Reckless Hearts: A Billionaire Romance (19 page)

"You know I can't," I said.

"Another mystery I believe I can solve for you," he said, coming around the front of the car and then sitting in the passenger seat. After a moment of consideration, he buckled his seatbelt. "You'll want to push the clutch in before you try and start it. All the way in, too."

I buckled up too, though I felt trapped. I wanted out. But I didn't want to walk God-knew how many miles back to the school.

"I don't think I can," I said, my heart thumping and my palms sweaty. I nearly dropped the key.

"Maybe you can't. But if you can't you'll be walking back to the campus."

I did drop the key then, right into my lap. "You wouldn't!" I said.

He nodded and I knew he would. He'd leave me out here. Or was it a bluff? I didn't know, and I didn't want to try and call him on it.

"Now start it up. The car's in neutral right now, see?" he said, grabbing the shifter and wiggling it from side to side. "That's how you check and see. If it doesn't move like that then you're in gear. Push the clutch in and start the car. It's a long way back to the campus, take my word for it."

"I can't believe you're making me do this," I said. I looked at the array of buttons and pedals and all the other controls in the car. So much. Too much for my brain to handle.

"Forget about all that other stuff for now. Just concern yourself with the pedals, the steering wheel, and the stick."

I fished the key out of my lap, watching the way the light caught on the key's teeth. Owen took my hand and guided it down to the ignition. I put the key in.

After some hesitation, I pushed the clutch in. It was easier than I thought to do.

Then I wiggled the shifter from side to side like he showed me. "Just making sure," I said.

"The thing about procrastinating is that it has to end at some point. You're just delaying," he said. "Start the car."

I turned the car on. The well-tuned engine hummed to life, the gauges and needles on the dash lifting and lighting up.

"Good. Put it in first."

I looked again at the shift knob, lifting my palm so I could see the gear pattern. I swallowed against the dryness in my mouth. Then I pushed the stick.

"Now let the clutch out slowly. You'll know it's caught when the engine revs drop and the car creeps forward a little. Then give it some gas and take your foot all the way off."

"I'm going to stall it," I said, "My dad tried this same thing when I was 17. I couldn't even get out of the driveway." I still remembered that day. Late summer, a bit warmer than it was on the runway. My dad had an '88 Civic he commuted to work with every day. Nothing like the machine I sat in with Owen.

"Fine then. Stall it. Then start it again and keep trying. If you feel it start to stall, push the clutch in again."

I took a breath, trying to calm myself. I loosened my death grip on the shifter.
This is crazy. It's never going to work!
I started letting the clutch out. The engine's hum deepened. The barest amount of inertia pushed me back in my seat.

I started giving it some gas, the purr getting louder. Then I guess I let the clutch out too fast because the car jerked forward and then died.

"See? This is stupid!" I said. "Why do people even drive these anymore? It's so useless when you can just get an automatic. You know what that word means, right? It means you don't have to shift!"

He put his hand on my lap, creating a warm spot. "Sure, if you like giving up control. A standard shift car puts you in control of everything. And once you learn, it'll feel natural. Trust me, it's good to be in control. Now are we going to drive or are you going to be walking?" He squeezed my thigh, the accompanying smile still not telling me whether or not he was joking.

"It's never going to work. I just can't do it," I said. But I pushed in the clutch and started the car again anyway.

This time when the car started dying I pushed the clutch in and saved it. Then I did it again. The car started moving forward. I gave it more gas, letting my foot go off the clutch entirely.

The runway started blurring in my peripheral vision.

"Shift," he said, "Second gear. Straight down."

I pushed the clutch in and pulled the shifter down, then I let off the clutch and pushed the gas in again. The engine calmed down.

I geared up again, and then again. I was in fourth gear, the car shooting along at 50.

The runway was long, but still didn't take that long to drive down. The warning sign at the end loomed up. I hit the brake and the car started sputtering.

"Push the clutch in too," he said. I did and the sputtering stopped.

