There was no way she was going to admit it, though. Not after telling him she wasn’t a whiner. Against the journey still ahead of them, a few hours in the car was nothing.
“Did you fall asleep over there again?”
“No, I’m not asleep.” She’d only dozed off for a few minutes before they’d started playing the guessing game. “I was thinking.”
His chuckle was barely audible.
“Could it fit in the front seat of this car?”
This time, the chuckle was a little louder. “Pretty sure nothing else could fit in the front seat of this car besides us. But yes.”
She looked out the window. They’d already crossed the border into Oregon. Five states yet to go. She’d toed off her shoes and propped her bare feet on the dashboard. “Is it something everybody owns?”
“Nope.”
She wiggled her foot. He’d stumped her on Benjamin Franklin, and then on Niagara Falls. She really didn’t want to lose a third time, particularly when it had been her idea to play the game in the first place. Did that mean she had a competitive streak in her somewhere?
You ran in track meets, didn’t you?
“Is it something you own?”
Even in the dwindling light, she caught the look he gave her.
“Right.” Silly question. How would she know what he did or did not own nowadays? Their “not really serious” had been a decade before. “What question was that? My fifth?”
“Yeah, but I’ll give you that one.” He angled his shoulders against the back of the seat as though he was trying to stretch. “You can ask something else.”
“You don’t have to drive all the way through the night, you know. Just because I’m anxious to get to—”
“Are you going to ask a question or are you giving up?”
“I don’t give up.”
But you did. You gave up your own child.
She shifted herself, as if she could mentally stretch herself away from that fact.
All she ended up doing was pressing her arm against his where they both rested on the too-narrow console. She pulled her feet down from the dashboard and sat up straighter, putting a quick end to the warmth of his forearm burning through her cotton sleeve.
Her gaze fell on his cell phone where he’d dumped it in one of the cup holders between them. While they’d navigated their way out of Seattle, it had intoned directions. Now, with only the highway stretching out endlessly before them, it was silent. “Is it something high tech?”
“No. Old tech if anything. Way old.”
He was giving her hints, now. He’d probably tired of the game within minutes of agreeing. But she hadn’t been able to find a radio station and the sound of the tires on the road hadn’t been enough to silence the worries bouncing around inside her head.
Truth was, she was tired, too. Not of the silly little game. But of sitting on her rear end, trying to keep herself from leaning naturally toward him. Of trying to stop herself from letting her arm rest against his, where it kept wanting to go.
“I don’t know.” She guessed wildly. “The Mona Lisa?”
He was silent for half a second before he gave a laugh. “For a wild-ass guess, that’s pretty good. Yes. The thing I was thinking of is the Mona Lisa.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re making that up.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“I have the feeling you were never a Boy Scout.”
“And you’d be wrong.” He stretched again, grimacing a little. “I need to get out of this car for a few minutes.” They’d left behind anything approaching traffic two hours ago. He slowed and pulled well off on the shoulder, checked his mirror, then got out of the car.
She watched him walk around to the weedy sage-colored grass on her side of the car. Facing away from her, looking out into the distance ahead.
What he could see was anyone’s guess.
He rolled his head around a few times, propped his hands on his lean hips and stood there, looking tall and broad and so strangely alone that her throat got tight.
She blamed it on tiredness. She’d had more activity that day than she’d had since BA.
She rubbed her eyes and tugged at the cuff of her sleeve.
Then he was opening the car door and climbing back inside.
As soon as he was buckled in, they were off once more. “We’re stopping at the next town we come to,” he said. “Don’t care how big or small.”
They hadn’t seen a road sign for miles. But she wasn’t going to argue. Not that he’d asked her opinion. “Okay.” She started to reach for the radio dial but made herself stop. She didn’t want to annoy him by hunting for something besides static.
But he seemed to recognize her aborted movement. “Go ahead. See if we’re close enough to anywhere to actually pick up a signal.”
“Where’s satellite radio when you need it, right?” She didn’t need any second urging and began slowly turning the dial. She’d already learned the usual seek button skimmed right on past the weaker stations. “Feels like that old Chevy you had before you put in a radio.” She passed the faintest blip of music and turned the dial back again, trying to capture it. But it was too elusive and she continued hunting. “And then Kane borrowed the car for some reason—”
“He needed wheels so he could go see a girl.”
“—and the radio got stolen anyway.” A burst of country music suddenly exploded from the speakers. “Yes. Hello.” Supremely satisfied with herself, as if she were personally responsible for the reception, she adjusted the volume slightly before sitting back and grinning at him.
He was staring fixedly through the windshield and his long fingers looked tight on the steering wheel.
Her pleasure dimmed. “What?”
He shook his head slightly. The sun was hovering just above the horizon, perfectly etching his strong profile against the gentle rolling hills whizzing past. “It was a good car, radio or no radio. Got me to work on time. School on time.”
