And Then He Kissed Me (2 page)

“I have to go.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

Their staccato words were too short, too sharp. Underneath them was a mountain of dialogue that terrified her. What was he saying? Where was he
going
?

“What is this?” she asked, raising the Post-it into his line of vision. He winced as if she’d flicked scalding water at him.

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Try me,” she said, thinking of how they’d bared their souls to each other these past two weeks. How underneath his Harley leather and her P.E. teacher track pants they’d both been so much alike. She’d let him into her home, into her heart, into her bed. What was there left to hide? Surely nothing they couldn’t tackle together. They were a team. A unit. She knew this as surely as she knew he was sitting in front of her at this very moment, about to make a terrible mistake.

“I have to go. I’m not coming back.”

Her body seemed suddenly too heavy. As if it couldn’t support her.

“
No.
Whatever you think you need to do right now, you don’t. Just slow down. Let’s talk.”

“It’s—I can’t—” Kieran swallowed several times. And then, to her horror and dismay, he kicked the Harley into gear and sped down the road.

His name was a cry on her lips as she raced after him. Her legs pounded the blacktop. She would catch him at the next stop sign. Or at the light in town. She was fast. Athletic. Fit. She could do this. Because there was no alternative. If he left, he took a part of her with him that she’d never get back. He would leave a fathomless black hole where for two weeks there had been nothing but stars.

She sprinted, muscles burning, lungs heaving. If neighbors stared at her, eyes wide, she didn’t notice. If commuters rolled past her, eyebrows raised, she paid them no mind. Kieran was her goal. Her destination. Both the starting and the ending point.

It was a sliver of glass that had finally stopped her. A piece so jagged and dirty that she couldn’t quite tell where the glass ended and the blood and dirt started. She glanced from her heel to the point on the horizon where the road disappeared into sky.

The pain came then. It wasn’t just one wave, it was two—first physical, then emotional, both of them so black and thick that she almost lost her breath. She was half naked, barefoot, at least a mile from home. People were staring at her.

She wanted to duck in shame. Instead, she forced herself to feel everything. She let the pain focus her rattled mind and sharpen her senses.

She’d chased him like a dog running after the family station wagon, and he’d never let up on the throttle. Not once.

Oh, God. Had she really been so stupid? So foolish?

So wrong about everything?

Surely not. What they had was
real
. Which meant he’d be back. He just needed time. Give it a day or so. He would come rumbling back and she’d be furious, but she’d forgive him.

That was what people in love did. They made mistakes, and then gave each other the grace to make things right again.

She turned back toward home, limping until a neighbor asked if she was okay. His glasses were square. She thought his name might be Andy. Maybe-Andy offered to give her a lift. She started to wave him off, then thought better of it. She should get home. Clean up. Get ready for Kieran.

Because he’d be back. He
would
.

Minutes later, she wobbled unsteadily up the front walk, pushed open the door that she’d left ajar.

She called in to work after all. Told them she was sick. It wasn’t a lie, the way it had been fifteen minutes ago.

And then she stayed home and waited, ears straining for the sound of Kieran’s motorcycle as each passing hour melted into the next.

C
HAPTER
ONE

Five years later

K
ieran Callaghan wasn’t used to being questioned. Considering that the source of the interrogation was his boss, he knew he needed to allow it. But he didn’t need to like it.

“You’re pissing your panties about this opportunity…why, again?” Lorne asked, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. Across the wide conference room table, it was clear he was agitated, and rightfully so. Kieran wouldn’t understand the situation himself unless he was smack in the middle of it.

“White Pine is tiny. Full of farmers. Why should I waste my time there at a Harley dealership that’s doomed to fail?”

The lie burned inside him. He’d loved White Pine. More particularly, he’d loved one very specific thing about White Pine. He shoved aside the memory.

“The local economy can sustain this dealership,” Lorne fired back. “We’ve done the due diligence. They just need some help getting it rolling. Same as every other Harley you’ve ever helped jump-start
because it’s your job
. You telling me you don’t want your job anymore?”

“Of course I want my job. I’m telling you I don’t want this
assignment
.”

Lorne sat back in his leather chair. He studied Kieran with a practiced eye. He’d known Kieran for too long to allow this bullshit. Kieran could see it in the arch of his brow, the curl of his lip.

“You got some skeletons hiding in Minnesota you want to tell me about?”

A graveyard full of them,
Kieran thought. But he wasn’t about to say that. As much as Lorne knew about him, he didn’t know everything. Certainly not the darkest parts.

Which was how Kieran liked it. He’d rebuilt himself.
Transformed.
And he wasn’t about to go looking back over his shoulder if he didn’t have to. He caught a glimpse of himself in the shiny surface of the conference room table. Clean shaven. Collared shirt. A businessman with a staff of employees and a title to match: Advancement Director.

Fine. So what if he had to go back to White Pine? He could handle it. The town was small but not that small. It wasn’t like he’d be face-to-face with his past every day. He could avoid…certain people if he needed to.

“There’s an ownership opportunity there, too,” Lorne said, folding his hands. “If you’re interested.”

“No, not there,” Kieran said, angry that he sounded so defensive. Good Christ, how had he ever stayed cool around a betting table long enough to win? He lost his composure too easily these days.

Worse than all that was the fact that he was nervous. He could feel the sweat collecting at the base of his neck. It was a thread of emotion he wasn’t accustomed to winding through him—not for a long time, anyway.

