by MJ Fredrick
“For one person. But the three of us—”
“Wait a minute,” Brian said again. “I have to go back to work on Saturday. I’m directing the morning show.”
“So Cam and I can rent a car and go. I’ll fly back once we get there, and be at work on Monday.”
“We’d have to wait until morning to rent a car, and that’s what, seven hundred miles a day, presuming nothing goes wrong?” Cam shook his head. “I’ll just call them in the morning. Maybe they’ll reschedule.”
“They probably won’t be there anyway. Holiday weekend, remember? No. We’re going.” She sat back triumphantly as the waitress delivered their order.
“You’re insane. That’s a hell of a trip, and you’d be cutting it close,” Brian said.
Cam looked back at Willow. “Money’s tight. We’d have to eat cheap, stay in motels like last night.”
He was warming to the idea. She grinned. “I can deal with that. This will be fun.” She hadn’t thought about doing something for fun in a long time. “We’ll get a room tonight, check into a rental car in the morning. I wonder what time the rental companies open.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this.” Brian tossed his sandwich down. “Take my car.”
“What?” Both Willow and Cam stared.
“Take my car—I’ll get Mom and Dad to come get me. The car’s in good shape, and you won’t have to waste time going to a rental company, because seven hundred miles is a twelve-hour day, easy. You can get an early start. Take my car.”
He said it that last time as if the reality of what he was offering just sunk in.
“How will you get to work?”
“I’ll manage.” He pulled out his keys and tossed them on the table so they slid in front of his brother. “Now finish up here so you can get on the road.”
***
Willow and Cam debated over spending the night in Saint Paul and starting fresh in the morning, but Willow declared she was too excited to sleep. Once Brian had reached his parents and told them where to meet him, they left Saint Paul and drove toward Interstate 90. Cam was less enthusiastic once his brother was out of the car.
“We’ll stop at the first motel we see heading toward South Dakota,” she assured him. “Though you could let me drive.”
He snorted his opinion of that.
She settled back in her seat, uncertain of what to do with this energy. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She almost missed Libby.
“I wonder why Brian loaned us his car.” She spoke the words that had bothered her since the diner. “He’s manic about this thing.”
“And not known for his generosity. I’ve been wondering the same thing.”
Willow suspected his decision had something to do with what she and Brian talked about before Cam called them back. He was giving them a chance to see exactly what it was they wanted, if they wanted each other.
She couldn’t let Cam know, not when he was on the verge of finally taking something for himself, something that would make him happy in the long run. She’d just have to let it play out. She reached for the radio and let the music fill the silence.
Doubts ran through her mind, though. What if they got on each other’s nerves instead? And Cam had said his funds were limited—so were hers. They’d have to share motel rooms for three nights. That much intimacy—would she be able to make the right decisions, or would they break each other’s hearts?
They turned onto Interstate 90 around two in the morning. The first motel was not far, a less-than-charming place called the Step Back Inn. Cam pulled into the driveway silently, admonished Willow to keep the doors locked and walked into the office to get a room. She made a note to find a branch of her bank tomorrow and take out enough money to enable them to stay in a higher class hotel the next three nights. This place, another courtyard motel with shadowed doors, gave her the creeps.
Cam returned, mouth grim. Her stomach clenched in anticipation of bad news. He got into the car, handed her the key and put the car in reverse.
“They only had a king-sized bed. We can deal, right? I’m too tired to find another place.”
“Sure,” she said automatically, though her brain immediately remembered how his arm had felt around her last night. How perfect. She battled the heat that rose to the surface of her skin. “We did it last night and acted like adults. We’ll be fine.” Adults. Right.
He parked in the center at the back of the courtyard. “You open the door, I’ll get the luggage.”
She nodded. “I need my laptop so I can see where my bank has branches along our route.”
She stepped onto the cracked sidewalk and got the key in the lock after a couple of tries. She swung the door open and stepped inside.
