Ride with Me

by Ruthie Knox

  She didn’t have the first clue how to cope with him.

  He broke the standoff first. Running a hand over his close-cropped black hair, he took a few steps away from her and turned his attention past the parking lot to the beach. Not leaving—regrouping. Yet even this hint of his possible departure made her nervous.

  Whatever happened, she couldn’t let him get away.

  “Your sister?” she asked, hoping to elicit a fuller explanation.

  “Yeah.”

  That was it, just the one syllable. For crying out loud. She’d arranged to bike across the country with the most taciturn man in Oregon.

  It’s either this guy, or you ride alone.

  An option, but not a good one. Lexie had done the woman-camping-alone thing enough times to know her limits. It was one thing to be a strong, independent woman on the streets of Portland and quite another to fall asleep alone in a tent in the middle of nowhere without worrying about ax murderers. She could do it—she had done it—but she’d strongly prefer not to.

  Of course, Tom was a stranger, too, with as much ax-murderer potential as the next guy. Still, you had to choose your risks, didn’t you? Even in his obviously aggravated state, he didn’t feel dangerous, and at least he was a biker. She knew his name and where he lived. He worried her considerably less than the alternative.

  Lexie didn’t have the luxury of blowing Tom off. She needed to figure out what his problem was so she could fix it.

  “She … tricked you into this?” He hadn’t said exactly that, but he was standing there with his arms crossed, frowning at the Pacific, and he had the look of a man who’d been outmaneuvered.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Two syllables. Score!

  It wasn’t funny—though she had to admit this thing with Tom had all the makings of a farce. For months, she’d exchanged guilty, careful e-mails with him, avoiding any hint of personal detail lest he ask her some question that forced her to come right out and admit she was a woman. Now it seemed she needn’t have bothered with all that self-recrimination, because the “Tom” she’d been planning the trip with wasn’t Tom any more than the “Alex” his sister must have pictured was Lexie.

  Which meant that this Tom—the real one—had been played by two women. No wonder he was grumpy.

  Probably she ought to apologize for her part in the charade, but she doubted it would help. And anyway, it wasn’t as though she’d lied to the man. I’m easy to get along with and am looking forward to a grand adventure! E-mail TransAmAlex@gmail.com. No outright deception there. Only a single—albeit critical—omission.

  And she hadn’t even done it on purpose. Not at first. Until the e-mail responses started to arrive, she hadn’t realized she’d left her name off the Adventure Cycling ad. Unfortunately, when her correspondents found out “TransAmAlex” was a twenty-nine-year-old woman, they’d backed out. Four of them, one right after the other. Apparently, the wives and girlfriends of the nation’s intrepid adventurers didn’t want their menfolk crossing the country with a strange woman. In the end, she’d quit mentioning her complicating gender altogether, assuming she could talk her way into her companion’s good graces once they’d met face-to-face.

  It had all sounded better in theory. The reality of Tom was rather discouraging.

  “So what’s the plan?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “You know, it would help a lot if you would speak.” And say more than three words at a time when you do.

  With a sigh, he said, “I want to do the TransAm by myself, but my sister thought I needed a partner, so she set me up with Alex Marshall, who is apparently you.”

  “Why’d she think you need a partner?”

  “She doesn’t want me to die in a ditch and rot unmourned.”

  Had that been humor? She couldn’t tell. Tom’s expression didn’t really suggest he had it in him.

  “Sounds like a good sister.” Her parents and her brother, James, had made pretty much the same argument in favor of her finding someone to ride with.

  “Yeah. But she’s a pushy pain in the ass.”

  She’d have to be, to boss you around. Lexie practiced diplomacy and kept the thought to herself. “Okay, so I’m not sure I’m getting the full picture. You didn’t choose to be here, but you are here. And you don’t want to ride with me because …”

  “Because I don’t want to spend the summer dissecting your relationship problems and fixing your flat tires and cheering you up the passes.”

  His casual misogyny rendered her temporarily speechless. “Wow,” she said after she’d recovered. “Don’t pull your punches on my account, Tom.”

