Hiding in Plain Sight

by Hornbuckle, J. A.

  Of all the things he could've said or done in reaction to my words, none shocked me more than him breaking out into laughter. Not just a chuckle or a smirk, but a head pointed straight up, braying into the night sky, full-on laugh. I didn't think what I'd said was funny in the least, so I just sat, waiting for him to get his shit under control.

  I saw him wipe his eyes with a corner of his t-shirt sleeve as the barks of his merriment slowed, which took more than a few minutes. Minutes that I used to gather up all the paper, metal and plastic from our meal and take to the nearest trash can.

  "Peeps?" he said with a chuckle when I sat back down at the table. "No, I do not think so."

  Okay, he maybe one of the most gorgeous things I'd ever seen, and I admit that he seemed to have the 4-1-1 on how to keep a girl safe and out of the public eye, but he was really starting to piss me off. True, I hadn't trusted him at all, mainly because of his gender in the beginning. But at his words, that distrust had started to morph into good old fashioned shut-the-fuck-up anger.

  "You don't believe me?" I asked with as much outrage as I could, considering, once again, he had caught me in a lie. As stated, I'm not a very good at the prevarication stuff.

  His eyes again zeroed on mine and all traces of humor were gone from his face as he shook his head 'no'.

  "Which part?" I pushed. I needed to know so I could back pedal as fast as my legs, erm, my mouth could work.

  "All of it," he said finally after letting me stew and squiggle under his unwavering stare. "Let's start at the beginning. What is your name?"

  "Ah…uhm," I began trying to remember what name I'd given him earlier. I always tried to keep the first letter the same, but I couldn't dredge up the one I'd given him before. Remy? Roxy? Reina? Rita?

  "Look at me, please," he barked on a low note. "I asked for your name, which should not be a difficult question. Not for someone that just needs a place to sleep so she can call her people to resolve her 'problem'." The bastard even used his fingers for air quotes over the word problem.

  I snapped my eyes back to his and saw his were guarded. He was on to me, and I couldn't shake him off.

  "Your name?" he prompted, breaking the silence that had descended. A silence that wasn't comfortable in the least. "And the truth this time."

  I stared at him, doing a bit of measuring and assessing myself.

  Could I trust him?

  I reviewed the hours I'd been with him, trying to find a chink or a crack in any of our interactions that showed me he was looking to profit from my 'problem'. The way he'd held me during my freak-out over the storm was the part that swayed me as well as the bit at the truck stop in hiding my hair.

  While I couldn't trust him completely, I was willing to take a small risk.

  "Reese," I said finally, and I felt the tension in my shoulders release a bit as I spoke. "I won't give you my last name, but my real, first name is Reese."

  "Reese," he repeated and I loved the little burr on the 'R' when he said my name. The way he said it made my plain, old everyday first name sound sexy and mysterious.

  "Yeah," I said, ducking my head and tucking my hands between my knees. This honesty shit was scary.

  "Are you running, Reese?" he asked with a head tilt.

  "Yeah," I admitted quietly, feeling my heart beat hard within my chest. I still wasn't 100% sure he wasn't working for him, even though Bayco was way better than any of the others that I'd had run-ins with before.

  "Do you need help?" he asked, his voice almost a low growl in the quiet of the park. I turned my head and saw the baseball game was breaking up. This question was harder to answer than the other ones. But it wasn't me asking him for help. Rather it was him asking if he could help me.

  A big difference.

  Huge in the fact that for once in my life, someone other than my mama was trying to give aid. And it was a man who was doing the asking. In my life, in the few times I'd actually tried to request it, I'd either been laughed at or found that the male version of help only seemed to help them—never me.

  I swallowed thickly before I nodded, crossing my fingers underneath the table.

  He blinked slowly. "I want to hear the words, Reese."

  "I need help, Bayco," I muttered.

  "How old are you, draga?" he asked, his voice still quiet and deep.

