Half a block from their cars, they entered an elite neighborhood. Craig swiped a card at a locked gate to enter.
He lived there? He’d never mentioned that he was taking her to ride in his own neighborhood. Not that it mattered, really.
Just seemed...a little too personal.
“Why not just have me meet you at your place so you didn’t have to pack up the bikes?” she asked when they stopped together.
“Because I don’t intend to take you to my place,” he said, glancing sideways to look at her. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression you’d think that too personal.”
He wasn’t wrong.
She was grateful that he was sensitive enough to have picked up on that.
And acted upon it, too.
Maybe it wouldn’t be completely foolish to relax a little bit.
Maybe.
Chapter Eleven
The woman carrying his baby was far too unique to live life alone. Someone was being cheated out of an intriguing, somewhat frustrating, savvy and caring mate. Okay, he could see that he’d at least like a shot at perhaps being that someone...but also understood that Amelia didn’t want a partner.
He even understood why.
It just didn’t seem right. For her, more than anyone. She took on so much by herself. Because she feared her inability to love in a healthy way. As Craig had the thought, he knew that just because something seemed wrong, life still let it happen. Like a child with a leukemia diagnosis. A thirty-seven-year-old dropping dead of an aneurysm. A wealthy mother being killed in a car accident and leaving her young son orphaned and vulnerable to the father who’d never wanted him, but wanted his money. A woman spending her entire life in love with a man married to another family.
A father walking out on his high school sweetheart and their two infants, and throwing away his second chance when one of the daughters contacted him almost two decades later.
He’d slowed his ride once they were inside the gated community and she eventually rode up beside him.
“This is so great,” she told him. “Just so peaceful, and yet, with that little bit of breeze against your skin... I’d forgotten how calming I used to find it, riding my bike.”
Calming. He glanced her way, surprised she’d used that word. He rode to find his peace. Always had.
She glanced at him and their bikes almost collided. Straightening her wheel, she said, “I imagine this is boring for you. I feel bad, slowing your pace.”
“I ride slow sometimes,” he told her. “You see more that way.”
They rounded a corner. Were on his street. A couple of blocks from his property. Which meant about four houses, all set back on their acres of greenery with the mature trees standing in the front yards. The first time he’d seen Tricia’s house he’d known he’d wanted to own it with her. Or, as it turned out, buy it from her.
It was the perfect family home. Like something on the cover of a home design magazine or real estate brochure.
“Thank you for this,” she said, her voice raised a bit to cover the few feet of distance she’d put between them. “Much better than the boring gym.”
He was keeping track of her in his peripheral vision, but doing his best not to look directly at her after their near-collision. The fact that he found the mother of his child about as hot as they came didn’t have any good place in his life. He wasn’t an animal. He could overcome baser instincts.
But as her perfectly shaped, strong-looking thighs moved up and down with the pedals, he had to fight the temptation to think about those legs without the leggings and T-shirt covering them. Even her cute little brand-new silver glitter tennis shoes were a turn-on.
She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail before she’d arrived that morning, and with the bike helmet on, she certainly wasn’t ready for a model runway, and yet, the damn thing just seemed to make her sexier to him.
Tricia had worn the exact same helmet. He didn’t remember it looking like that on her. But then, Gavin had always been on bike rides with them.
He’d let the boy take the bike he’d bought for him with him when he’d had to leave. And had been told that Gavin had traded it for a couple of joints the previous summer.
“You told me you ride most days after work,” she said as they rounded a curve, and what could be seen of his house from the road came into view. The drive was circular and round, passing through trees to the house before going by a three-car garage and heading back out again.
“I do.” He wondered if Talley knew he was out there. If she’d be wagging her tail thinking he’d be pulling in the drive. So far, his girl had been showing signs of improvement. He was hesitantly optimistic that they’d weathered the storm.