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Rising to her feet, she leaned across the table and shoved his chest as hard as she could. She managed to catch him off guard, knocking him against the back of the chair. “Damn it, Tom! Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through? Why the hell didn’t you say something a week ago? Wait, how long have you been planning this?”
Her veins felt like they were filled with battery acid, and it was difficult to draw enough air into her lungs. She needed to get away from him. She needed to think. “Give me a minute,” she said, and fled outside.
It was hot and blindingly bright in the parking lot. Lexie leaned back against the building, closing her eyes to the glare off the blacktop. It was nearly September. She was supposed to go back to Portland tomorrow, to be in the classroom again in two weeks. Tom loved her. He wanted to ride back to Oregon with her.
He’d called his mother.
And he’d been thinking about this stuff all the way across Virginia, and he hadn’t said a word.
There were surprises, and then there were surprises. She hadn’t liked it when he threw her bike computer into a field of longhorns, but it had turned out fine. He’d made her nervous with the detour to Steamboat Springs, but the few days they’d spent on the Great Divide trail were among her favorite memories from the trip. This, though. This was Tom pushing her to be spontaneous about the rest of her life. This was Tom hatching plans for the two of them while the two of them were hardly speaking. It was no way to start a relationship. He couldn’t always be in charge.
She heard the front door of the restaurant open to disgorge a knot of customers, and footsteps approached. She didn’t even have to open her eyes, because her skin knew he was there, and anyway, she could smell him.
He braced his hands on either side of her head, and when she opened her eyes he was filling her field of vision. His expression caught her off guard. Tom had the hunted look of the rabbit they’d seen in Kansas, frozen in an open field while a red-tailed hawk circled overhead. There was nothing high-handed or arrogant about him. He was just plain scared.
“Don’t be mad at me, Lex,” he said. “Please. I’ve had a lot to sort through, and I couldn’t talk to you until I had something to offer. I want to be someone you can imagine spending the rest of your life with. It’s just taking me some time to get there.”
He hadn’t been exaggerating earlier, then. Tom had his heart on the chopping block, and she was holding the knife. He was truly afraid she wouldn’t want him. And why shouldn’t he be? She’d told him she loved him, but she’d been yelling at him at the time. He didn’t know he’d carved out such a big place for himself in her heart that she could never be whole without him.
The panic that had driven her out of the restaurant had departed, leaving nothing but clean certainty. They were both afraid. That was only natural, since they were on the cusp of making a commitment that would change both of their lives permanently, and they’d spent the past two weeks trying to pretend they were strangers. But the fear didn’t matter anymore. Tom loved her. She loved him. That wasn’t going to change. They could get married in Vegas or Oregon or not at all. The details weren’t important. They were going to be together. She would ride with him to the ends of the earth if that’s what he wanted.
“You really don’t know how I feel about you?” she asked. “You’re already that someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. There’s never going to be anyone else for me but you, Tom. I love you.”
He exhaled and leaned his forehead against hers. “I thought I was a python.”
“I only said that because I was angry. And I felt like a goose.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer, awareness skittering up her spine. She’d missed this. Her arms had been pining for this man for a thousand miles.
“You’re not angry anymore?”
“No. I’m good. Better than good.”
“Thank God.” He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her, hot and sweet, long and hard. A promise of everything to come.
When he straightened back up, he was her Tom again. Relaxed. Confident. Ridiculously hot. He gave her a slow, provocative smile and said, “I know I wasn’t supposed to do that, but you were taking too long to make the first move. You think we could skip straight to the makeup sex and work out the rest later?”
It was the best idea she’d heard in weeks.
After all, they had five thousand miles to iron out the details.
Acknowledgments
For my dad, who bought me my first three kick-ass bikes, and who taught me when I was twelve that there’s really no such thing as a hill I can’t ride up.
With thanks to Faye, for being my friend, and to Serenity Woods for being the best critique partner a gal could ask for. To Gina Leigh Maxwell for stalking me and sharing her superpower of Sonic Perkiness. To Isabel Sharpe for a warm welcome to the wilds of romance and blunt criticism when I most needed it. And to Meg Maguire, Serena Bell, and Christie Craig for helping me rewrite the beginning of this book the fourth, and final, time.
I’m grateful to the Georgia Romance Writers Association for selecting this book as a winner of the Maggie Award of Excellence, as well as to Winona Bateman and Jennifer Milyko at the Adventure Cycling Association for their help with the map.
Thanks also to my agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, for being so cheerfully certain about me (and for the pens). To Angela Polidoro at Random House for her eagle-eyed editing and help. And finally to Sue Grimshaw, my editor, for deciding Tom and Lexie’s story deserved to be told, and for helping me tell it better.
About the Author
(Photo: © STUN Photography)
Ruthie Knox figured out how to walk and read at the same time in the second grade, and she hasn’t looked up since. She spent her formative years hiding romance novels in her bedroom closet to avoid the merciless teasing of her brothers and imagining scenarios in which someone who looked remarkably like Daniel Day Lewis recognized her well-hidden sex appeal and rescued her from middle-class midwestern obscurity.
After graduating from college with an English and history double major, she earned a doctorate in modern British history that she’s put to remarkably little use. These days, she writes the sort of contemporary romance in which witty, down-to-earth characters find each other irresistible in their pajamas, though she freely admits this has yet to happen to her. Perhaps she needs more exciting pajamas. Ruthie abhors an epilogue and insists a decent romance requires at least three good sex scenes. You can find her at http://www.ruthieknox.com.
THE EDITOR’S CORNER
