Neither of them had eaten in hours.
Come to think of it, she hadn't eaten much of anything today, from what he'd observed. He knows her lunch was some stolen fries and a sip of a shake, while dinner, by his count, was about six shots of tequila.
She must have a strong stomach.
If she's still rattled from her...encounter, she doesn't let on. She inhales her order of chicken tenders and fries and sucks down her Diet Coke with gusto. He'd bet money she skipped breakfast, too.
He takes a couple bites of his double cheeseburger and periodically sips from his Dr. Pepper, watching her pensively. They sit across from each other on a red plastic picnic table that's gathered off to the side in a strip of asphalt, neon lights flickering and June Bugs lazily buzzing around. The mountain terrain looms behind them, streaked in moonlight. The distant howl of a wolf echoes across the landscape.
"Tell me another story," she says finally.
He blinks. "Uh, sure. What kind?" he asks, setting his burger down.
"Any kind. Just talk. You being quiet is kind of eerie."
"Well, let's see. My mother raised me. My dad wasn't in the picture. One-night stand kind of thing."
Off her silence, he proceeds.
"She can drive me up the wall sometimes, but I know I can talk to her about anything and I get to pretend my dad's an astronaut, a swashbuckling pirate, or I don't know, an international super spy."
She smiles—a small, melancholy thing.
"What're your parents like?" he asks politely.
"I didn't say you could ask questions," she snaps and he flinches. Regret lines her face as a short sigh leaves her mouth. "Sorry. It's just…why are you so interested in me?"
It's now or never, he decides.
"Do you believe in destiny?"
She laughs in a huff, as if she finds the question absurd.
He shrugs. "Is it so ridiculous to think we crossed paths for a reason?"
A quirk of her eyebrow. "And what reason would that be?"
"Don't you want to find out?" he challenges.
She stares at him, incredulous. "Who are you?"
He shrugs again, not sure know how to explain it. How she's already become someone important to him. That he doesn't want to let her go just yet.
He looks up at the night sky like he'll find the answer there. Swaths of bright stars wink back at him.
"Oh, wow. It's never this clear in the city. I feel like if I stood tall enough, I could touch 'em."
He demonstrates, climbing on top of the table and stretching out his hands and fingers. She tosses a wad of wax paper at him in admonishment.
"You're scuffing it!" she exclaims.
"Now, who's the prep?" he smirks as he returns to ground-level with a little jump. His Moleskin jostles out of his back pocket, landing with an unceremonious plop by her feet. She automatically leans down, reaching for it. Fear and anxiety rabbit into his heart in short, quick hops. What if she looks inside and sees the ink spilled on the pages, every press of pen against the paper about her? About the character he's decided to base on her...a young woman with a hot-and-cold temperament, who wears the weight of the world on her shoulders.
He'd already given her a name. June Winter. And June was haunted by an unsolved mystery in her past. One that she couldn't put behind her, no matter how hard she tried to numb the pain of her trauma with the burn of alcohol or forget all her hurt for a night, lost in the purely carnal touch of another faceless stranger.
He already has a dozen book title options. The Dead of Winter, A Cold Winter's Night, The Chill of Winter...
A plot was slowly forming (something to do with a serial killer that's never been caught because they kill all over and no one's connected the dots yet? Oo, yes. That was good. A cross-country serial killer), and there was another character, a nosy investigative journalist, that was in play. But he hadn't put it all together yet, not sure where all the pieces fit.
And he's also not sure how Kate'd react if she were to find out about it. He suspects she'd throw up her shields, forged in steel, and her hard mask would slide back into place, cold and icy.
A deer in headlights, still and unmoving, his heart in his throat, he warily watches her brush dirt off the notebook's cover. Her fingertips flirt with the pages for a moment (fuck, fuck, fuck), but she doesn't crack it open, instead offering it back to him, her brow furrowing. He quickly pockets it, mumbling thanks, an incoming tide of relief flowing over him. Disaster averted.
"What've you been writing about?" she asks suddenly, as if she can't contain the question anymore, almost as if it's been bothering her all night.
Without thinking, he answers, "You."
The tide of his relief gets pulled back out into a sea of panic. Shit. Totally blew it. He braces himself for the riptide current of her ire.
But she doesn't lash out. Doesn't don her defensive armor for battle. Rather, her face twitches in confusion.
"Me? Why?"
He's in it now. No use back-tracking.
"I don't know…trying to figure you out, being around you...the words are coming back."
"Coming back?"
He's silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts.
"Do you ever feel like a fraud?"
She picks at her leftover fries. "Who doesn't?"
The toe of his shoe aimlessly sweeps over some gravel.
"My book has been out for seven months. And it's been great. The money. The attention. It's crazy how everything can change in an instant, you know?"