We came to a stop and I killed the ignition. "Wow."

"Feels good?"

"Yes!" little chills of excitement and adrenaline kept going up my back, down my legs and arms. I'd done it! "Thanks. That wasn't so bad."

"Nothing like the threat of punishment to spur you on." He put his hand over mine and the shifter and squeezed lightly. "That was good. Learn anything about yourself?"

"What do I get for succeeding?" I ignored his question. But I had learned something. I'd learned that I could get a standard shift car going if pressed. I also learned that I liked the man sitting next to me for more than just the sex. I learned that I wanted to know if he felt the same.

Learned? Or finally able to admit it?
It was the question I knew Owen would ask if I let him.

I wasn't about to say any of that, though. Not yet. Not with that lingering fear about losing the person I used to be.

But was the old me all that worth keeping?

I looked over at him, our eyes catching. I realized I wanted him to kiss me, then. Not because I was turned on or anything like that. I just wanted to feel close with him, intimate.

I thought he might even do it, too. He kept our gazes locked too long. His palm warmed up over my knuckles.

Then he broke it, taking a quick glance at the fence and then examining the car.

"You've earned a ride in the passenger seat. Chinese fire drill," he said.

We switched places. I don't think I could ever be as natural and smooth as he was. He didn't need to look at the RPM gauge, or down at the shifter to see which number was where. His body acted in harmony with the car, like it was an extension of him.

We started back down the runway towards the hangers. I cracked the window, the wind whistling in and giving us some fresh air. It was nice.

Owen rowed through all the gears, not stopping at 50. We hit 75, then 90. It edged over 100. The hangars were distant, but getting closer at a faster rate than I liked.

The wind screamed through the crack now. I closed the window. My feet pushed against the foot well, bracing me.

"Owen?" I said.

Even in its top gear, the revs went high enough to have the engine roaring. We hit 120. 125.

"Owen!"

"Once you've got it," he said, a primal snarl on his face, "It's natural. You have more control, don't you see?"

"All I see is the end of the runway!"

The collision detection turned on, emitting a soft, insistent beep. Owen didn't slow down.

"Stop! Stop the car!" I said. The hangar doors grew in my vision far too fast. I screamed.

That snapped Owen out of his trance or his rage or whatever it was. He stood on the brake. Another scream rose up to match mine: the tires on the tarmac.

We were too close, I knew. Too little too late. Even Owen didn't look certain we could stop in time, his face intense.

I threw my hands against the dash. It was like bringing a thimble to the bucket brigade.

I misjudged the German engineering, though. Our momentum died fast enough that I rebounded back against my seat, the belt locking to keep me from bouncing.

Owen put the car in neutral, giving the stick an unconscious shake to check, and let his foot off the clutch. He breathed in a deep, shuddering breath and let it out. "Makes you feel alive, doesn't it?"

"You almost lost it there," I said, my voice weak at first but gaining strength. Nearly pancaking a car against a big steel door will do that to a girl. "Almost lost all your precious control."

"But I didn't."

"You wanted to, though. I saw it in your face."

He didn't give me an answer. There wasn't enough room to turn the car between the bumper and the steel, we were that close to the door, so he backed up and then started for the gate.

I didn't like the adrenaline aftershocks I felt. They were sharp and unpleasant, leaving me weak and cold everywhere but the pit of my stomach.

I glanced at Owen. That mad gleam had left his eyes. He was the Owen I knew again, no longer the one who liked to tempt fate.

I wondered when all this started. Was this something he did before he knew me? Or was it only since I had appeared in his life that he suddenly had a desire to relinquish all that control he cherished so much?

Being with him, thinking about him, made me forget about school, made it nowhere near so important as it had been to me. Maybe this daredevil attitude was his reaction to me.

Were we destined to destroy each other? Or rather, to destroy ourselves because of each other?

Could it be halted? Or had we already passed our point of no return?

"You're taking me back now, right?" I said. That last question lingered in my mind, as stuck there as any of those pop earworm songs from the radio.

