Ride with Me

Not knowing what else to do, she teetered back to their room on her three-inch heels, wishing she could throw them at him. The stupid, selfish, stubborn jerk.

He didn’t turn up for an hour. By then, she’d put on her pajamas, stared at the TV for a while without really seeing it, and finally switched off the light. Lying stiffly under the covers with her back to the door, she heard him come in and resolved not to be awake. He didn’t want her to care about him, so why should she talk to him? Why should she keep humoring him? Why should she let him touch her? It was humiliating to feel so much for a man who could toss her aside so easily.

But as soon as he slid between the sheets and pulled her closer with both hands at her waist, she responded automatically, as if her body and his had worked out a truce in the dark that her rational mind had no part in. He kissed her for a long time, holding her flush against him, the gentle stroke of his hands down her back and the soft play of his tongue against hers telling her wordlessly he was sorry, he wanted to be different, he wanted her to understand.

It wasn’t good enough, but she let him make love to her even knowing she shouldn’t, because no matter which Tom he was, she wanted him. Hard and fast and intense, slow and lazy and lighthearted, and every way in between, she always wanted him. And Lexie honestly didn’t know if that meant she was cheap or loyal or what. It didn’t really matter what it made her, because she couldn’t seem to do anything about it. Her mind was her own, but her body belonged to Tom.

The truce only held in the dark. In the morning, he still wasn’t saying much, and Lexie refused to make it easy for him. If he wanted her to be friendly, he was going to have to let her in.

He didn’t.

And it stayed that way to Breckenridge and up the switchbacks over Hoosier Pass, the highest point on the TransAmerica Trail at 11,532 feet. On through Cañon City to Pueblo. Along the Arkansas River from Pueblo to Or

dway, from Ordway to Eads, where the Rockies eased away to nothing and took the trees with them, leaving a brown and flat and desolate landscape in their wake.

From Eads to Scott City.

And then they were in Kansas, and they were still at war.

13

Beeler, Kansas, to Eureka, Kansas. 2,563 miles traveled.

Tom hadn’t been looking forward to Kansas, but it was worse than he’d expected. They were supposed to ride from Scott City to Ness City today, and there wasn’t a single turn on the route. Just a straight push east that sent them past farm after manure-smelling farm, silo after silo, with nothing but the occasional unimpressive hill to relieve the tedium of the parched, drought-ridden landscape.

He was going to have to tell her.

He hated that she was mad at him. He hated that she cared. But mostly he hated that he wanted so much to unburden himself to her, to reveal every sordid, unpleasant detail of his past. Because what was the point? What did he want her to do, absolve him? There was nothing she could do to change any of it, nothing she could fix. He had the same reaction whenever Taryn wanted to talk about the past. Why bother? Digging it up and crying over it would only give it more power than it already had.

What was done was done. The only thing you could do was move on.

So this impulse he had to spill everything to Lexie—which, much to his irritation, had been growing stronger since they left Steamboat instead of fading away as he’d hoped it would—really ticked him off.

The truth was, he wanted to tell her because he wanted her to know him. And that wasn’t the sort of impulse a man ought to feel toward his riding-companion-with-benefits. It was the folly of a man who had already dug himself in too deep.

If he’d had an out, he would have taken it. Flown back home to Salem. Fled to Mexico. Turned north to Canada. Anything to avoid going the rest of the way across the country with this woman who made him want to be a better man. A whole man. The kind of man who could love her.

It wasn’t going to happen, because he wouldn’t let it. He was done with love, done with marriage, done with all of it. He’d been a loner for five years, and that was the way he planned to stay. Like Thoreau, Tom was living in the woods—figuratively, anyway. Even Thoreau had been figurative about it. His mom had brought him lunch sometimes. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, Tom had made a decision to reduce life to its lowest terms. He had a house, a job, a bike, a sister. For a few months here, he had Lexie in his bed. That was all he needed, and it was all he was going to want.

Unfortunately, he’d promised he wasn’t going to leave her again, so this was his penance: Kansas, her irritation, and his recognition that even though it was precisely the wrong move, he was going to tell her what she wanted to know.

He pulled over at a gas station that seemed to comprise Beeler, bought them a couple of sodas and some ice cream sandwiches, and sat down on the curb. After a few minutes inside, Lexie came out and plopped down next to him.

“She was my sister-in-law,” he said without preamble. Then, realizing she might not know what he was talking about, he added, “Beth. At the restaurant. Is my ex-wife’s sister.”

Lexie grabbed one of the plastic bottles off the ground in front of his feet, opened it, and took a long swallow. “Somebody married you?”

She was only half-teasing.

“I told you, I used to be charming.”

They sat there for half a minute, the sun beating down on their backs, breathing in air that smelled like gasoline and cow shit.

Tom sighed. “It’s not much of a story. Her name is Haylie. We met when I was in business school and she was in law school. We got married, bought a house, rescued a dog. Then when my life got really ugly and I needed her support, she didn’t give it to me. Later, I found out she’d been sleeping with my brother at the time. They’re married now.” He paused, wondering if there was anything else he was supposed to say. “They have a couple of kids,” he added.

She unwrapped her ice cream sandwich and took a big, messy bite that left her fingertips covered in sticky pads of chocolate and her lips coated with cream. Even now, when he was battling some serious anxiety waiting to hear her reaction, he wanted to lick her clean. Crazy.

“Did she ride?” she asked finally.