  “I don’t pull punches on anybody’s account.”

  Lexie took a deep breath and let it out slowly, gazing past him to the ocean. This wasn’t working. It really wasn’t even coming close.

  But the thing was, it had to work, because she didn’t have a backup plan. It wasn’t as though Tom had been her first choice. Until last summer, she’d planned to do the trip with her brother. Then he’d gone and married a woman who didn’t ride, and Lexie had decided to take on the TransAm solo.

  Only, her family had hated that idea, and she’d had second thoughts of her own. She’d hoped to find a woman to ride with, but the pool of ads was small, and no other woman had advertised for a west-to-east TransAm companion this summer—nor had anyone female responded to Lexie’s ad.

  Really, Tom was her fourth choice. How pathetic to think she’d been reduced, on Day One of the TransAm, to clinging to her fourth-best hope for companionship.

  “Well, here’s the deal,” she said. “You don’t have to talk to me, and you don’t have to ride with me. Just because I advertised for a companion doesn’t mean I need help fixing flats. I can handle any pass that comes along without you holding my hand, and I can save my womanly yammering for someone who’ll appreciate it. All I want from you is a warm body to pitch my tent next to at night.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with you, either,” Tom replied, flat and condemning.

  Damn, what was it about being twenty-nine and in possession of ovaries that made everyone assume you were desperate for a man? Her friends fixed her up with earnest pharmacist types who wanted to discuss the compatibility of their Life Goals, which interested her not at all, and now she was stuck with Tom, who apparently translated “ride with me” as “fix my flat tires and service my delicate lady parts.”

  She couldn’t win.

  The worst thing was, he was such an obnoxiously attractive man. The Tom Geiger in her mind’s eye had looked exactly like her father. And okay, maybe that hadn’t been very realistic, but who’d have predicted this guy with the south-of-the-border complexion, the black hair, and the chocolate eyes? Who’d have expected him to have a jaw you could crack walnuts on, or those long, thick eyelashes that would’ve looked girly on a less masculine face?

  And then there was his body. The man had a serious Lance Armstrong thing going on under his T-shirt. His muscled forearms alone were drool-worthy, and the wide black bands tattooed around both of his biceps made him look dangerous and interesting, as if he had hidden depths.

  Too bad his hidden depths concealed piranhas.

  No doubt Tom Geiger was some women’s dream guy, but he wasn’t hers. With two broken engagements behind her, Lexie had given up on dream guys a few years back. These days, all her fantasies had wheels.

  “Are you going to be like this all the time?” she asked.

  “I just meant—”

  “Yeah, I heard you. And my husband will be so relieved when I pass that information along.”

  She gave herself a pat on the back for the brilliant improvisation. Sex problem: solved.

  The furrow between Tom’s eyebrows deepened, and his eyes skipped to her right hand. “You don’t have a ring,” he observed.

  “And you don’t have an ounce of tact.”

  His lips twitched. “True.”

  At least he knew. It made him marginal
ly less awful. “What do you say we lay our cards on the table?”

  A curt nod.

  “You seem about as eager to ride with me as I am to ride with you.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “But I don’t think it’s a great idea for me to do this trip by myself.”

  Another nod, which she hadn’t expected. She’d thought he might make her explain. But then again, Tom had a sister. Maybe he understood.

  “All I want is for you to camp where I camp and call my family if I have some kind of horrible accident.”

  The pause before he answered couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but it was long enough for Lexie to give up. She’d be okay until she found a substitute for Tom. She was a people person by nature, and she definitely preferred company, but she could satisfy her need for conversation by talking to folks she met along the way. As for the nights in the tent, she had a book, and she could always read until she got so tired that—

  “Fine,” he said, interrupting her internal pep talk. “But the second I find you somebody else to ride with, I’m taking off.”

  A weight lifted from her shoulders. Strange that she should be so pleased to be granted his company, considering how little she liked him. But then, she’d planned to ride with Tom Geiger, and she always hated to change her plans. “Works for me. So can we dip the wheels and get started already? I want to get to Garibaldi today.”

