Page 94 of Hauling Ashe

“Love shouldn’t feel like a sacrifice, Mae. I’m not giving anything up except my heart if I don’t stay with you.”

When he returned to Chicago for business, I’d often take the days off to go with him.

We loved the mini-road trips, sometimes taking out time to explore US-31, the coastal drive down the west side of the state of Michigan. The shorter drives were always a reminder of that first trip. Where an annoying, unwanted passenger in Louie became the thing I needed most to heal my soul and make whole my heart. I’m not one of those women who will say a man did this for me. The experience did it. The adventure of traveling alongside Tucker, through some sticky situations and some simply fun ones, restored me. Sharing our time, our history and our hurts mended both of us, renewing our spirits and perhaps our dreams. Especially the one that includes a future of love as an endless highway.

By autumn, both my boys went to college, although Wyatt no longer had hockey and was considering quitting school all together. I didn’t like the sound of that, and once again, it was Tucker who spoke to him about dreams shifting and paths changing. Wyatt didn’t like that his hockey future was over, but he was sticking with college in the end.

With the boys gone, Tucker and I didn’t need to be sneaking around the house, and we shared my room every night together. He also bought a piano and a guitar, and evenings were a serenade of new songs.

“I went on a road trip with this awful woman,” he sings one night. “And she had the most irritating playlist.” His fingers ripple down the keys of the piano. “She gave me a harmonica. Is there anything that rhymes with harmonica?”

He makes a face that strains his neck and I laugh.

“She must have really loved you,” I joke back, sitting beside him on the piano bench. “Giving you a harmonica and all.”

“Oh, she gave me her all.” His fingers dance over ebony and ivory once more. “She gave me her luscious body. Her beautiful heart. And her loving soul. And I fucking love her as well.” He winks as he looks over at me.

“Yeah, she loves you, too.”

He abruptly stops and shifts on the piano bench. “Come show me how much.”

I slip over his lap as he pushes the wooden seat away from the instrument. Our mouths come together, and we kiss, long and sweet, like a new melody. We are a playlist. One that includes every love song. We’ll be using it as the soundtrack of this continual road trip called life.

Epilogue 2

[Jane]

Playlist: “Road Less Traveled” – Lauren Alaina

“Mr. Wright, you have a delivery,” I announce through my boss’s open office door. He hates it when I call him Mr. Wright. I hate how ridiculously handsome he is.

With artfully sculptured hair in a perfect palette of chrome and ink, the same combination lines his firm jaw. His mouth wears a permanent smirk that could either tease you into submission or cut you to the quick. Despite his typical attire of business suits or starched dress shirts and crisp ties, there’s an occasional hint of color on the skin of his hidden arms. The same arms which often bulge underneath the stiffness of his professional wear.

And I hate how attracted I am to him.

“Have Rebecca sign for it.” Mr. Wright—Machlan Wright—mentions his assistant without even glancing up at me. He never looks directly at me, and I suppose it’s for the best. If he did, my tongue might freeze under the glare of those earthy-brown eyes. Another part of me never ices over when he looks in my general direction, though. That area is all heat and pulsing thumps of unrequited desire for a man I equally loath and lust.

“She’s at lunch,” I remind him.

He peers at his watch. Flicking out his arm, he bends his elbow just right to turn his wrist and sexily gaze at the oversized silver band like a practiced male model. He works excessively hard, and it isn’t surprising he doesn’t realize it’s lunch time for the rest of Chicago.

“Just have it brought up.”

This is not my responsibility. I’m one of the top account executives at Impact, a media marketing company, and I’ve been working my ass off under this man for eight years in hopes of becoming a full partner one day.

However, I seem to never say no to my infuriating boss.

“Sure,” I mutter, although I’m anything but happy. From the moment Machlan and his partner, Tucker Ashford, hired me, I set out to prove my worth. Marketing is not a stagnant field, especially with the boom of social media. For a woman with no life outside of work, I’ve easily adapted to the changes over the past two decades. At the ripe age of forty-five, I’ve been in the business for a long time. I would have eventually retired from my previous employer if it hadn’t been for a huge snafu that I swear will never happen again.

My pride and my heart cannot take another Ripley Edgar incident.

When I call down to reception on the ground floor of our Michigan Avenue building, the security man Pete, informs me the item is too large for the elevator.

“Is it a freaking elephant?” I laugh into the phone. Pete and I have good rapport. That tends to happen when you’re the first one in the building or one of the last to leave at night.

“Nope, but close. Mr. Wright needs to come down to sign for it.”

Curiosity has the best of me and knowing Mach—as the rest of the office calls him—won’t take a break long enough to accept his own package, I decide to ride down the thirty-four floors to see for myself what’s too big for an elevator.