In Your Honor (47 page)

They got to the road and he let go of her
hand long enough to push his Harley out from behind some trees.
That was when the beauty of the night really struck her. He was
still so much of the boy she had known long ago. Sneaking her out
in the middle of the night, still riding that piece of crap
motorcycle. She felt laughter bubble out of her and he jerked his
head up at the sound, a smile spreading across his face.

“
What?” Blake tried to look wounded
around his wide grin.

“
I can't believe you still have that
thing.” Lucy shook her head in wonder.

“
What did you think I meant when I
said we'd go for a ride?” he asked obviously.

“
I don't know. You're a successful
rock star, I thought you'd have gotten yourself something flashier
and more reliable by now.” She arched an eyebrow at him.

“
How dare you,” he gasped, “she can
hear you, ya know.”

Lucy let out a giggle, and Blake grinned
again. Then he said words that she hadn't heard in far too
long.

“
C'mon, gorgeous. Let's be reckless.”
He straddled the bike and nodded at her to join him.

Lucy felt a jolt go through her. Yes, she
wanted that. Everything he'd just said.

All worry that they shouldn't be doing this
vanished. She swung a leg over and gently rested her hands on his
hips.

He chuckled low, the sound making her pulse
go double-time, and fired the Harley to life. “You're gonna wanna
hold on tighter than that,” he yelled over the roar.

Her eyes widened when he flung the bike
around and sped down the street. She hadn't ridden a motorcycle in
far too long. Her arms wrapped tightly around his middle and her
thighs hugged his hips, desperately trying to keep her from flying
off the back.

They tore through town. Shops, side streets,
houses and lights all became blurs. He drove them out of the city
limits and into the countryside. Her hair started to work free of
the elastic and whip her in the face, but she didn't care.

The faster he went, the lighter she felt.
The heaviness of her heartache was right behind them and he was
almost outrunning it. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder,
never wanting him to stop.

This. This small space that she took up on
the back of Blake's roaring motorcycle. This was the place where
she felt free. Her palms pressed flat against his chest and she
could feel his heart beating through the thin cotton t-shirt. Her
hair tie was lost to the wind, taking her reservations with it. His
shoulder was warm on her cheek and she squeezed tighter. She felt
him tense and the Harley went faster, taking them into the wild
safety of the night.

She opened her eyes when the bike slowed and
turned down a dirt road. She looked around at the open field, her
heart still racing from the drive, a little disappointed that
they'd reached a destination, until she recognized where they
were.

He kicked the stand down and she jumped off.
Swinging his leg over the side, he took her hand, leading her into
the long grass until a clearing appeared.

“
I haven't been here since graduation
night.” She let go of his hand and took a few steps forward.
Tilting her head back, she stared up at the night sky. The stars
were bigger here, brighter. She felt so small, her sorrows almost
insignificant. What she had recited during her graduation speech
came flooding back. Walt Whitman's
Song of
Myself.
The words seemed appropriate
again.

“
Press close bare-bosom'd
night—press close magnetic nourishing night!

Night of south winds—night of the large few
stars!

Still nodding night—mad naked summer
night.”

She called the familiar lines into the
wide-open space, flinging her arms out to the sides.

A low chuckle rumbled behind her and she
spun around to find a pair of emerald eyes watching her
intently.

“
I love it when you quote
Whitman,” Blake said, giving her a crooked smile. Was he nineteen
again? He sure looked like it.

A shiver ran through her and she decided to
collapse on the ground, her arms spread out wide.

Blake's boots smashed the grass beside her
head and she looked up to see him studying her, his face
unreadable. She looked past him to the stars and he finally lay
down next to her, lacing his hands behind his head. She had so many
questions for him, a list that had built up over time. Questions
about why and how and was any of it real. But here in the silence
of the night, it seemed so small. So very trivial.

Her head turned to stare at him. Face
relaxed, eyes straight to the sky, the profile of his jaw line
standing out in the starlight. She let out a cleansing breath and
faced up again.

“
How do you always know
what I need?” she asked finally.

“
What do you mean?” He
swiveled his head to look at her.

“
I mean, how do you always
know what I need to feel better? Like this, how did you know that
coming out here to this spot would help at all?”

He was quiet for a long time, filling the
space between them with slow breathing.

“
You're my best friend,
Lucy. I abandoned you once. It'll never happen again.” His words
started a slow burn in her chest that she wished she could ignore.
He'd never admitted to how he'd abandoned her before. They'd fought
about how he'd left, for sure, but he'd never admitted any
wrongdoing.

She rolled onto her side, pressing both arms
together and resting her head on her hands. “You were here for the
funeral, weren't you?” she gently confronted him. She had always
had her suspicions but was too scared to ask. Still... that week
hadn't been as hard as she thought it should have been, and she
really had no explanation for it.

“
Yeah,” he conceded with a
slow breath.

“
I knew it somehow.” Her
eyes wandered to the grass in front of her and she picked at a
sleepy dandelion. “It's like, when a storm is coming and you can
smell the rain hours beforehand... that's what it's like when
you're nearby.”

The air between them
tightened and stretched. He didn't respond and she was too scared
to look at his face, unsure of how her words were being received.
Her normal candor had been replaced with insecurity and doubt. But
she couldn't
not
be honest with Blake.

“
Why didn't Shane want me,
Blake?” she suddenly asked.

He rolled up onto his side to face her,
jutting an elbow into the ground and leaning his head in his hand,
a frown pulling his eyebrows inward.

“
I really don't know. He's
an idiot,” came the growled reply.

Lucy sighed and closed her eyes, then slowly
opened them.

