Ryder's Bride (Brides Bay Book 1)

by V. K. Sykes

  She was sick of that dumb little reptile part of her brain. So damn sick of being afraid of her own life.

  Ry had learned to live with risk. He’d even learned to relish it. It was time she gave something like that a try.

  Girl, you’ve already started.

  Ry reached across the console and laid his warm hand on her bare thigh. After she’d rolled out of bed, she’d quickly washed up and thrown on a T-shirt and short jean skirt, and then packed a small bag with overnight essentials. If she could manage to get out of bed at a half-decent hour in the morning, she’d do her rounds of the island houses she was looking after without going home first.

  “It’s a pretty warm night.” He let his hand wander north a bit. “Might be fun to do a little star-gazing again.”

  “Star-gazing, huh? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

  “Well, you could gaze at the stars.”

  “That’s assuming you were on top, of course.”

  He laughed. “You’ve got a point. I’ve noticed that you do like to take charge.”

  “Sometimes.” She sucked in a breath as his hand slid up another couple of inches. “And I do love looking at the stars.”

  They drove in silence for another couple of minutes. His fingers were so temptingly close to where she wanted them to be that anticipation was practically making her jump out of her seat.

  “You know I’ve got a race up in New Hampshire this weekend, right?”

  She mentally blinked. “Uh, yes, of course. I’m booked to come over on Friday afternoon and stay until you get back Saturday evening.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been thinking about that. I could take Stanley to the kennel if…” He glanced over, his gaze dark and serious. “If you wanted to come to New Hampshire with me.”

  “What?” she blurted. “I mean, wow, I sure didn’t see that invitation coming.”

  “I think it’d be fun for you. For both of us. There’s an upscale inn on a lake that’s only a few miles from the track. Meg wouldn’t mind looking after your clients’ places for a day or two, would she? We could stay over till Sunday and really kick back once the race is out of the way.”

  Claire’s head went fuzzy as she tried to focus on the logistics. Sadly, her brain seemed to be shutting out almost everything but ugly thoughts of the motorcycle race.

  She cleared her throat. “That sounds…awesome. But you wouldn’t expect me to go to the race, would you?”

  His hand slid from her leg as he flashed her a look of disbelief. “Seriously?”

  Crap. She was messing this up.

  “Look,” he went on, “I know you’re scared of motorcycles, but the closest you’ll have to get to one is when it’s on the trailer behind my truck. At the race, you can sit way up in the stands. There wouldn’t be even a hint of danger up there.”

  Apparently he’d misunderstood her reluctance. “Ry, believe it or not, I wasn’t thinking about myself.”

  He frowned as he turned into his driveway. “You’re worried about me?”

  “Of course, you big idiot. It’s so dangerous.”

  “Claire, haven’t I explained that it’s really not?” he asked with a trace of frustration. “Anyway, whether I will or won’t get banged up isn’t going to be affected one bit by whether you’re there watching or sitting at home with Stanley.”

  No, but at least I wouldn’t have to see you crash and maybe even die.

  This was the time to finally tell him the truth.

  “I know, but there’s a reason why I act kind of squirrely about this whole issue.” She paused for several moments. “Ry, my best friend died in a motorcycle accident when we were at art school in Brooklyn.”

  He glanced at her with a concerned frown. “Go on.”

  “We were just minding our own business, walking down the sidewalk one evening and...” She sucked in a deep breath to steady herself. “And a drunk on a motorcycle mowed us down.”

  Ry reached over and gripped her knee but didn’t say anything.

  “I was hurt…bad enough, really…but Julie…Julie was…she didn’t make it.”

  Nightmare images threatened to swamp her. Julie’s blood…her blood…pools of it on the dark street. So much.

  He slowed almost to a stop. “Julie. You dedicated the song to her that night at the Dory.”

  “Yes.”

  The truck slowly rumbled past the first sensor, tripping a set of floodlights that bathed the trees and the driveway in a cool, white glare. “You don’t have to tell me more if it’s too painful,” he said quietly.

  She forced herself to pull it together. Ry had shared a lot about his life. He deserved to know more about the tragedy that had changed the course of her life.

  “Julie and I shared an apartment—we couldn’t afford one on our own, and we got along great. We’d had a couple of drinks at a local bar after dinner. We were celebrating her birthday.” Claire still remembered every detail, right down to the outfits they’d had on. Her friend had worn sparkly flip-flops that glittered when they passed under a streetlight. “Like I said, we were just strolling along, laughing about how Julie always got hit on in bars way more often than I did. She was so beautiful, Ry. And talented and sweet and kind.”

  “You two must have driven all the guys crazy.”

  Claire forced a small smile, even though she wanted to pound her chest, as if she could somehow dislodge the pain in there. “Thanks, but trust me, Julie was in a league of her own. Anyway, suddenly we heard this ungodly roar behind us. We both swung around and saw this guy on a motorcycle trying to swerve past a stopped car. He missed the car, but he was going too fast and lost control. The bike jumped the curb and was on us before we could even blink, much less try to dive out of the way.”

  A blindingly bright, roaring Cyclops of a machine had slammed into them.