  With that deep frown between his eyebrows, Tom shook his head and said, “Knock yourself out.”

  Lexie pushed her bike across the sand, wishing she’d thought to unhook the trailer first. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to shove a fully loaded touring bike across loose sand. It was surprisingly difficult, actually. But she was going to dip her wheel in the Pacific, and three months from now she’d dip it in the Atlantic. That was that.

  Tom had taken a pass. What was up with that? Everyone dipped their tire in the water. If the way this trip was starting out was any indication, he was going to be one hell of a wet blanket.

  Not that it mattered. This was her adventure, and she was going to do it her way. She’d been looking forward to this day since before the training wheels came off her first bike. She and James had grown up on the stories of their parents’ TransAm adventures. In the summer of ’76, Mom and Dad and thousands of other Americans had dusted off their ten-speeds, thrown on some knee socks, and joined the cross-country party on wheels known as Bikecentennial. Having met in the saddle somewhere in Kansas, the Marshalls had been inseparable ever since.

  For as long as she could remember, Lexie had wanted to retrace that journey—to see the country, meet new people, and prove she had what it took to grind through the miles. If one of the forms of fortitude the TransAm required of her was putting up with Tom Geiger, so be it. There were worse things.

  She reached the surf. She dipped. She turned around. The moment lacked some of the symbolic freight she’d hoped for—her tire-dipping daydreams hadn’t included the dead-seaweed smell of the surf or the raucous shrieks of gulls circling overhead—and she had to work hard not to blame Tom for that. He wasn’t actively sucking all the fun out of the first moments of her trip. He was just standing there, silhouetted against a dramatic backdrop of oranges and reds and purples. Standing still with his arms crossed and his head down, ignoring the sunrise and the beauty of the ocean. Scowling at the parking lot. Waiting for her.

  Lexie gave up on savoring the moment. She walked her recalcitrant bike through a wide, slow turn and pushed it back toward Angry Tom.

  “You ready?” She strapped on her helmet.

  He put his on, too, and threw a leg over his bike.

  “Let’s go.”

  Ten minutes later, with a flapping sound that only ever meant one thing, the most exciting journey of her life ground to a halt.

  She had a flat. Day One of the TransAm, and she had a freaking flat. She pulled over.

  “Sorry, I must have picked up some glass on the beach. You can go ahead, I’ll catch up later.”

  He didn’t say a word, just got off his bike and put down the kickstand. Any serious cyclist would’ve stripped that—too much extra weight. Who had a kickstand? Come to think of it, who had a bike that looked like Tom’s? It appeared to have been through several wars, in no way resembling the slick, expensive machines people usually rode when they toured. His clothes were all wrong, too. She’d been expecting someone in bike shorts and a jersey, maybe a neon-yellow raincoat to ward off the mist, and here he was wearing a faded black Nirvana T-shirt and cargo shorts.

  And then there was the hotness thing, which she needed to find a way to stop noticing. She’d just have to focus on his personality. That ought to do the trick.

  While she unhooked the trailer and flipped her bike over to balance on the seat, he stood there staring at her, making her as nervous as a virgin in the backseat of a prom limo. It actually helped a little that he was a complete asshole. She could handle assholes. As a high school English teacher, she dealt with them on a daily basis.

  She pulled off her front wheel, uncomfortably aware of Tom’s eyes on her. This was a test, then. At least she knew she could pass it. She’d changed a lot of flats over the years. Stripping the damaged tube from the tire, she inspected it but couldn’t find a puncture. A thorough scan of the tire itself finally yielded the culprit—a small protruding shard of glass.

  It was when she started rummaging around in her tail bag for a new tube that she started to get a sinking feeling in her stomach. Because this wasn’t the bike she’d been planning to bring on the trip. She’d changed her mind at the eleventh hour and switched to the Salsa, which offered fewer hand positions but was more comfortable than her designated touring bike. She’d packed the tail bag weeks ago, though, which meant she’d brought the wrong size tubes. Which meant she couldn’t change the tire.