  "Twenty-one and what's that name you called me? That 'draga' thingie?" I answered and glanced at his face, catching his look of doubt. "What? You don't believe me? It's the truth!"

  "You look and act so much younger," he said thoughtfully after a thorough study of my face. "Since you seem unsure of your name, I gave you one of my own."

  I let what he said settle around me and felt my eyes narrow as I thought.

  "How old are you, then?" I asked and felt my chin jut at my question, making it more like a challenge.

  "Twenty-five," he answered without hesitation and without breaking eye contact.

  It was my turn to be shocked. He was only twenty-five? No, that couldn't be right. I studied his face. Maybe it wasn't so much his looks that made me think he was so much older. His attitude? His calm, his control, in spite of everything?

  "I, ah, I thought you were a lot older," I stammered. He lifted one eyebrow in question. "Not, like, old-old But you know, like thirty-old."

  I got a dual eyebrow lift at my explanation. I decided to shut up since I was only making it worse as I tried to explain. At that, the lights, which had dimly lit our wooden rectangle, went out.

  I heard him sigh from across the table as my eyes tried to adjust. All I could see was the shadow of him in the street lights that encircled the park.

  "I am tired, Reese, although I need to get home quickly. We will find a place to stay and sleep for a few hours. Then we will continue our journey and our talk," he said and I could hear the exhaustion in his voice.

  Hey, wait a second.

  Who was he to be making decisions about what 'we' were going to do? As a matter of fact, when did the two of us become a 'we' anyway? I opened my mouth to disagree but before I could, he spoke over me and my mutinous thoughts.

  "Please do not argue with me, Reese. I am tired and sore and short-tempered."

  Although I wanted to say a lot more, I shut my mouth and simply followed him to the motorcycle.

  My arguments could wait for another time.

  Chapter Five

  He blinked at the sunlight which beamed through a crack in the dusty curtain of the cheap motel room. He closed his eyes tightly as he turned to get away from it and bumped up against another body lying next to him.

  What the… oh yeah. The girl. Renee or Reese or whatever.

  He cracked an eye and saw she was on her stomach, her hands over her head, still asleep, if her deep breathing was any indication. He rolled onto his back with his eyes shut and lifted a hip to grab his phone from his back pocket, but his fingers only grazed a boxer covered butt-cheek. He remembered climbing into bed with his leather pants still on but must have removed them at some point. Since they were uncomfortable enough when he used them for these trips, he wasn't surprised he'd removed them to sleep.

  He did another half-roll and found them in a pile on the floor.

  His cellphone, when he'd finally freed it from the deep, back pocket, read 7:40 a.m.

  Shit.

  He'd only meant for them to sleep for a couple of hours, take a shower, eat and be on the road before the sun came up. It was important that he be back in Missoula before anyone in the crew he'd been assigned was aware of his absence. But without setting the alarm, his body had followed a different plan.

  He jack-knifed up and swung his long legs to the side of the bed before glancing back at the feminine form spread out beside him. She'd kicked a leg outside of the sheets, giving him an unimpeded view of a tight tank shirt and a pair of stretchy shorts which were pulled tautly over a very curvy ass cheek. Her exposed leg was just as intriguing, the smoothness of her plump thigh and shapely calf, glowing in the mor
ning light.

  She was, he decided, beautiful. But she was a pain in his ass with her secrets and her lies.

  He turned back towards the front and looked at his bare toes as they stretched in the thin shag carpet of the cheap room. He could leave right now. He could just put on his leathers, his boots and just walk outside the door without a backward glance. He had other things in his life, more important things, which affected so many other people, that he could put this behind him. Could let her call her 'peeps' to get her away from the trouble she had. The trouble she was determined to run from but unwilling to speak about.

  He couldn't help but smile as he remembered her avowing she would be okay. Experience, experience in two different, dissimilar countries had taught him differently.

  He glanced back at her. No, he wouldn't leave without her, no matter how many suspicions his absence caused or the peril it might put him in.