“And it had more leg room than—” Realization dawned. She exhaled and closed her eyes. “I’ve done it again.”
“So?”
She looked at him. “So it’s unsettling. It reminds me I have no control over my mind.”
“Do any of us?” He seemed to deliberately loosen his grip on the wheel. “You remember what color that car was?”
“Something hideous, I think.”
The corner of his lips kicked up and a small slashing dimple appeared in his lean cheek.
And all of a sudden, she found it hard to breathe. He really was too beautiful for any man to be. But what made her breathless wasn’t the physical perfection of him. It was something else.
Something deeper.
Was it serious?
“Puke green,” he said.
“Chartreuse,” she corrected. Cobbling her wits together took effort. “A perfectly wonderful color—”
“—except on that car.”
She could see it so clearly in her mind. Parked at the curb in front of her... Her what? “Did I live in a dorm?”
“You had your own apartment when we met.”
She could feel something about that hovering on the edges. Something she couldn’t quite grasp. But the harder she tried, the more elusive it became, making it as unreachable as recalling if she had been serious about him, but he hadn’t been serious about her.
So she thought about the car instead. A much safer focus. “Did you—” she’d almost said we “—take any road trips in that car?”
“Toronto a few times. Finger Lakes. No place further than the Adirondacks.”
“No cross-country trips like this, then.” Technically, she supposed Seattle to Texas wasn’t all the way across the country, but it surely classified as more than halfway.
“Not in that car, that�
�s for sure. This’ll be the longest haul for me.” He waited a beat. “First long road trip I ever made was last year. Kane and my dad and me. Buffalo to Paseo, Texas.”
“I’d say I’ve never heard of it, but—” She spread her hands.
That dimple peeked out again to express a wealth of wryness. “That’s not because of the amnesia. It’s a seriously tiny town that most people probably hadn’t even heard of until last year.”
She twisted in her seat so she could face him more fully. “What happened last year?”
He didn’t answer right away. And when he did, she couldn’t shake the sense that he’d been on the verge of saying something else. “You know what Robinson Tech is?”
She hadn’t forgotten common, everyday things. “Of course.” The company name was synonymous with the word “computer.” Maybe she’d even had one of its devices with her and lost it in the car accident.
“The founder of that company turned out to be my dad’s half brother. Gerald Robinson. He got married in Paseo. Last June.” His gaze slid over her briefly before turning back to the road. “Made the news despite his plans to keep it on the down low when his ex tried to kidnap the bride during the wedding.”
“Good grief! Was everyone all right?”
“Everyone except his ex-wife. She’s in a psychiatric hospital now.”
“Not your ordinary wedding excitement.” She was less interested in that than she was in what he’d said about “turned out to be.” “You didn’t know Gerald Robinson was your uncle?”
“Nope. We didn’t know. My father didn’t know. There are other half-brothers, too, and they didn’t know. None of them knew each other existed. Had no clue that their father, Julius, had been sowing his oats when he was married to Gerald’s mom.”
“Talk about family secrets.”
He made a grunt of agreement.
The distinctive shape of a road sign loomed closer.
Salt Lake City, Utah. 530 miles.
“Well, that’s useful,” Laurel commented as they whizzed past the sign. “What about how many miles to somewhere a little closer?”
His thumb was tapping the steering wheel, keeping time with Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” on the radio. “There’s bound to be another little town soon.”
True. They’d been passing them like tiny gemstones spaced out on a very long gold chain.
“What happened to the chartreuse car?”
His thumb paused. “Sold it after graduation.”
It made no sense to feel sad about that. But she did.
They passed several more mile markers and she caught herself when her head started nodding. She sat up straighter again, mentally shaking off the clinging drowsiness. “You made it up that you were thinking of the Mona Lisa.”
“Nope.”
She let out a breath. “What on earth even made you think of a painting like that?”
“First game of Twenty Questions we ever played. It was the object you chose.”
Disarmed, she couldn’t manage a response to save her life. Instead, she just sat there, blinking.
He slowed then and took an exit. The headlights swept over the sign bearing hotel and food symbols.
As if on cue, her stomach rumbled softly. Hollowly. “Did I win that game?”
He stopped at an intersection and turned where the sign indicated. “You always won.”
He sounded vaguely disgruntled over that fact and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
He followed the signs, but it was fully dark by the time they reached the small town of Buckingham, which, despite its grand name, seemed to possess only a single street and a handful of buildings.
“Okaaay,” he murmured as they passed a gas station-combination-post-office on one block. Then another block that seemed comprised of ancient storefronts, all of which looked abandoned. The third block was more promising, with a tall Eat Here sign blinking next to the road.
He turned into the driveway and the tires crunched over gravel. She was surprised at the number of motorcycles and vehicles lined up in the lot.
“It’s a promising sign, right?”