  “It drove Julie into the brick wall behind us. I got off lucky because…because Julie took the brunt of the impact.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Ry swore.

  “I could barely move, but somehow I managed to get my arms around her. Somebody was screaming, and somebody obviously called 9-1-1 because paramedics got there really fast—like in a couple of minutes, I think.” She gave in to impulse and began rubbing her breastbone, right over her heart. “Julie whispered some words to me, but I guess I was in shock because my brain was all fuzzy and I couldn’t understand what she was saying. That drove me crazy for a long time. What if she was trying to tell me something really important? Something I needed to know.”

  Julie’s garbled, breathy attempt at speech still haunted her. The memory lived inside her, refusing to let go. They were her dearest friend’s last words on earth, and she hadn’t been able to understand.

  “I’m so sorry, Claire,” Ry said in little more than a whisper. “I can’t tell you how sorry.”

  His kind words had her blinking away the sting of tears. “And then she just…just stopped breathing. The paramedics tried hard to revive her but...”

  He stopped the truck and reached over to pull her into his arms. For a minute, she let herself take shelter in his comforting embrace. But she couldn’t hide there forever.

  “I’m okay.” She had to pull herself together or she might as well get him to take her home so she could shove down a tranquilizer.

  I will not give in to panic. Not again.

  “I want to hear more about what happened to you,” Ry said, “but sometime later, when you’re ready. Right now, I need to get you inside and warm you up. And you really need a glass of wine.”

  Claire hadn’t realized she was shivering. “Sounds good. But do you understand now? Understand why I don’t want to watch you race your motorcycle?”

  When he hesitated, she wanted to cry.

  “You don’t want to watch me kill myself. Yeah, I get it, but that’s never going to happen. I am not going to die in a motorcycle race, Claire. I promise.”

  Okay, that made her mad. “And you know that for an absolute
fact?”

  “Look, I’m not stupid. I know there are no guarantees in life. The next plane I get on might crash. But statistically, I’m as likely to get killed driving my truck to the racetrack as I am in the actual race. I can’t live my life being paralyzed by fear of something that could happen but is really, really unlikely to.”

  “Well, at least you have a sense of control on your bike,” she shot back. “I’d be just sitting in the stands watching. Completely helpless to do anything but wait for something awful to happen.”

  He curled a hand around the back of her neck, gently cradling her. Her anxiety ticked down a notch.

  “What happened to you and Julie was beyond horrible. But it wasn’t even an accident. You two were victims of a crime. The drunk driver was charged, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. He was eventually convicted of vehicular manslaughter in the first degree.”

  “There you go. It only happened because the guy was drunk. He could have just as easily been driving a car or a pick-up truck like this one. You shouldn’t be freaked out by the fact that the asshole was on a motorcycle. That’s all I’m saying.”

  She couldn’t deny there was some logic in that. But she also couldn’t deny how she felt. “I get that. But you don’t wake up covered in sweat after you dream of a big freaking motorcycle pinning you to a wall. And trust me, it’s not like I want to feel this way. I hate it.”

  He looked chastised. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. But I’d bet my last dollar that you’d really like to get past all that.”

  She threw up her hands. “Of course I would. I feel stupid and weak even talking about it.”

  He shook his head. “Claire, you’re not stupid and you’re not weak. Just the opposite, in fact. Look, I know it’s not even close to being the same thing, but think about this for a minute. I would rather have done just about anything than get up on stage with you at the Lobster Festival. I hated even the thought of it. But I didn’t want to disappoint you, so I managed to suck it up. And damned if it didn’t turn out to be a lot better than I’d expected. I might not be jonesing to do it again, but it wouldn’t jam me up anymore. At least not like it used to.”

  So much of what he said was right. She should try harder to face her demons—though of course those demons had less to do with motorcycles than with her never-ending fear of loss.

  Ugh.

  “How about this?” he added. “Just go with me to the race and try it for a while. If it turns out that you can only make it through part of it—even one lap—I promise I’ll understand. At least you’ll have taken a first step.”

  “One lap? Seriously? That’s really all you’d expect?”

  “No, I’d expect you to give it your best Claire Maddox effort. But if one lap winds up being all you can stand, then one it is.”

  “And you wouldn’t get mad and sleep in the bathroom to get away from me?”

  “Are you nuts? I would never kick you out my bed. And I never get mad at you.”

  Despite how emotionally wrung out she felt, Claire had to softly laugh. “Did the Hermit of Promise Island really just make the claim that he never gets mad at me? Seriously?”

  “Okay, I can get a wee bit growly at times, but it’s not like you can’t handle it.” He pushed open his door. “Now, let’s get in there before Stanley dies of hunger. After we feed him, we’ll have a drink to celebrate our upcoming trip to New Hampshire. I promise we’ll have a great time there.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said, finally giving up the fight.

  As Ry strode around the front of the truck, Claire could hardly believe he’d managed to talk her into something that was guaranteed to scare her to death.

  Chapter 21

  Their hotel was a beautiful old Victorian resort perched on a rocky promontory. In some ways, the landscape reminded Ry of the area where he’d grown up in Minnesota—one of pristine lakes, clear skies, and mysterious forests. Surrounded by woods in full summer canopy, the shimmering lake in front of him now was encircled by a shoreline dotted with expensive-looking cottages.