  Standing, he made his way to the bathroom. He'd shower, dress and then wake her, giving her privacy to do the same as he fetched breakfast.

  Which was the plan. It was a good plan, a safe plan.

  Until you added Reese to the plan.

  He couldn't hold back his sigh as he realized she was a lot more trouble than he'd planned for when he had simply stopped to help a stranded motorist.

  *.*.*.*.*

  I woke up in a foul mood, which was probably a carry-over from the argument of the night before when I'd found he'd only gotten us a double room.

  A double room with a king-size bed.

  Even though I had been tired and saddle-sore, or maybe because I was tired and saddle-sore, I let him have it with both barrels. I yelled about his high-handed ways, his demands, and his constant questions. I called him names, awful names. I shouted again and again that he was not my keeper, that I didn't need his help.

  All through my one-sided argument, he'd calmly removed his jacket, boots and socks before whipping off the bedspread and stretching out on the bed, one muscled arm behind his head with one foot still on the floor. He watched me, his eyes following me as I paced and ranted. I was bending over him, a hand on a hip, the other pointed in his face when he ended the argument in his own plain-speaking, succinct way.

  "I do not want to fuck you, Reese," he said slowly as he grabbed my finger and moved it aside.

  Wait…what?

  The abrupt change in the conversation, disrupting my temper tantrum, must've shown on my face.

  "Do what you need to do before sleep and get into bed. We only have a few hours before we leave again," he murmured, his face expressionless.

  Whoa. I hadn't even gone down the whole 'this man wants to do me' road when I'd been yelling. It hadn't really even crossed my mind. Sure, I was attracted to him, but sex was the last thing in my head. I was, I admit, only pissed because I hadn't gotten a say in the decision regarding the room. Which may have been my last resistance to me buying in to the notion he was going to really help me escape.

  Man, did I feel stupid.

  It wasn't until I was clinging to the edge of the bed, trying to stay as far away from him as possible that I realized I was a little bit hurt. He didn't want me like that, not like a hot guy would want a hot girl. But I was hot. I'd been told I was one of the best looking girls in our town. Even the man I was running from called me beautiful.

  But Bayco didn't want me.

  I reviewed the day we'd spent together and saw that he'd never done the stuff I knew men do when they're interested in a woman. In fact, if it wasn't for the crazy eye stares, he treated me like an extended family member. Although, he had said my hair was beautiful when we'd been at that truck stop.

  I shifted on the bed, trying to get comfortable in both body and thoughts. I knew he hadn't seen me at my best, more like a ratty mess with an attitude to match, but I wasn't a complete cave-girl. I could clean up to confidently call myself passably-pretty. But I was a live, breathing female with more curves than most.

  Why didn't he want me?

  It didn't make a lick of sense. The worrying on it and him followed me down into sleep, creating a different level of both mad and hurt, which may or may not have contributed to the following morning.

  I hadn't really planned to take off.

  It was just an opportunity I couldn't pass up after I'd finally become fully awake in the shower. He'd said something about going to get breakfast and it occurred to me that it was the perfect chance for the dynamic duo to part ways.

  I quickly dressed and pulled my still damp hair in a ponytail before adding a plain baseball cap. With my heavy backpack, purse draped in the cross-body position and sunglasses in hand, I made short work of leaving the small motel. I didn't know where exactly I was going to go; I just didn't want to be around when he got back. I know I stood on the sidewalk, watching the vehicles pass, for a while. I just didn't know which direction to go.

  The road our motel was on seemed to be the main drag in town and, as such, had a fair amount of traffic. I saw a lot of pickups, that I took to be the local's preferred mode of transportation. It was the huge semi-trucks that interested me the most.

  Big trucks meant long distance drivers, right?

  I'd never hitchhiked before and the thought of doing so made my heart beat fast. But I couldn't think of any other way to get out of town at the moment. We were so far off the beaten path, I was sure we were beyond a Greyhound or Amtrak route.

