Not precisely because she had breasts, no, though at the moment they weren’t a point in her favor. Those breasts were going to make it a lot trickier for him to find the right person to ride with her—he’d have to make sure whoever it was wouldn’t take advantage of her. Which, in turn, meant he was likely to be stuck with her company for a lot longer than he wanted to be.
That was the problem. Because attractive as she was, the woman screamed Type A. One look at her bike told him everything he needed to know. It was expensive, immaculate, and tricked out with high-end components. The narrow handlebars were choked with accessories, including an air horn to scare off dogs, a flashing LED safety light, a bike computer, and a handlebar bag topped with a plastic map sleeve. Inside the sleeve, she had a TransAm trail map—annotated, if his eyes didn’t deceive him, with tiny tape flags.
His general aversion to humankind aside, Tom liked women as much as the next guy. But hyperorganized, controlling women like this one reminded him of his ex-wife, and that was a reminder he could live without.
And if she needed another strike against her, there was the eight-inch reflective orange triangle hanging from the back of her saddle, on which she’d written, in large black letters, “Lexie—TransAm—OR to VA.” It may as well have read: Hi! I enjoy talking to strangers about riding my bike! Please drop whatever you’re doing to engage me in inane conversation.
Not his cup of tea.
Tom knew better than to say any of that aloud. He stuck with “This is a bad idea.”
“Which part?” she asked, with a perplexed shake of her head. She had wavy reddish brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Very pretty.
Very definitely not a man.
“Riding together,” he clarified.
“But wasn’t it your idea? You answered my ad.” She looked irritated with him, a little confused. Vulnerable. He wanted to help her out, except he was the problem.
This was exactly why he avoided getting tangled up with people. You reached out a helping hand, and the next thing you knew you were up to your neck in quicksand, trying and failing to figure out a way to get everybody back out again.
“My sister,” he said.
“What about your sister?”
“She answered it.”
“You’re kind of losing me here.”
“Yeah.” He crossed his arms and stared at her. Maybe if he was rude enough, she’d give up and go home. There was a risk she would cry first, and that would be unpleasant, but he could weather it if he had to.
She crossed her own arms, mimicking his posture, and stared right back. “Yeah.”
2
How on earth had she gotten Tom Geiger so completely wrong?
Lexie had prepared for this meeting as studiously as she had laid out all of her plans for the trip. The entire way from Astoria this morning, she’d thought about how she would respond when he finally figured out she was a woman. For every potential reaction—surprise, confusion, indignation—she’d considered the best way to overcome it, to smooth over his ruffled feathers and create a strong basis for camaraderie.
But obviously she hadn’t prepared as thoroughly as she should have, because she didn’t know what to do with the guy standing in front of her. She hadn’t expected him to be this hostile. Or this weird. Or this … young.
The Tom Geiger of her imagination had been fifty-five, jovial, and balding. This Tom wasn’t any of those things. Not at all.
She didn’t have the first clue how to cope with him.
He broke the standoff first. Running a hand over his close-cropped black hair, he took a few steps away from her and turned his attention past the parking lot to the beach. Not leaving—regrouping. Yet even this hint of his possible departure made her nervous.
Whatever happened, she couldn’t let him get away.
“Your sister?” she asked, hoping to elicit a fuller explanation.
“Yeah.”
That was it, just the one syllable. For crying out loud. She’d arranged to bike across the country with the most taciturn man in Oregon.
It’s either this guy, or you ride alone.
An option, but not a good one. Lexie had done the woman-camping-alone thing enough times to know her limits. It was one thing to be a strong, independent woman on the streets of Portland and quite another to fall asleep alone in a tent in the middle of nowhere without worrying about ax murderers. She could do it—she had done it—but she’d strongly prefer not to.