"Yes, I'll take you back," he said. His hands squeezed the steering wheel too hard. Maybe his thoughts mirrored mine. Maybe he kept thinking about how we'd managed to stop kissing distance from that hangar door.

"What should I say to Peabody if he asks me anything?"

That earned a snort. He thought about as highly of the president of SNYUC as I did. "Tell him I haven't decided yet. Tell him I might need to borrow you a few more times."

We came up to the gate. Owen pressed a button on his key fob and it slid open, rattling on its track. It closed behind us and I saw the large NO TRESPASSING - PRIVATE PROPERTY sign on it.

It would be nice to get away from him again. To have some space to think. Space was good.

We started down the road and I tried not to think about what we'd been doing going the opposite direction.

W
e drove in relative silence, neither of us talking. The exceptional soundproofing of the BMW reduced the noise of the outside world to a faint hum, and its suspension made this seem like the most perfectly flat and level road in the entire world.

That didn't help my feelings of disconnection. I floated down the road in a bubble, separate from the outside. Separate from Owen.

I suppose that we both became lost in ourselves, wondering what had become of us.

One time, as we started down a gentle slope, I looked at him, wanting to say something. I didn't know what. Anything, really. Because as much as I wanted to just let things peter out between us, I wanted him to look at me again.

I didn't speak, though. Under normal circumstances the other person would notice your movement out of the corner of their eye, interpret it for what it was, and give some signal that they wanted to talk.

Owen watched the road, only ever shifting his vision to check his mirrors.

It was an uneasy quiet.

I might have dozed if that last adrenaline rush ever stopped giving me the jitters. It was a good thing I didn't.

"Stop!" I said, a flash of grey appearing at the shoulder, ready to walk out onto the road.

For the second time that day, the brakes screamed. Owen cranked the wheel and we went into the other lane, stopping just before the soft shoulder.

"Was that a dog?" Owen said.

"I don't know... Oh!" I said, turning in my seat and looking back. What looked like a shaggy pile of fur lay on the opposite shoulder.

"But I didn't hit it. I know I didn't hit it," Owen said.

Then he pulled the car the rest of the way onto the shoulder and got out. That surprised me. I had thought he might drive off and leave it.

I got out too, looking up and down the road. There was no other traffic. I started across the road, following him.

"Is it dead?" I asked. That pile of fur looked awfully still. My heart sank.

He knelt beside it. "It is a dog. And no, he's not dead."

I reached his side and crouched. From there I saw the poor thing's flanks rise and fall. One of its legs looked broken.

"It looks like someone hit him and then drove off," Owen said.

My fingers kept curling into fists and relaxing. I wanted to reach out, to comfort the dog, but I didn't want to hurt him anymore. There could be broken ribs or any other number of things wrong with him.

He was a medium-sized thing, some mix of collie and retriever to give him that thick, fluffy coat and long snout.

Road dust clotted that coat now, matted it down.

I saw then how dry and hot his nose looked. A sure sign of a sick dog. Not that it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know just from looking at the state of him.

The dog whined at us, the sound low and weak. The one eye we could see, very wet and glossy, watched us plaintively. My own eyes started stinging in sympathy.

I hated whoever had done this. Hated them with a passion.

"Maybe he heard the sound of the car coming and came out. Then he ran out of energy," I said.

"Could be. No collar. Must be a stray."

"Don't leave him," I said, "We have to help!"

The dog whined again. Perhaps sensing something in my tone, his tail wagged feebly.

"Of course we're not leaving him."

Then I got another glimpse of the man who'd stooped to save an earthworm from a hot death. He stripped off his jacket and placed it over the dog, not caring about the road dust or shedding fur.

He picked the dog up as gently as he could. The dog moaned in pain, but didn't resist. Again, his tail gave a weak wag.

The dog didn't even have the strength to hold his head up, so I cradled it in my hands, both his big wet eyes staring hopefully into mine. They were brown and soft and so human it hurt. Not the same shade as Owen's but not so different, either.