“Suit yourself.” Lorne shrugged. “But I need you there in a week. This dealership just opened and if they don’t get their shit together now, the odds against them are stacked.”

Odds. Betting. There was language he understood. And if he were still a gambling man, he’d go all in on the fact that this was a terrible idea. He should stay as far away from White Pine, Minnesota, as possible. Instead, he found himself nodding yes.

“Whatever you need, Lorne.”

“There’s the Kieran Callaghan I know. He’ll get there eventually, but he’s gotta be a pain in your ass in the process.”

“Hey. This pain in your ass has made sure Harley dealerships all over the country are running as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

“Yeah. And White Pine better not be any different.”

Kieran’s temper flared. He suddenly wanted to tell his boss to fuck off. To say that he’d had enough successes to earn a pass. To say that either he bowed out of this assignment, or he bowed out of the job as a whole and Lorne could go find someone else to fill the position.

But Kieran held his tongue. He hadn’t come this far just to throw it all away now.

He tamped down the sharp jab of emotion that pierced his gut. If he was going to White Pine again, he’d better keep his damn head down. He was going to be a cool, calm professional like always, and he was going to launch a successful Harley-Davidson dealership, same as ever. And then he was going to return to Milwaukee and forget about it all. Just like he’d forgotten about White Pine five years ago.

It was simple, really.

“I’ll be there by next Thursday,” he told Lorne. He had his secretary on speed dial, and had mentally packed half his things already.

But deep inside, his emotions churned. A whole sea of them, and it felt like the only thing holding them back was a wall of brittle glass that might shatter at any moment.

*  *  *

Fletch Knudson’s eyes were roaming up and down Audrey in a way few men’s pupils ever did. For a moment, she felt like the sales manager was appraising her, a little like a farmer looking over a cow before taking it home to his barn. She shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m just here to drop off my résumé,” she said, shoving the thick paper at him. “For the showroom spokesperson?”

Both Fletch’s daughters had come through Audrey’s P.E. classes years ago. So it was strange to think of this dad of two as being an ogler. But he was definitely staring.

“You’ll have to do,” he said finally. “Follow me.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, but he was off, striding into the offices behind the showroom where the new-paint smell of the freshly built building still lingered.

Had she really just gotten the job? If so, she had laundry in the dryer at home that she needed to get back to. They’d have to make the paperwork quick. In spite of this, she felt a flutter of excitement. Her career wasn’t dead after all.
She could do this.

As long as Fletch wasn’t some kind of staring pervert, that is.

She expected him to lead her to the conference room, maybe even to their HR person, but instead he stopped at a closet behind one of the new steel desks.

“Look, we filled this job days ago,” he explained, rifling through the hangers, “but the girl we had lined up quit. Literally just walked out the door.”

“Literally?” Audrey asked. “Because a lot of people misuse that wor—”

“She’s gone,” Fletch interrupted, his dark brows pinched together with frustration, “and you’re about her size. With some help, you might do. The makeup artist is here now—she’ll teach you what you need to know. After today, you’re on your own, so listen to her. The gig is Monday through Friday, ten to four. Stand there, look pretty, make the hogs look even better.”

It took her a moment to grasp what he was asking. “This isn’t a…sales position?”

“Sure. In a manner of speaking.” He shook the clothing in his hand. It was a leather bustier and some chaps. It wasn’t just immodest. It was downright scandalous.

Her face heated. She looked down at her long-sleeved T-shirt and track pants. Her typical uniform. If she was going to wear anything for this job, she’d thought it would be a pin-striped suit. “You want me to wear
that
?”

“It’s not hard and it pays thirty bucks an hour. You want it or not?”

Audrey blanched. That was close to what she’d made as a teacher. With a master’s degree.

She thought about her dwindling bank account. Her piles of unpaid bills. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, it was true, but at that rate she wouldn’t be a beggar for long. No matter how humiliating it would be to march out there dressed like Mad Max crossed with Victoria’s Secret.

She studied the skimpy clothing. “Okay?” she said, hating the doubt in her own voice, hating the alarms that were firing, saying
Leave now
.

This didn’t have to be so bad, she reasoned. After all, there had been a wilder version of herself that had loved being on the back of a Harley. That Audrey would have grabbed these clothes and worn them with pride.

But that Audrey had existed a long time ago. And she’d been very short-lived.

Even so, Audrey took the garments Fletch handed her. “Get changed in the employee bathroom down the hall. The makeup artist is two doors down from there.”

The leather squeaked in her grip, as if protesting as much as she wanted to.

*  *  *

“Isn’t this a little much?” she asked ten minutes later as Deborah, the makeup artist, volumized her eyelashes to about seventy times their normal length.

“Nope,” Deborah said. “It looks good.” Audrey wondered if she should trust the source, considering that Deborah’s bloodred lips were hammered through with thick posts.

“You can just leave my hair,” Audrey said as Deborah undid her ponytail. “It’s hard to do much with.”

“I have secret weapons,” Deborah replied, grabbing a nearby can of hairspray. “Close your eyes.”

“But I—” She tasted hairspray and shut her mouth.

When Audrey tried to take notes about when to use the eye-shadow primer and where to apply the bronzer, Deborah pulled the pen and paper out of her hands. “Watch, don’t write,” she said.

Audrey didn’t know how to tell Deborah she didn’t
want
to watch any of this. She didn’t want to witness the humiliating aftermath of losing her job and having to dress for a part that felt downright embarrassing. But here she was. She locked eyes with the reflection in the mirror and tried not to blink.