The light from the courtyard caught on something white, sharp and glistening just above her head. Teeth! Long teeth, and yellowed claws, level with her face. A scream tore out of her chest and she pivoted to bolt, colliding with Cam as he came running.
“What? What is it?”
Her heart pounded so hard, she couldn’t catch her breath to tell him. When he tried to move past her, she closed her fingers in his shirt to hold him back.
“Don’t!” she managed.
He smoothed a reassuring hand down her back and edged past her, pushing her behind him. She followed, clasping his shirt, ready to pull him back from—what? Her mind still couldn’t process what she’d seen.
He jumped—she felt his body recoil. But then he flipped on the lights, revealing an eight-foot-tall stuffed bear standing in the corner of the room. Willow’s heart gave another jolt before she understood what she was seeing.
Before she recognized the sound of laughter floating across the courtyard.
She whirled to see a man—the manager?—standing outside the office, doubled over with laughter. She released Cam’s shirt and took two long steps toward the prankster before Cam caught her around the waist.
“I’ll deal with it.”
Willow did not want to wait in the room alone with the bear—who in the hell decorated motel rooms with taxidermied bears anyway?—so she watched Cam amble across the lot to the man, who straightened and sobered, clearly intimidated by Cam’s size. The rumble of Cam’s voice carried across the lot, but not his words. Shortly the man disappeared in the office and returned with another key. Cam nodded and turned back to Willow, pointing to the next door. She shut off the light and closed the door before meeting Cam at the next room.
“He just likes to screw with people who come in late at night.” He unlocked the door, turned on the light, and inspected the room. This one was only slightly more charming, with a pair of elk antlers above the headboard and a mirror above the bed. Holy—how on earth was she going to sleep with that above them? Maybe once they turned out the lights it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe she should have taken the room with the bear.
Yes, she was definitely going to withdraw enough money for a stay at a La Quinta, maybe, or a Hampton Inn. Their decorations were innocuous. Cam walked out of the bathroom and dropped onto his back on the bed, which barely bounced at all. Ugh.
Cam picked up the remote to turn on the TV. “Let’s see if they get the Weather Channel, at least.”
The screen filled with a close-up of a woman with her mouth, well, a little occupied with a very large—
Willow’s face heated as Cam fumbled for the channel changer. Which brought them to a channel with two women getting friendly. The third channel showed them a woman between two shirtless men.
Cam clicked off the TV, his own face red. “That wasn’t exactly the cable I was looking for.”
Willow was quite warm, and no way was she ready to slide into bed with him, not when she was feeling so needy.
“Okay,” he said briskly. “Taking a shower tonight?”
She was too tired, but she definitely needed the distraction. She pulled her pajamas from her bag as he set the alarm on his phone.
She was feeling more relaxed after her shower. A
fter all, they were friends. They were adults. They could deal with having caught a glimpse of porn.
When she emerged, Cam was already in bed, and the only light on was the bedside lamp. She brushed her teeth and climbed in beside him. “I want to be on the road by eight. After breakfast and everything. Okay?”
She glanced at the bedside clock. It was after three already. She could sleep in the car, she supposed, though the whole point of coming with him was to keep him alert and entertained on the drive. But if she napped, then she could drive while he slept. It could work.
She could feel the heat of his body across the width of the bed and willed herself not to curl into him. She met his gaze in the mirror above the bed.
“Good night,” she whispered, and turned off the light.
***
She woke to an incessant beeping, and something heavy across her waist. She peeled her eyes open in the dark room. In the blinking of his cell phone display, she saw that the weight over her was Cam’s arm, and his hand curved just below her breast. Oh, my. The urge, just for a moment, was to shift so that his hand brushed her breast. Her nipple beaded in anticipation of his touch.
But no, that would be cheating. If Cam wanted to touch her, she wanted him awake and aware.
“Hey,” she said, nudging his chest with her shoulder. “Your alarm.”
