shielding her eyes against the sun’s rays, she spun in a slow circle, hoping to spot something other than the trees and high weeds that seemed to stretch for miles all around her.

“How in the hell did I end up here?”

And who would she have to murder at the car rental company for renting her a car with a busted radiator?

She was no automobile expert, but after eight years in Boston she’d refilled the antifreeze enough times to know how a radiator should look, and it should definitely not have steam blowing out of it like a pot of boiling pasta.

She held the phone up to the sky again, but got the same result. Zero bars. Was it really a surprise that the Middle of Nowhere, Louisiana, wouldn’t have cell phone service?

Tamryn peered down the road she’d been traveling, trying to recall the last house she’d passed. It had been at least five miles back. Possibly more.

She was not walking for miles in these heels.

She’d probably have better luck if she continued traveling east instead of backtracking.

According to her cell phone’s GPS—back when it was working and before it started recalculating over and over again—she had been only fifteen miles from the town of Gauthier.

That meant she should only have about five miles or so to go, right?

Of course, that was before her ill-advised detour onto this dirt road.

“No use beating yourself up over it,” Tamryn told herself, blowing out a weary breath.

The best thing she could do right now was get moving. She’d been out here for nearly an hour already, and not a single car had passed. She would have to walk until she found some sign of life, or at least enough bars on her cell phone to send an SOS text message.

Tamryn started back for the rental car to retrieve her laptop, because even though there had been no sign of life on this road, she would not chance having her laptop stolen.

All of her important files were backed up to the cloud, but that didn’t matter.

She wouldn’t be able to make it a day without her computer.

The rumble of an engine broke into the stillness that had surrounded her for the past hour. Tamryn surveyed the area ahead and spotted a cloud of red dust mushrooming in the distance. A shiny motorcycle appeared, emerging from the cloud like a ghost come to life.

Her heart rate escalated.

This could be a good thing, or it could be a very, very bad thing.

She was a woman alone on a back road in an unfamiliar town. She had no cell phone service, and even in a pair of Nikes she could only manage a comfortable jog. If she had to outrun some unsavory character on a motorcycle while wearing these heels, she’d just as well give up right now.

“Enough with the dramatics,” Tamryn said. Maybe Motorcycle Guy was a perfectly safe gentleman taking a leisurely Sunday afternoon bike ride around the countryside. For all she knew, he could be a seventy-year-old retiree trying to recapture his youth.

Motorcycle Guy started to let off the gas about ten yards ahead of her, so that by the time he reached the tail end of her rental car, his bike kicked up only a smattering of dust.

He stopped and steadied his legs on the ground, and one thing became immediately clear: this was no seventy-year-old retiree, not with the way his solid black T-shirt hugged his leanly muscled biceps, shoulders, and chest. It was obvious his jeans had seen better days, but the way the worn fabric molded to his legs literally made her mouth water.

He wore dark sunglasses, nearly as black as his gleaming motorcycle helmet.

Well, if she had to play the damsel in distress, at least her knight in shining armor was smoking hot.

“Car trouble?” he asked in a deep, smooth voice.

Tamryn nodded. “It’s the radiator.”

“That’s never good.” He dropped the kickstand into place and climbed off the massive black-and-chrome motorcycle, removing his helmet and hanging it on the handlebar.

Tamryn studied his easy gait as he made his way to the front where she’d left the hood up.

He braced his hands against the compact car’s frame and leaned over, studying the engine.

She thought the jeans had molded magnificently to his legs, but that was nothing compared to how the denim cupped his ass. Sheer perfection.

“It doesn’t look good,” he said, backing from underneath the hood. He dusted his hands off on his backside. “You’ll need to call a tow truck.”

Tamryn held her phone up to him. “That would be a lot easier if there was cell phone service.”

A corner of his mouth curled up, and her heart did a two-step. Who would have thought such a small smile could do that much for a man’s face?

“Are you heading to Gauthier?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m staying at a bed-and-breakfast called Belle Mansion.”

“Belle Maison,” he corrected her.