“
I really thought he liked
me.” Her voice sounded small and her eyes started to
burn.

“
I did, too.” Blake's jaw
clenched and his brows darkened further.

“
I feel so stupid. I keep
going over everything in my head—” Blake cut her off when he
touched her bottom lip with his thumb, his fingers brushing past
her jaw line and slipping into her hair.

“
Stop that. You didn't do
anything wrong.” His eyes traced her face, settling on her mouth
briefly where his thumb still pressed gently. Lifting his eyes back
to hers he continued, “Sometimes... things end.”

Like with them? But they had never truly
ended, had they? They kept finding their way back into each other's
worlds and lives. He removed his hand and rested it in the grass
between them, but he didn't drop his gaze. She wished she knew what
he was thinking, had some sort of glimpse into his quiet
thoughts.

“
Why did you get that
tattoo?” She could tell by the flare in his eyes that he wasn't
expecting that question, and he looked past her shoulder for a few
seconds. The muscle in his jaw ticked as he debated whether or not
to give her an answer.

His eyes swung back to hers. “I guess I
thought it was obvious.” The non-answer answer. She hated that.

“
With you, nothing is
obvious,” she returned, and his mouth formed a hard line. “Is that
all I really left you with? Scars?”

His face softened and his frown turned
worried. “No.”

That was it. Just “no.” No explanation. She
looked back to the dandelion as she tried to decide where to go
after that.

“
I notice you haven't
brought up Frank.” His tone was questioning but tense.

“
Not my proudest moment,”
came her mumbled confession. “We never really saw eye to eye on
things and I
really
disagreed when I found out he was such a slut.” Her hair
dropped over her shoulder as she dipped her head, unable to look
him in the eye. “He wanted me because of who my father is and he
thought I'd be easy to manipulate.” She smirked wryly. “Showed him,
though, didn't I?”

“
You knew he was using
you?” Blake's voice was hard. This was a touchy subject, one reason
she never brought it up.

“
We used each other.” She
sighed, not liking how this part of her life made her feel. “I was
really...” Her voice trailed off. She didn't want to go there.
Because the truth was, Frank was her one and only attempt to get
over Blake. Frank was the complete opposite of him. He was a blond,
power-driven heir to an oil tycoon. A trust fund playboy who liked
what Lucy's name looked like on paper. She rode that ride until she
decided to get off. The hunting accident really was an accident,
but it felt pretty damn good at the same time.

“
You were really what,
Luce?” Blake pressed gently, and she came back to the
present.

“
Lonely,” she finally
admitted.

“
Babe...” There was so
much sympathy and pity in that word when he said it.

She met his eyes again and felt the shame
burn on her cheeks. He knew now. After that huge fight that night,
him breaking Frank's nose and her sending him away; it was all an
act. She had never loved Frank. He was only a means to an end. The
end of being alone. And she was only alone because Blake kept
leaving her.

“
Why didn't you want
me?”

His jaw flitted under his skin as it worked
back and forth. His green eyes darkened and her breath slowed down.
Still. After everything. He was still the only one she could
see.

“
I've always wanted you,”
he said huskily. “I never stopped.”

Her gaze settled on his mouth and she licked
her lips. That was not the answer she was expecting, but it was the
one she wanted. She began to lean forward, craving what she knew
she would find in his embrace. The intensity, the warmth, the
passion. But he stopped her. He cupped her face with his hand,
threading his fingers into her hair again and ran his thumb across
the apple of her cheek, holding her away by inches.

“
No, Lucy,” his voice
raspy and his breathing heavy.

“
But... you just said...”
She frowned in confusion and embarrassment started to burn her
eyes. How had she read that wrong?

“
I know what I said.” He
looked from her eyes to her mouth and she could see the desire on
his face. “And it's more true than you know. I want you all the
time. The way you move, the way you smell, your laugh, your
voice... all of it turns me on. But if you're with me, then I want
you to be with
me
. For the right reasons, not because you're sad.”

Her eyes dropped to his chest as his words
registered in her brain. He was right. She cared about him too much
to use him like that. It would ruin them both. She was too much of
an emotional wreck to know if she wanted him for him, or because
she simply didn't want to feel alone.

She rolled onto her back again and out of
his reach. Humiliation began to heat up her cheeks and she wanted
to hide. She knew he wasn't trying to hurt her, but the sting of
rejection was hard to ignore.

He reached his hand over and laced his
fingers together with hers. The simple act was enough to remind her
who she was with. It reminded her of everything they had been
through and what they meant to each other.

“
I'll wait, Lucy. I'm not
going anywhere. Never again.”

***

He got Lucy home just after dawn. She had
grass in her hair and didn't even have time to change her clothes
before they had to say goodbye to their parents and head to the
airport. But it was worth it. She was not as downtrodden as she had
been the day before. A night under the stars had been the initial
cleansing of the wound in her heart.

She fell asleep before the plane left the
runway. Snuggled in her spacious seat in the corner with a blanket
wrapped around her, she looked peaceful. She was still wearing that
random t-shirt she had pulled out of her drawer the night before.
It was one he had gotten for her on one of their road trips: a
small, red, now threadbare shirt for a band that they had seen in
Omaha, Nebraska. It still looked great on her.

“
So now that Shane is out
of the picture are you going for it?” Kendra asked. Spending so
much time with his mama had definitely increased her spunkiness.
And she'd picked up a touch of an accent, too.

“
No, that's the last thing
on my mind.” Blake stretched his tired muscles as much as he could
in the cabin. While he hadn't slept at all last night because he'd
been busy watching Lucy sleep, he felt rested.