Chapter 10
TEN
Everlong – Foo Fighters
By Friday afternoon, Sam was checked in at the Children’s Center sleepover, Gabi had managed to fit two nights’ worth of hope and questionable judgment into one small backpack, and she stood on her porch pretending she hadn’t come outside five minutes early to listen for an engine.
Beside the steps, the potted mums sagged in ceramic pots she and Sam had painted last summer, their leaves giving off a faint, bitter-green smell.
Across the street, a sprinkler ticked over Mr. Delancey’s fading fall grass. Somewhere a screen door slapped shut.
Then she heard it. Not a car, but the low, rolling growl of a motorcycle.
As Dallas pulled up in front of her house, she realized something. He wasn’t reckless. He was deliberate, three moves ahead, always waiting for everyone else to catch up. The man constantly kept her on her toes. She kinda loved it.
He rolled to a stop and killed the engine, one black Doc Marten going to the pavement.
His jeans were worn pale at the thighs, his thick leather jacket pulling tight across his shoulders as he unfastened the strap beneath his chin.
When he pulled the helmet free, his short dark hair was mussed, flattened at the sides.
Then off came the aviators.
The effect was aggravatingly cinematic. And the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.
Tilting his head with the faintest edge of smugness, he rapped his knuckles against a second helmet strapped behind him, the ring on his finger winking.
This explained why he’d told her to pack light but dress heavy.
Her jeans were old, her boots new, her jacket vintage.
Excitement kicked hard in her stomach, and for one wild second she forgot she was a mother, a business owner, a woman with lists and schedules and two dozen cinnamon rolls to bake for Verna Mae when she got back.
She was simply Gabi Wilder, lost weekend within reach.
She started down the cracked cement walkway, Dallas’s knowing smile doing terrible things to her good sense. It was as if she had a string tied to her wrist, and he was drawing her closer and closer.
Halting at the curb, she gestured to his ankle. “Should I be getting on this thing with an injured man? Without his glasses.”
“Contacts.” Dallas grinned and reached for her backpack. Turning, he stuffed it into the leather saddlebag, then unstrapped the second helmet and held it out to her. “Doctor approved with the ankle. Honest. Would I ever do anything to endanger you?”
Taking the helmet, she decided no, she didn’t think he would.
He jacked his thumb toward the saddlebag. “I have another jacket if you don’t think you’ll be warm enough.”
“I’m good.” Great, actually.
Without waiting another minute, Gabi stepped on the footpeg and swung her leg over the motorcycle.
Triumph, it said in silver lettering along the fuel tank.
Securing the helmet strap under her chin, she settled in behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist, knees fit to his hips.
His tight exhalation as she molded her body to his made her smile.
She’d show him. She had moves of her own.
“O-kay,” he murmured and put on his helmet. “Hang on, Sparkle.”
At first, it was just a slow roll from the curb, the bike rumbling beneath them.
Then he turned onto the main road leading out of town, and the motorcycle picked up speed.
Gabi’s breath caught. The wind hit her hard enough to make her laugh, though no one could hear it.
Dallas leaned into the first curve, and she leaned with him because she had no choice, feeling the muscles in his stomach tighten under her arms. His body shifted with every turn, sure and controlled, and hers had to answer. Had to trust him.
They couldn’t talk. It was instinctive and electric.
And somewhere outside Promise, fields rolling past and the two of them fitting together like puzzle pieces, Gabi stopped thinking so hard.
When they reached the foothills, the air changed, a cool slip under her collar as Dallas turned off, following a narrower lane beneath pines and hardwoods going crimson at the edges.
The farms were behind them now, replaced by rocky ditches, the blue shoulders of the mountains in the distance, and streams snaking through the brush lining the road.
He braked in front of a small cabin tucked off a gravel drive, the sun sliding behind the ridge, a creek chattering somewhere close enough to hear over the low hum of the motorcycle.
Dallas cut the engine, nudging the kickstand down with the heel of his boot.
With a yawn, as if this was a ride he took every day, he stretched, muscles shifting delightfully under her hands.
Pulling off his helmet, he hooked it over the handlebar.
Careful with his ankle, he swung off first, then turned back to her.
The sudden quiet rang in her ears, though her heartbeat raced for an entirely different reason.
“I know how to get off a motorcycle,” she said, though she really didn’t. It was her first time riding one.
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, already reaching for her.
