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“Maybe, but I’m a professional driver.”
“Stuntdriver.”
“Is it the stunt part that bothers you?”
“No comment.”
Kaden chuckled. He wasn’t sure why he was teasing her about her opinion of his skills behind the wheel. Probably to keep himself from dwelling on the fear that he was wasting his time in Pike. When he’d arrived in town, he’d been certain he was about to put the past behind him. Now he realized there was a chance he would never have the answers he needed.
Lia maintained a slow, steady pace as they drove through the heart of town. He caught sight of Bella’s Restaurant, which apparently sold Italian food, and on the other side of the street was a bar called the Bait and Tackle. It was squeezed between a dentist’s office and a laundromat. Small-town America.
“Have you always lived in Pike?”
Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Was she bothered by his question?
“Always.”
“I suppose you have a husband and children?”
She sent him an annoyed frown. “Why would you suppose that?”
He hid his smile. That had been his less-than-subtle attempt to discover if she was single.
“It’s what most people do.” He waved a hand toward the couple who were scurrying into the laundromat with a child in a stroller. “Grow up. Get married. Produce kids.”
“Not me.”
Satisfaction blasted through him. Obviously single. “Me either.”
She turned onto a side street, weaving past the small, tidy homes, with their Christmas decorations on full display. Did everyone in town have a cedar tree in the front yard?
They turned onto yet another road. This one barely more than a dirt pathway and layered with snow. She slowed to a mere crawl. A speed he fully approved of as the back wheels fishtailed on a patch of ice.
“What made you run off to Hollywood?” she abruptly asked. “Did you want to be a movie star?”
Kaden had a dozen answers to the familiar question: He’d jumped on his motorcycle and hadn’t stopped riding until he hit the ocean. He’d gone to meet the legendary stunt driver, Buzz Bundy. He’d been touring the country and ran out of money when he hit Hollywood . . .
Shockingly, the truth spilled out of his mouth. “I wasn’t runningtoanything. I was runningfromsomething.”
He heard her suck in a sharp breath. “Oh.”
“Nothing dramatic,” he hastily assured her. “My father was a horse’s ass and I was too stubborn to keep my mouth shut. Putting several hundred miles between us seemed like the sensible solution.”
“Your brother stayed in Madison?”
“He had more brains and a higher tolerance for my dad’s drunken outbursts.”
“And a fiancée.”
Kaden’s heart missed a beat. He’d never cared personally for Vanna Zimmerman, but Darren had been head over heels in love.
“And a fiancée.”
Silence filled the SUV as Lia inched around a curve and then pressed on the brakes. She shoved the gear into Park, but she left the engine running.
“This is the place.”
Kaden studied the empty surroundings with a frown as he climbed out of the vehicle and crunched through the snow to the edge of the bridge. He wasn’t sure what he expected. Emergency vehicles with flashing lights? Uniformed deputies lining the path? Barricades and police tape? Instead, there was some trampled snow, a few bits of trash left behind by the gawkers, and an eerie sense of isolation.
