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After they left Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks behind, they hit Togwotee Pass, climbing to 9,658 feet, the highest elevation they’d reached yet.
They pedaled through the Breccia Cliffs and the Wind River mountains and battled gusting side winds near Fort Washakie.
East of Lander, they rode for 124 miles without seeing more than a dozen cars. There were no trees, no hills, no shade. Just dry, sandy scrub with tumbleweeds straight out of a Hollywood western, a harsh sun, and wind like you wouldn’t believe. They had to knock back a ton of water to wash the grit out of their teeth and keep from drying up and blowing away.
They climbed up into the Continental Divide Basin fighting strong headwinds that forced them to pedal downhill into Rawlins, which was just wrong.
But Tom had Lexie riding beside him. Even better, at night in his tent, he had her above him, below him, and every other way they could think of.
And that was good. Really good.
11
Walden, Colorado, to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. 1,842 miles traveled.
It was time to begin Lexie’s lessons in spontaneity.
When they’d passed into Colorado, the trees came back, and the scenery mellowed out. Now they were mostly riding through grassland, crossing the occasional stream, rolling by the tidy fences of one cattle ranch after another. Very nice.
This morning, however, Colorado also had a headwind that was blowing so hard it made riding a form of torture. Bent over the handlebars, wind howling in their ears, they crept forward, fighting for every revolution of the tires. Tom had thought half a dozen times of proposing they turn tail and let the wind push them back to Walden. They could always try again tomorrow, and in the meantime he wouldn’t mind spending the rest of the day in the tent with Lex. He could think of some pleasurable ways to pass the time.
If he’d had the faintest hope she’d agree, he would have suggested it an hour ago. He knew her better than that, though. Today, her little book said they were going to Kremmling, and Lex did what the little book said. There were no restaurants or convenience stores between here and their destination, which meant she intended for them to spend the entire day grinding along at a snail’s pace, stopping only to eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches by the side of the road.
He had a better plan.
He’d spent some time in this part of Colorado back when he was married—Haylie’s family had a cabin outside of Steamboat Springs—and a glance at the map this morning had told him there were more interesting places to spend tonight than some campground in the middle of nowhere. When he spotted a familiar-looking intersection, he pulled off the road and leaned his bike against a fence.
A few longhorns meandered over to investigate as Lexie followed his lead and dismounted. She clicked through a few screens on her bike computer, then groaned. “We’re averaging seven miles an hour. Seven. At this rate, it’s going to take us nine hours to get to Kremmling, and that’s if we don’t stop.”
“Let me see the map.”
Lexie handed it to him, and he smiled as he studied it. He’d been right. The road coming in from the west went exactly where he’d thought it did. He and Lex were going to take a little detour.
“Come here,” he said, hooking an arm around her waist and drawing her closer, ignoring for the moment the way his body responded to her. If he tried to do something about that response every time it flared up, he’d be a dead man by now, because there was something about Lex that got him hard every single time she was in range. He figured it would wear off eventually, but so far it showed no signs of flagging. If anything, it was getting worse. She was a very addictive woman.
“You know how you said you wanted me to teach you how to tour properly?”
Lex shot her glare at him, though there was no fire in it. “I never said that! I said I needed some practice being a little more spontaneous.”
“Right. Well, we’re going to start now.” He reached past her to slide her bike computer out of the clip that held it in place on her handlebars. Then he cocked his arm, took aim, and threw it as far as he could out into the field of cattle.
“What the hell, Tom! I need that!” She moved to the fence and climbed the bottom rail as if she were actually considering vaulting over it to retrieve her useless thirty-dollar piece of technology. Gripping her hips with both hands, he forced her to turn back around to face him. She was just high enough off the ground to put them eye-to-eye, so he took advantage of the opportunity and kissed her, gratified when she yielded after a few seconds’ resistance and made that little hitching, moaning noise in her throat that never failed to get him going. Tom deepened the kiss, drawing her closer until they were plastered together and panting.
“Tom?” Lexie said when they stopped to breathe, glancing to the side.
“Yeah?”
“The cows are kind of creeping me out.”
He followed her gaze and saw a big group of longhorns gathered behind the fence, watching him and Lexie with their huge, stupid eyes. “Maybe this isn’t the best place to make out.”
“Maybe not,” she agreed, hopping down off the fence. “Are you going to tell me why you threw my computer in there?”
“You don’t need it.”
“I do! I have to keep track of how far we’ve gone and how fast we’re moving, and I have to track my cadence, too, or else …” She looked at him and trailed off. “Could you please not smirk at me like that?”
“Try it my way for a week. If you find you can’t live without it, I’ll buy you a new one in Kansas. I’ll even put it on the bike for you.” This was a major concession. Tom hated installing the things, and at the shop he always refused to do it for people, not so much on principle as because it was a pain in the ass futzing around with all the little cables and magnets and zip ties.