  Which meant she was going to look like a fool in front of Tom before they’d even managed to ride two miles.

  “Bad news. I, uh, I have the wrong tubes. I need two-niner tubes, and I don’t have them, so I can’t change the flat. But listen, you go ahead, and I’ll find a bike shop. And after it opens”—in three or four hours—“I’ll buy another tube and meet up with you this afternoon.”

  “Or you could patch it.”

  Another catastrophic failure of planning. Lexie hadn’t brought a patch kit. She’d carefully considered whether she needed one and had concluded that since she was going to be carrying plenty of extra tubes, it didn’t make sense to tote a patch kit as well. Also, there was the fact that she’d never patched a tire before. The whole process had always struck her as rather arcane, and she hadn’t seen any reason to bother learning how to do it. Tubes were cheap, after all.

  “I don’t know how,” she admitted, knowing he would frown and glare at her, and that he would be justified.

  He did frown and glare at her. But then he took the tube from her and started looking for the puncture.

  “I already did that.”

  Tom ignored her. He used his hand pump to put some air in the tube, then stuck it next to his ear and turned it slowly, listening for the hiss of escaping air. Two full revolutions later, he put a little more air in the tube. And then he stuck out his tongue and licked it.

  “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer her, just kept running the tip of his tongue slowly along the rubber tube and staring at her with those intense dark eyes. And God help her, it turned her on.

  She felt her cheeks heat up and looked away, mortified. Almost thirty years old, and she was getting off on the sight of a guy licking a tube. A hot guy licking a tube, but still. She obviously needed to get out more.

  When she glanced back at him, he had his patch kit open and was using the sandpaper to rough up the rubber. Apparently he’d found the leak. With his tongue. Jesus.

  Thank goodness sex was already off the table. Considering how hot she was for her ride buddy right now, the fictitious Mr. Marshal
l might turn out to be a blessing. The catastrophe of her last failed relationship had made her more than a little wary of climbing into bed with the wrong guys, and Tom Geiger couldn’t have been more wrong if he’d tried.

  Though he was patching her tire for her.

  Tom smeared on some glue, applied the patch, and handed her the tube.

  “Hold that on there for five minutes. Then you can put it back together and pump it up.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she just pressed on the patch and waited, deeply uncomfortable. So far, her grand adventure was not turning out remotely like she’d imagined it would. So far, it kind of sucked.

  He pulled the water bottle off his bike and took a drink, swished, spat. “Next time, you lick the tube,” he said. “It tastes fucking awful.”

  Lexie laughed. Risking a glance at Tom out of the corner of her eye, she caught him smiling at her—and nearly fell over.

  A broad grin had transformed those fine lips, erasing every trace of Angry Tom and replacing him with a Tom she hadn’t met yet. But she wanted to. Oh, man, she wanted to. He had an amazing, engaging smile. His eyes seemed to sparkle with his amusement, and deep laugh lines appeared at the corners. There was a dimple in his chin she hadn’t noticed before. His teeth were bright white against his dark skin. This Tom was utterly delicious.

  Miracle of miracles, he also looked like a lot of fun.

  They stood there like that, smiling at each other for just a few seconds longer than was called for, before Tom frowned slightly and turned away to put his water bottle back in the cage.

  Lexie let out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. Maybe he wouldn’t be so bad.

  3

  Seaside, Oregon, to Corvallis, Oregon. 171 miles traveled.

  Tom wasn’t bad. He was horrible.

  Ten miles out of Seaside on the Pacific Coast Scenic Highway, they rounded a curve at the end of a long climb to find an incredible view: inky blue sea, jagged rocks, tiny village nestled against the coastline, clear sky the color of a robin’s egg. Exactly what she’d come on this trip to see. And it wasn’t just the view—it was everything. The clean, brisk coastal air. The smooth asphalt of the shoulder, wide and spectacularly free of potholes. The familiar rightness of her gloved palms on the handlebars. She wanted to wrap it up, the whole glorious moment, so she could take it out again and appreciate it later.