  Taking a deep breath, I turned around and started walking backward, holding my thumb out. I got a lot of visual attention and even a couple of horn bleeps as I walked, but no vehicle stopped. Perhaps I needed to get further out of town or on a different road before I could catch a ride. I had only gone maybe fifty yards from the driveway from where we'd slept, when I heard his motorcycle.

  I whipped around when I caught a glimpse of him flipping a bitch in the middle of the busy street and tried to walk faster. Peripherally, I saw the matte black and gold machine pull beside me.

  "Oh, hell," I yelled, so frustrated I could've cried.

  "Get on the bike," he shouted. I wasn't sure if he was shouting to be heard or shouting because he was pissed.

  I stopped and turned around to glare at him. What was his problem? It couldn't be me because I'd never even laid eyes on him before yesterday. Just to get this point across, I shot up the middle fingers of both hands as I again began to step backwards.

  "Get on the fucking bike," he shouted again, and I saw his cheeks were bright red with anger in the open visor.

  Glancing at the traffic behind him, I stuck out my thumb determined to catch a ride from anyone but him.

  But then, I saw it. A very clean, very shiny navy sedan was moving slowly in our direction. In the sea of pickups and semi-trucks, the sedan stood out.

  Uh-oh, my mind screamed.

  Wasting no time, I ran to Bayco and swung a leg over but not before catching a look of utter surprise on his face at my quick movements. I jerked my head around to assess the progress of the other car, but I couldn't see it now. I slapped my hands on Bayco's shoulders while shrieking, "go, go, go!" and he didn't disappoint. I was wrapping my arms around his waist and scooting my ass closer to him on the seat as the bike took off like a shot.

  He wove us in and out of traffic, his head swiveling to the side mirrors as we moved. He maneuvered around, passing the slower vehicles on both the left and the right side of the lane. He did sharp, right hand turns, gunning the bike, getting more speed on some of the straight streets and dragging his boot lightly on the sharper curves. I was hanging on for dear life, but my head was wrenched over my shoulder to keep an eye on the car that seemed to follow our every move. Finally, after zipping down some residential alleyways, the car was no longer in sight. Bayco slowed the bike but continued to meander through the housing development until he turned onto one of the county roads, where the motorcycle began eating up the miles.

  I kept turning back to keep an eye out for the car I'd seen But after about the fourth time, I felt Bayco's hand
on my thigh to steady me.

  "Stay forward," he yelled over the wind and the deep throb of the engine. I tucked my cheek between his shoulder blades and resolved not to look back.

  Chapter Six

  Brand bit into the oversized burger, which had come in a paper lined plastic basket, the juices almost dripping off his chin. As he reached for napkins, he glanced at the wind-blown beauty across the table from him.

  They'd traveled for hours, eating the food he'd purchased for breakfast while still on the move. Absolutely not stopping until their bladders, the gas gauge or their stomachs demanded it. In spite of all the miles though, she still was a vision. There was something about her big dark eyes and full lips, framed by all that amazing hair that captivated him. Not to mention, even after all that time on the road, she still looked and smelled fresh, clean and good.

  And it had too long since he'd had any of the latter in his life.

  "We need to talk," he said around another mouthful of the succulent burger.

  "Yeah?" he heard her ask before she turned her eyes to the diner's window as she nibbled on a crisp, thin fry.

  "Why did you leave this morning?" he asked slowly.

  Her reply was a shrug as her eyes dropped to the burger she'd cut into quarters in order to fit in her hands. "Just needed to be on the road, I guess."

  He knew it was a bullshit answer but was willing to let her have her play on it, especially when he remembered being handed his ass in the hotel room the night before.

  "Then why did you get on my bike so quickly?" was his next question.

  "Uh, I thought I…" her husky, sexy voice trailed off. He waited in case she was actually going to say something of significance.

  "I saw them, too. Before I turned around to get to you, I saw them," he said, finally, shoving the last bite of the tasty burger in his mouth and studiously wiping his hands and mouth on a napkin. "The navy, four-door sedan, correct?"