“Ah, yes. Forgive my rusty French,” she said. “I forgot for a minute that I was in Louisiana.”

And there was that smile again. The man had dimples. Extremely cute, extremely sexy dimples.

“You’re only a few miles from Belle Maison.” He gestured toward his bike. “Hop on. I’ll give you a ride into town and send a tow truck out to get the car.” He held his hand out to her. “I’m Matt, by the way.”

“Tamryn,” she replied, shaking his hand, which was much smoother than she’d anticipated.

It went against his rough-and-tough biker image.

Although, as she got a closer look at him, she acknowledged that he didn’t seem all that rough.

His light brown skin was practically flawless, his hair cut close and trimmed with precision.

Tamryn glanced at his hands. The nails were neat, without a speck of dirt underneath them.

Her eyes returned to his face, and she noticed there was something extremely familiar about him.

“Do you want a ride?” he asked.

“Uh…what?” She shook her head to clear it.

He pulled his sunglasses down and peered at her over the rim. His brows lifted, and he hooked a thumb toward the bike. “A ride? To Belle Maison?”

Tamryn reared back with a start.

It was him. Matthew Gauthier. The man who had been avoiding every effort she’d made to contact him over the past six months.

Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, he looked nothing like the impeccably attired attorney she’d spotted in the few photos she’d been able to find of him during her numerous Google searches.

“You can wait with the car, but I don’t recommend it,” he continued. “Once that sun starts setting it won’t be long before it’s pitch-black out here. I’d much rather take you with me.”

There was something about the way his voice dropped on that last statement that made her spine tingle with all sorts of…interesting sensations.

No. No, no, no. This was a spine-tingling-free trip. She was in Louisiana for a specific purpose, and it had nothing to do with indulging in tingles of any kind, especially those brought on by cute dimples and well-fitting jeans.

She’d allowed herself to be distracted from completing her research before and, courtesy of her best friend and colleague, Victoria Brown, had an I Played the Fool T-shirt to prove it. She’d even brought the T-shirt down here with her as a reminder of what she would not be doing again.

The unwelcomed reminder of her previous lapse in judgment quickly squelched the stubborn remaining tingles and brought her focus back to her current predicament and the need to find a way out of it.

Tamryn peered toward the western sky. It was already melting into a mixture of orange and pink as the sun was gradually swallowed up by the horizon.

Which should she fear more, getting on that bike with Mr. Sexy Dimples, or getting eaten by some swamp creature?

She’d already determined that she was over those tingles, so the choice was simple.

“I’ll take you up on your ride,” Tamryn said. She immediately cringed. Was she hearing sexual innuendo even where there was none?

A faint smile lifted the corners of his lips. “Smart choice,” he said.

That remained to be seen. If her too-often-ignored libido decided to come out and play, Tamryn was sure she would regret not trying her luck with the swamp creatures.

“I’ll need to take my laptop,” she told him.

“You don’t have to worry about anyone stealing it. This road doesn’t get much traffic.”

She tossed a look over her shoulder. “You’re on it.”

His grin edged up just a bit more. “Touché.”

It occurred to her that he obviously had no idea who she was.

Tamryn wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

It was probably a good thing, seeing as the man had made an Olympic sport out of avoiding her, but there was a teeny-tiny portion of her ego that was just a teeny-tiny bit ticked off.

Seriously, they’d played phone tag and exchanged emails since last fall.

Was a little recognition too much to ask for?

Although it was quite possible that he hadn’t taken the time to scour the internet for information about her.

She, on the other hand, had spent the better part of the past semester trying to learn all she could about Matthew Gauthier’s family and the sleepy little town along the Louisiana bayou that one of his ancestors founded nearly two centuries ago.

To say she had become a bit obsessed would occupy the top spot on the Understatement of the Century list.

Tamryn opened the car and grabbed hold of her purse and the messenger bag that doubled as her laptop case.

Before she even had the chance to close the door, Matthew had already plucked the bag from her fingers and pulled the strap over his head and across his chest. Then he walked over to the bike and climbed on.

Gripping the handlebars, he gestured her over with his head. “Hop on.”