  Aside from the lake, the view he had at the moment was particularly awesome—a knockout body dressed in a skimpy summer outfit. Like him, Claire was lounging in an Adirondack chair. But while his feet were planted firmly on their private deck, hers were propped on the wooden railing. What a sight her legs were—long and shapely, ending in pretty bare feet with bright pink toenails.

  Man, he loved her legs, especially when they were draped over his shoulders.

  They’d already had sex four times since they reached the inn late yesterday afternoon, and he was sorely tempted to squeeze in another round. Claire had been just as eager for it as he was. Despite some initial nerves when they first started sleeping together, she was confident and joyful under the covers. Or on top of them.

  Ry was well aware that he was one lucky bastard.

  She put down the glass of orange juice left over from their room service breakfast. “I totally adore this view,”

  He trailed his fingers from her knee all the way up to the hem of her tiny white shorts. “Yeah, it’s amazing.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You are such a horn-dog, Griffin. I thought you had to go practice tearing around the track? Not that I’d mind if you’d rather…uh, stay with me for a while longer.”

  Ry heaved a dramatic sigh. “Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like better than to get you out of those little shorts. But, it’s true, I do need to go now. I’m not that familiar with this track, so I really have to get in some practice laps before the race.”

  Her smile faded a bit. “Okay. You’ll come back for me when, exactly?”

  “About twelve-thirty. Maybe a bit earlier.”

  “Then again, you could just let me sit here all afternoon instead, reading my book and enjoying this very expensive view you’re paying for.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “If you wanted to be a truly considerate gentleman, that is.”

  He gave her a mock-stern look. “No way, Maddox. You’re not getting out of watching at least some of the race. That was our deal, remember? And I need at least one person cheering me on.”

  “Oh, as if you don’t have tons of fans. All young and female and well-endowed, no doubt.”

  “Oh, right. I went straight from hockey groupies to sportbike groupies. Uh, not.”

  She gave him a reluctant grin. “Okay, Mr. Modest, I’ll be ready. On another note, I wanted to tell you before you go that I’ve been thinking about a better place to hang my painting.”

  The night of the bridge blockade, she’d decided to hang it beside the big stone fireplace. He’d thought it looked great there, but when Claire took another look at it in the morning light streaming in, she’d hauled it down.

  “Put it anywhere you want.” He was happy to turn the decision over to her. It was her artwork, after all.

  “Oh, perfect. I was hoping you’d say that,” she said with a mischievous smile.

  “Uh, oh. What are you getting up to now?”

  “Well, you have absolutely nothing on the walls of your bedroom. I think you should hang it there, preferably in the most prominent location.”

  “Huh? Where nobody will see it?”

  “Well, nobody but you…and me, hopefully. For starters, the light is absolutely perfect in that room, especially on sunny days, and that empty wall opposite the bed really needs something.” Then she flashed him a lopsided grin. “Besides, if you ever bring another woman up there, it’ll remind you of me and make you feel horribly guilty.”

  While her tone was light-hearted, he wondered if she might mean exactly what she’d just said. He slipped his hand out from under hers and stood up. “That’s kind of a weird thing to say, especially after what we’ve been doing here for the past sixteen hours or so.”

  Claire’s smile disappeared like someone had shut off a light. “I wasn’t being serious.”

  Really?

  What did he expect? He’d known from the beginning that ther
e was a risk she’d come to expect more from him. Obviously, she was beginning to think about their future as a couple. And he couldn’t blame her. Not when he’d been so eager to spend time with her, even inviting her along on this race weekend.

  But, damn, he didn’t need any complications right now. And sure not before he was about to race. “We can talk more about it later, if you want.”

  “Oh, no worries. Really.” Her voice was carefully neutral.

  He bent down and kissed her forehead. “Just enjoy your lazy morning. You deserve one.”

  She grabbed a handful of his T-shirt and yanked him back down, kissing him long and hard. “Just be careful, okay?” she whispered. “I mean it.”

  He was about to say he was always careful, but that wasn’t exactly accurate. He did take risks, like the one he’d taken with her.

  Anyway, Claire’s definition of careful was obviously not the same as his, and he wasn’t going to lie to her. She’d see what it was all about this afternoon and, for better or for worse, she’d have to decide if she could deal with it.

  Because taking risks, at least the physical kind, was what he did best.

  * * *

  Claire had no idea the race would be so short. She’d envisioned it as something like those NASCAR races, or the Indianapolis 500. In other words, kind of long and boring, punctuated by stretches of sheer terror as men careened around the track at breakneck speed. She’d fully expected to have to sit through an agonizing hour or more of screaming machines, her nerves stretched as tight as guitar strings.

  Jenna and Jolene, seated beside her in the stands, had quickly set her straight. Jenna, whose husband was competing in the same race as Ry, had clued her in about the race consisting of eight short laps. She’d said the whole thing would be over in about ten minutes, though admitting that it could be a really batshit crazy ten minutes. Claire had managed to dredge up only a weak smile in response.