He found a space in the rear of the lot between an ancient pickup truck and four Harleys and he turned off the engine. It ticked slightly. “Or it simply means there’s no other option.” He got out of the car and headed around to open her door while she was still tying her tennis shoes.
“It’s dark,” he cautioned when she got out beside him. “And if it turns out to be a biker bar, we’re leaving.”
“Wouldn’t you protect me?”
“Always.”
Her question had been light.
His answer was flat.
Then his hand settled on the small of her back and warmth bloomed inside her, weeding out the sprouts of unease.
They crossed the gravel and went up two wooden steps where a small deck crammed with tables was full of men and women dressed in leather and riding jackets.
She felt every eye following her and Adam.
She also felt him looming even closer to her and the warmth of his body burned through her blouse.
Then the beefiest of the bikers nodded his head once, making his wiry red hair bounce where it jutted from beneath the bandanna. He offered an unexpected smile. “Evenin’. Welcome to Ed’s.”
She felt Adam relax, but only slightly. He returned the greeting, though, and she offered a quick smile before he nudged her through the door with “Ed’s” painted by hand on the front of it.
The interior of the establishment was much larger than the deck and was just as crowded. But in addition to bikers, there were several families—one even with a baby in a high chair.
Adam’s hand fell away from her spine, while she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the baby. Wispy blond hair. Toothless smile as he—she was only assuming that based on the baseball-patterned shirt—waved fat little hands around, scattering the bits of food that were on the tray of his high chair.
What did Linus look like? Did he have baby-soft brown hair like hers? Or did he look like his father? Were his eyes blue? Although, weren’t all babies’ eyes blue at first?
When she’d been carrying her baby, had she bothered to learn those kinds of things? Or had she been planning how to escape from motherhood altogether?
“Hungry?” Adam’s voice drifted over her temple.
She had been. She made herself nod anyway.
Then a harried-looking woman in tight jeans and an even tighter T-shirt waved them to the far corner. “Jen’ll be with you in a minute.”
They’d just wedged themselves into the chairs on either side of a small table when another woman—younger, but flaunting the same taste in clothes—brought them a laminated menu. “I’m Jen. You’ll have t’ share this menu. Busy tonight because of the military veterans ride.” She pulled a well-used notepad out of her back pocket and poised a chewed pencil over it. “We got beer on tap and wine out of a box. No liquor. Fresh lemonade’s gone but we got plenty of tea and soda. What’ll it be?”
“Water,” Laurel ordered.
“What’s on tap?”
Jen seemed to sigh a little but reeled off a bunch of names. “All local brews.”
“I’ll take the porter.”
Without a word, she turned on her heel and walked away.
“Pleasant,” Laurel murmured wryly.
“Too many patrons. Not enough staff.” Adam angled the menu so they could both look at it, though he seemed to spend more time studying the rest of the customers than the food selections.
“That’s right.” Her eyes strayed to the baby across the room. Beneath the cacophony of the Rolling Stones on the speakers, voices and the clatter of plates, she imagined she could still hear his babbling chatter. She dragged her attention back to the laminated sheet Adam held. “You
said you used to work at a restaurant.”
“Still do.” The waitress returned and plunked a glass of water with an ice cube bobbing in it on the table and handed him an overflowing mug before unloading the rest of her tray on the table next to them. “I just manage one now.” He caught her expression. “What?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head slightly. “It doesn’t sound quite...right.”
“I assure you, it is.” He let go of the menu and swiped a long finger across the top of his mug, taking a swath of foam along the way. He flicked it onto the floor that didn’t look as though it would suffer greatly, then took a drink. “Pretty good.” He sipped again. “Actually, really good.”
Tension seemed to ease from his wide shoulders as he set the glass on the postage stamp of a table.
The scent of the hamburgers from the adjacent table tempted Laurel’s appetite back to life. She quit looking at the few choices for salads and focused on the considerably wider selection of hot sandwiches. “Feel better?”
“Getting out of the car makes things better. A better-than-decent beer doesn’t hurt, either. Give it a try. See what you think.”
She shook her head. “I don’t drink beer.”
He looked up. The lighting inside Ed’s didn’t provide a great deal of illumination and it cast everyone in a reddish glow. “Since when?”
“Since I—” She broke off, vaguely consternated. “You said that on purpose.”
He looked amused and turned his attention back to the menu.
She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Maybe that’s upsetting to me. Pointing out details I should know.”
“But you’re not upset,” he observed smoothly. “Maybe a little aggravated, but not upset.”
She narrowed her eyes and snatched up the glass, taking a quick swig. Fully prepared to dislike it.
Fully chagrined to realize she didn’t.
His eyebrow peaked slightly when she set the glass back on the table with a thunk. “Told you.”
She huffed and crossed her arms again. “When you’re able to tell me something really useful about myself—like why I walked away from my own child and the man I was supposedly going to marry—you let me know.”
The Texan's Baby Bombshell Page 8