He rolled onto his back with a grunt. Her gaze slid to the mirror, admiring the breadth of his shoulders against the mattress, his rumpled hair on the pillow. She slid out of bed before she gave in to her hormones—and her curiosity.
“I’m going to get dressed, okay? You wanted to be on the road by eight, remember?”
He grunted, not fully awake, and she slipped into the bathroom with her clothes.
Her bank didn’t have a branch on their route until they got to Rapid City, on the other side of South Dakota, five hundred miles away, Willow discovered as she searched the Web at breakfast. If they hauled ass and didn’t stop, they still wouldn’t get to town before the branch closed. Why had she been such an idiot and grabbed the wrong card?
Maybe she could get her mother to wire them money, and have it waiting for them in Sioux Falls. She could pay her back later. But when she called her mother—surreptitiously, while Cam was paying the breakfast bill—she didn’t answer. Typical.
Now they were fueled up and on the road, not far from the South Dakota border.
“My first road trip,” she told Cam.
“All we’re missing is a van full of kids bickering and asking ‘Are we there yet?’ and you’d get the full experience of a Trask family vacation.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “See, saying things like that only makes me jealous. If not for your family, I would have been alone most of my childhood.” Heck, she was alone most of her adult life too. “How many vacations did you go on? Seemed like you were always packing up the car for one place or another.”
He glanced over as if gauging to see how serious she was. “The Grand Canyon, Disneyland—I think that was all the same trip. Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone.”
“I wish we had time to stop there now. If I didn’t have to be at work Monday, I’d drive back with you and we could stop.”
“Wait a minute.” He glanced over his shoulder to change lanes before he looked at her. “You did go on a road trip with us once. Don’t you remember? We went to, I don’t know, Virginia or someplace. Mom said, ‘Everybody in the car,’ and you were at the house, and so you got in the car. Mom didn’t notice you were with us until we crossed the border, then she called your mom to let her know where you were. You ended up staying with us, but I think my mom had to get you some clothes and stuff.”
Willow smiled and pulled her feet up on the seat. “I always thought that was a dream.”
He frowned. “How could you think it was a dream? You were probably nine years old.”
“Because stuff like that never happened to me.”
He grinned. “It did at least once.” He sobered as the miles passed. “How are you going to deal with Jerry when you go back to work?”
She made a face. She hadn’t wanted to think about that. Their encounter wouldn’t be pleasant, especially since she’d essentially run away. “I’ll worry about that later.”
He frowned. “That’s not like you.”
She pushed her fingers through her hair. “It is when I don’t want to think about something.”
“When have you ever not plowed through, no matter what?”
She angled her head to look at him, resting her cheek on her knee. “What do you mean?”
“Well, like this trip. You didn’t let me back off.”
“Why did you want to? This is something you’ve wanted to do for years. Why would you give up so easily?”
He blew a breath out through his nose but didn’t answer.
“You can’t be where you want to be without taking risks, Cam. This wasn’t always who you were.”
“I’m not going to talk about that, Will.”
“I know.”
But she wished he would talk about Laura. She knew that was why he no longer took chances, why he remained in a job he hated, why he stayed close to home. He’d taken a risk with Laura and now he hesitated to move forward, afraid of being hurt again. No, not hurt. Destroyed, devastated. Shattered and put back together different from the man he’d been.
“Tell me about the job,” she said, turning the subject to something more palatable, something to reduce the tension in the car, in his shoulders, the set of his jaw.
Her plan worked. His shoulders eased a bit. “It’s a developing job. We’d work on my game only after I helped them develop three other educational games. I’d have state-of-the-art computers, trained graphic artists, a team to help me work out kinks, but I’d be in charge.”
“That’s what you want, right?” Part of her, the selfish part, hoped he’d find some fault.
He glanced over. “Right. You need to stop? We’re getting low on gas and who knows where the next station will be.”