"Yeah," she says, eyes glimmering with grief again. His curiosity piques, and he wants to push, unravel the source of her sadness, but he resists, discerning it's not the right moment. He offers her a sympathetic lift of his lips instead.
"But now, there's so much pressure and I haven't been able to write anything of substance since my book became a bestseller. My new publisher is already all over me about cranking out the next one...and I keep thinking that maybe I'm just a one-hit wonder. That maybe this is the end of the road for me." His foot pauses mid-sweep. "What if this was all I was meant for and I'm just not good enough? I mean, I got rejected twenty-three times before someone agreed to publish me in the first place."
A brief silence stretches between them.
"I would've thought twenty-four."
A laugh rips from his throat. "I'm baring my soul here."
"I think a little less ego is healthy," she says, tongue-in-cheek, "Humility is key." She holds back a shy grin, her once-hard mask, now soft and inviting. Holy shit. Is she flirting with him? "So what kept you going?" she asks.
"My ex," he replies. Idiot. Why is he bringing up his ex? "She, uh, believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself…but meeting you, being out here—I don't feel like much of a fraud anymore." And then, with breathless sincerity, like he's delivering a grand proclamation or a great prophecy, he says, "With you, I feel like anything's possible."
His statement hangs in the air, and he wonders if he's made a total ass of himself. But she's not even remotely scowling. No. Instead, she's looking at him like she's trying to figure him out.
"You're a very strange person," she concludes.
"I consider that a compliment," he says, smirking, "And I could say that same about you." Emboldened, he sits on the bench right next to her. "You have this strength. A Joan-of-Arc quality. The way you hold yourself. It's graceful...elegant. Classy even," he explains, "But you're also rough around the edges. The way you act is…unpredictable. I don't know. You just seem—" He grasps for an adequate descriptor. "Extraordinary."
He has no idea how he expects her to respond, but he's totally unprepared for her face to crumble and the glimmer of tears she's been holding back all day to finally spill forth.
Oh, shit. He didn't mean to—
He instinctively opens his arms, and the next thing he knows, she's collapsing onto his chest and curling into him, quiet sobs tearing from her throat. One of his hands finds her back, pressing her closer, the other, stroking her hair, and the fierce need to protect her, roots in him, more powerful than ever.
What the hell happened to her? Who or what hurt her? he wonders for the umpteenth time.
He doesn't know how long it lasts, but she eventually calms and then, her body is stiffening, tensing in his embrace.
"Was it something I said?" he jokes.
He hears a watery chuckle and then, she's extracting herself, turning from him, embarrassed, wiping away any trace evidence of her vulnerable moment.
"Is there someone I can call for you?" he asks gently.
"There's no one to call."
"Okay."
She looks up at him, her eyes more green than brown, he notes. Gorgeous.
"It's just, my mom's…uh, not really in the picture, either. And my dad's been kind of absent lately," she provides. "You've been really nice and kind and I've been—"
"Mad at the world and wary of a stranger." He shrugs, non-committal. "I'm not taking it personally."
A grateful look adorns her features.
"Though I wouldn't say no to a new shirt."
She pushes at his shoulder, half-heartedly, a honeyed smile creeping over her lips.
"Shut up."
He basks in the warm sweetness of it, of her, spilling out for him. But he knows better than to dwell on it too long, this brokered peace, a fragile thing.
"Wanna head back?" he asks.
She nods, seemingly relieved he's not pushing her further. They clean up their trash and start the walk down the street toward their motel. A small flame appears near her mouth as she lights a cigarette from a pack hidden in her jacket.
"Want one?" she offers.
"Heard they're bad for you."
She exhales with a laugh, choking on the smoke filtering away.
"Guess that's why I like 'em," she says, recovering.
"So you have a death wish?" he says.
"Probably why I'm hanging out with a potential serial killer."
"Hey," he protests, "I only kill people in my writing."
"Oh, yeah?"
"I'm a mystery novelist."
"Of course you are. That explains so, so much."
He smiles, and they walk the rest of the way in a companionable silence.
When they reach their adjoining rooms, she pauses, glancing at him.
"Thank you," she says softly.
He lifts his shoulders, as if there's nothing to it.
"See you in the morning? I hear they serve a mean Continental breakfast," he asks, hopeful, not wanting whatever this was to end...this spark of something.
She offers him another melancholy smile and to his surprise, rises on her toes to brush a whisper of a kiss on his cheek. The barely-there touch of her lips sends a shockwave through his system. He stares at her, thunderstruck.
Holy fuck. What was that?
"Night, Writer Boy."
But wait—
Her door shuts before he can think of something else to do or say.
No matter.
He'd find her again somehow.
That, he's sure of.
A nightmare wakes her up in a cold sweat and a strangled gasp hours later.
God-fucking-damnit. When was it going to stop?