Before she could ask where they were, Dallas set her on her feet and tipped her chin up to unfasten the buckle. His knuckles brushed her jaw, and the heat in his bottle-green eyes made her forget the question entirely.
Then the helmet was gone, and his mouth was on hers.
Not a hello kiss. Not a polite we-made-it kiss.
A hot, hard, thank-God-I-can-touch-you-now kiss that sent the creek, the cabin, the foothills slipping away.
“Hi,” he murmured minutes later, his voice rough.
She pressed her brow to his. “Hi.”
Letting her go, he opened the saddlebag and grabbed their backpacks, ignoring her offer to carry her own. Gesturing—you first—he nodded toward the pebbled path leading to the door.
On top of everything else, Dallas True was turning out to be quite the gentleman.
The log cabin sat nestled beneath red spruce and Fraser firs, a stone chimney climbing one side, a narrow porch outfitted with two rocking chairs tucked under the roofline.
Pots of purple asters flanked the door, and a neat stack of firewood rested beneath the front windows.
The whole thing was almost too charming to believe.
“Whose place is this?” she asked as he crouched, lifting a flat stone beside the porch post. She tried to ignore the way his jeans pulled across his thighs, the tight curve of his ass. But when he glanced up, key in hand, her cheeks burned—and she didn’t look away.
“A friend of Campbell’s,” he said, his own gaze turning predatory as he braced his fist on his knee to rise.
She stepped aside so he could open the door, then walked in first—of course—with Dallas close behind her.
“It’s stocked. I had someone deliver food. The phone works, I made sure so you can check on Sam. Everyone knows how to reach us.” He patted his hip. “And I have my pager.”
While she took in the space, he crossed to a room off the main she assumed was the bedroom, returning without his jacket and their backpacks.
Pausing, he braced a broad shoulder against the jamb, watching her.
Without a word, he rolled the sleeves of his flannel shirt up, revealing corded forearms and the edge of that sexy tattoo.
The cabin was small but open, the kitchen tucked along one wall, the living area gathered around a stone fireplace with a stack of kindling waiting in a yellow basket.
A worn leather sofa faced the hearth, a colorful quilt folded over one arm, and a square pine table sat near the window.
On top of it, someone had placed a bouquet of zinnias and goldenrod in a stoneware pitcher.
She stopped to smell them, glancing back at him with a smile. “Flowers?”
Dallas frowned, then reached for glasses that were most likely in his backpack. She could see him trying to figure out what to say from across the room. “They were, that is, I thought you’d like them.”
Leaning against the table, she laughed softly. “You’re nervous.”
She was, too, but she hadn’t expected him to be.
He shifted his weight, rubbed the back of his neck.
He was so adorable standing there, long, lean, lost. “I’m lots of things, Sparkle,” he finally said, his earnestness shocking her.
“I want to rip off your clothes, but I also want to get to know you, and one often precludes the other in my experience. Once I go there, with you, I’m done.
You see, I’ve never—” He blew out a breath, his smile crooked when it hit his lips.
“I’ve never really dated anyone. The other, yes, in rushed circumstances, on the run, so to speak.
Relationships that weren’t really relationships, I’m finding. No depth. This is new territory.”
Gabi imagined her son in twenty years, trying to navigate life.
She hid her amusement—because she was amused, but also captivated—by crossing to the galley kitchen, grabbing a bottle of Cabernet, and searching the top drawer for a corkscrew.
Sam always talked more if she wasn’t looking him dead in the face.
“Here’s how we’ll handle this, Hotshot. You start a fire, the evening will be cool enough for one, put something mellow on the CD player I see over there, while I rustle up dinner. Then we’ll eat, drink, talk, fuck. In that order. Several times for the last one, I’m thinking.”
He choked, coming off the doorjamb. “Sure, yeah…okay, sure.”
She heard him cross to the fireplace, then the dry scrape of wood being shifted.
“And, hey, Wilder?”
Gabi looked over, bottle balanced on her thigh, corkscrew in deep, to find Dallas standing in the fading sunlight slanting through the window, a split log in his hand. He was gorgeous and so earnest, nearly perfect. She’d never known a man who didn’t play games. “I’m really glad I came home.”
Her breath seized, leaving only a blood rush in her ears. Love struck her. Cleanly. Clearly. A sharp squeeze she’d never forget.
Later, she would figure out what to do about it.