She flicked her eyes to him in surprise. They hadn’t been on the road long. While she could understand why he didn’t want to take a chance that they wouldn’t see another gas station for a while, she wondered why he didn’t want to talk to her. What had changed?
Willow walked out of the convenience store, her arms loaded with bottled water, a diet cola, chips and candy bars. Yes, Brian would string them up when they got back to Illinois but right now she was hungry and anxious.
Cam was on the phone outside the door, his head bent, his hand in his pocket as he spoke. He frowned at the amount of plastic she carried, then shook his head and turned his attention back to the phone.
“You bet. Okay, Amber. Yeah, me too. I’ll call you when I get there.” He hung up the phone and met her shocked gaze. “Ready to roll?”
“Sure.”
But she stood still as he scooped the bottles out of her arms, stunned by the jealousy that rolled through her. She told herself it was just jealousy that he had a woman in his life that he hadn’t told her about, not jealousy that there was a woman in his life.
“So.” She forced her feet to move toward the car. She didn’t want him to know she overheard, but God, her curiosity was killing her. “Have you been seeing anyone back home? I probably should have asked that before I made you come and get me and then volunteered to accompany you across the country. I mean, I should have made sure no one was around to object.”
His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, you know, if I was dating someone, even casually, I don’t think I’d appreciate him going on a road trip and spending the night in motels with another woman, even if their relationship was platonic, you know? I mean, would you want a woman you were dating to do that?” The words tumbled over one another and she was horrified by the flood she seemed unable to stop.
He arranged the snacks on the seat between them and sent her another puzzled look. “I guess not.”<
br />
She drew in a breath. He hadn’t answered her question, so she had to ask him directly. “So are you seeing anyone?”
“Not since Laura died.”
Shock rocked through her. She knew he’d been reclusive, but this was worse than she feared. “Cam, it’s been two years. You haven’t seen anyone? I mean, you’re a man in the prime of life. Don’t you need to, you know—?”
A grin cracked his face, the flash of white teeth reassuring. “Are you asking me if I self-pleasure?”
“No!” Her face heated. “I’m asking you if you have someone you…find pleasure with.”
“Why? Do you?”
“No. I—that’s not an issue with me.”
“Why not? You have a battery-operated friend?”
She did but she’d never tell him. “My question is why you haven’t been with anyone since Laura.”
“Because I don’t want to. When I want to, I’ll find someone. You want me to let you know?”
“No!” She didn’t want to imagine him having sex with someone else, but not for the reason she used to think. “No, thanks. I’ll just mind my own business from here on out.”
He grinned and turned the key in the ignition.
They passed a sign telling them Sioux Falls was still two hundred miles away. No way would they reach the bank tonight. But they could stay in Sioux Falls tonight, perhaps, and stop at the bank before they left in the morning. She hated the helplessness of not having enough money. She’d worked hard so she would never experience being broke again.
Cam vetoed the idea when she voiced it. “That would mean we’d have to get a late start tomorrow. We can’t afford the delay.”
“I need more than a couple hundred dollars,” she protested.
“Money’s tight, but we can make it. A motel tonight, another tomorrow, and we’ll be in Seattle Sunday night. Surely your bank has a branch there.”
“They do, but—”
“I’ve got you covered for now, Will. Don’t borrow trouble. We’ll try to hit Wyoming tonight, okay?”
They ate a late dinner in a family-style restaurant in Sioux Falls, then drove until ten and stopped at a motel in Wyoming. They’d arranged that she would pay for gas—as long as he didn’t grumble about how much the Chevelle ate—and he’d buy food and motels, so he went into the motel office as she sat in the car again. The weather had gotten bad. Snow fell steadily, coating the car. While Cam was inside, Willow pulled out the atlas they’d bought in South Dakota and tried to figure out where she could have her mother wire her money. Cam didn’t want to stop for long, and she didn’t want to delay him. Missoula, maybe. If her mom wired it first thing in the morning, they could collect it when they passed through.