When was the image of her mother's body on the morgue table, of her cold face, all the life drained from it, ever going to stop playing like a horrible flash reel in her mind?
She thinks of Rick. The boy with gorgeous hair and endlessly blue eyes. The writer with beautiful words and a piercing gaze that reads her like she's an open book. She remembers his arms around her, strong and warm and safe. It'd felt so good. So—
Fuck.
It's been less than twenty-four hours since she stole his fries and he's already too close. She scrunches her legs to her chest, burying her head between her knees. What the hell was she doing...letting some boy play white knight? She wasn't some damsel in distress. But somehow, he kept showing up when she needed him. What did he call it…?
Destiny?
Did that mean her mother was meant to die? Meant to bleed out in an alley all alone?
She doesn't know how to handle it, the intensity of him, his insatiable need to poke and prod and pry her open. And the way he kept watching her, regarding her with barely-concealed awe...it was totally unnerving.
Her...extraordinary? How could he say that? How dare he?
She imagines him on the other side of the wall, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the peaceful look on his face, his future full of promise.
How the hell was she an inspiration to someone like him? She was just a college dropout. The girl with a dead mom and a drunk, absentee dad.
The girl who had nothing to live for.
Kate manages another fitful hour of sleep before she gives up and gets up for the day, showering and dressing quickly.
She returns her room key at the front, in the bowl marked check-out, and rushes to the parking lot, hurriedly retying her saddle bag to her bike, not noticing the dawn breaking in glorious pinks and oranges behind her. Her heel kicks the stand back and her Softail rolls forward.
She takes one last look at the motel, thinking of him. With you, I feel like anything's possible.
What a load of crap.
Friendship, or whatever else he's seeking from her...can't be. She's not about to open herself up, just to get hurt again when things inevitably implode. No. She's better off alone.
Besides.
She'd ruin him, her black vortex of grief swallowing up all his light.
It's over two hours later when the mechanic tells her that they can't fix it. They called around, but no one nearby has the specific part her model requires.
"You're kidding."
"I could order it, but it might be a couple days."
"Days? Seriously?"
"Or you could go to Santa Fe. They're the closest place that has what you need."
"New Mexico? Jesus, how far away is that from here?"
"Five and a half hours, give or take," another voice answers.
She turns, her pulse quickening when she spots the speaker. God-fucking-damnit.
Rick holds out a cup of coffee to her, acting as if they planned to meet there all along, as if she didn't deliberately ditch him.
"I'm heading that way. Need a ride?" he asks.
She can't look at him, her internal defense mechanism screaming at her, telling her to push him away. He was too much.
"Kate," he cajoles tenderly and heart twists painfully. She hates it. The way he says her name, sincere and familiar. Hates that she finds it so goddamn appealing. "Let me help. Please."
God. Fucking. Damnit.
He wasn't going to stop showing up, was he?
"Fine," she grits out, snaring the coffee cup from him.
"That your Mustang?" the mechanic asks, nodding at Rick's car.
"That she is," the writer replies with a proud puff of his chest.
"We've got a caddy and hitch in the back. I can make it an even hundred for parts and installation."
"Brand-new parts?" Kate asks, smelling a scam.
The mechanic hesitates.
"Fifty," she counters.
"Seventy-five."
"Sixty," she fires back.
The mechanic eyes Rick.
"You heard the lady," the writer says.
"Seventy is the best I can do," the mechanic huffs.
"Deal," she says.
She ignores the writer while they attach the pieces to his car, roll her bike onto the caddy, and cover it with a duster. She just wants to wallow in her grief privately. But here's this boy, this sweet and charming and infuriating boy, who seems determined to intrude on her life and complicate everything.
She throws herself into the passenger seat with a scowl. He slides into the driver's seat, uncharacteristically quiet.
"Did you get gas?" she asks.
He nods.
"How much was it?"
"You don't have to—"
She glares at him.
"Eighteen," he sighs.
She passes him a ten. A little more than half.
"Keep the change," she says.
He accepts it, stuffing it into the center console. He turns the key, the car starting smoothly for once. He shoots her an all-too pleased look.
"Guess we're road trip buddies after all."
xxx
A/N: Yes, I did look up the price of gas in 1999 Flagstaff, AZ. It was a little over a dollar per gallon...what I wouldn't give!
And in honor of today's chapter title, please know that according to songwriter Dewey Bunnell, A Horse with No Name is, "a metaphor for a vehicle to get away from life's confusion into a quiet, peaceful place." In true writer's fashion, I've made sure ~almost~ every chapter title has a double-meaning. And some won't even reveal their subtext until later (foreshadow, baby!).
Originally, each chapter was named after each location, but the story quickly outgrew that concept (though if you do see a chapter title with a location that means some shit is going down in that particular chapter and I didn't want to provide anything remotely spoiler-y).