Sidewalk Flower (21 page)

It crushed her heart that she couldn’t
keep him at her place.
 
But as they got
closer to Los Angeles and the more she thought about the guys, she had to admit
that keeping Lucky good meant limiting their time together.
 
Three days might just be too long.

Chapter
Twelve

“Lucky, I’m pulling in for gas.”
 

He felt the soft poke of a fingertip on
his shoulder.
 
He rubbed his eyes and it
took a minute to realize where he was in the dark.
 
He’d been asleep since Kingman.
 
An hour of Sin Pointe’s provocative music had
sent him to sleep on dreams of a passionate night with Trista.
 

They were in the bed of his truck at the
drive-in.
 
He didn’t know what had been
playing.
 
But her every detail was
unforgettable.
 
She wore the sexiest
yellow dress he’d ever seen.
 
No
straps in the way of her soft shoulders and the hem was
her
favorite length, mid-thigh.
 
Those thighs
of hers, toned and feminine, narrow at the knees and then dancing back out at
heart-shaped calves he wanted to kiss.
 
He’d never had as vivid a recollection as this.
 
The way he remembered the
light tan of her skin and the turquoise of her eyes.
 
And her hair, it was down and loose because
she’d let him pull out two sticks that held it in place.
 
It fanned out above her and to the sides,
looking so pretty laying over as his wool horse blankets, those legs wrapped
around him at the waist, pulling him to her.

He rubbed his eyes again then yawned and
stretched his arms as high as they could go under the Jeep’s canopy.
 

“I’ll get it.”
 
He needed to stretch his legs and his
thoughts.

“Okay, thanks.
 
I’ve really got to use the bathroom so I’ll
go in and pay.”
 
She sat with her knees
bent inward a second before hopping out to make her way to the store.

“Wait… here.”
 
He dug into the right back pocket of his
jeans and sent her inside with cash.
 

Soon the fuel started to slug through its
hose and into the tank while he stared out across a sandy-colored lot.
 
Typical fast food restaurants vied for
patrons with their dueling marquees but the town was dead tonight, wherever
they were.
   

Through the slots of window not covered
with cigarette and phone card advertisements, Lucky saw Trista exit the
restroom and make her way around several aisles, grabbing things as she
went.
 
All he had was a back view of her
wild, knotted hair and slender neck that bled into the royal blue and purple
collar of her dress.
 
It was all he
needed to see.
 
She was exquisite, the
most beautiful woman he’d ever met, even through the cluttered windows of the
convenience store.

He’d decided he couldn’t hold her work
situation against her.
 
It wasn’t fair to
knock her for being honest that she would be busy with the band while he was in
California.
 
Most likely his feelings for
her were stronger than her regards for him—but she was worth the biding of his
time.
 

And worth trying to
figure out.

She was serious for good reasons, but
equally playful for equally justifiable ones.
 
She read people well but let herself be used by those closest to
her.
 
She was open to just about anything
that rang of fun it seemed.
 
She’d rather
leave the past where it belonged but he had no idea how she felt about the
future.
 
She’d make an amazing lover.

The saddest thing he’d learned about
her?
 
That if he’d persisted, she would
have slept with him, no matter what her body was going through at the
moment.
 

She was good and she didn’t know it.
 
Or she knew but didn’t care.
 
He
wondered
 
how
much longer they had on the
road.
 
Was it enough time to tell her he
was in love with her?

“Hey there, I got you a Coke, Tic-Tacs
and this.”

Trista handed him the two familiar staples
and then one in a cellophane wrapper with the picture of a duck.
 
He accepted them graciously, curious about
the surprise.

“What is this?”

“Okay, that is a Gansito and it’s
delicious.
 
You know you’re in California
when these guys start showing up on the shelves.
 
Taste it,
it’s
soooo
good.”

They were already in California.
 

“Come on, open it.
 
Like this.”
 
She took hers and peeled apart the wrapper at the seams.
 
“Don’t tear the little goose,
it’s
bad luck.”
 

Trista plucked out the Twinkie-shaped
snack cake and put it up to her mouth to bite down.
 
Her smile was so wide he could see her teeth
sinking down through the layers of chocolate, strawberry and yellow cake.
 
“Oh my God, this is…soooo good,” she
cooed.
 

Lord what he’d give to be that snack
cake.
 

“What’s wrong?
 
Are you allergic to chocolate?
 
You hate strawberry don’t you?” she asked,
licking her tongue over a piece of filling stuck to her front tooth.

“No, I like all those things.”

“Then what’s wrong?”
 

His unopened Gansito lay on the seat near
his legs.
 
Trista reached for it but he
caught her arm just as she was leaning into him and held her there.
 
“I’m in love with you, Trista.”
 

 
“Oh.”
 
She sat for a minute in the driver’s seat.
 
Then proceeded to exit her side of the Jeep
and make her way over to his.
 
She opened
his door.
 
“Can you please drive?”

This was not the reaction he had
expected.
 
Although, he hadn’t thought it
out in the two seconds it took for him to decide to tell her up front how he
felt.
 
Not after learning they were already
so close to their destination.
 

After switching seats, Trista remained
quiet and still, reminding him more of a robot than a flesh and blood
woman.
 
She hadn’t registered his
declaration, that much was obvious.
 
He
couldn’t even be sure she was thinking because she just sat there, stuck in
time.
 
He turned over the ignition,
scooted the seat back, and
crept
the Jeep forward
toward the freeway.

“We’re in Barstow.
 
You had asked earlier…where we were,” she
said blankly.

“No, actually I hadn’t.
 
But thank you for telling me because I was
wondering.”
 
He’d look over at her but
feared what he might see.

“You didn’t ask me that?” she asked,
still looking vacantly around the Jeep’s interior.

“No, Trista.
 
I hadn’t asked.”
 
He let out a breath and drove on.

This is not
good
.
 
He loved her and she was so scared of the
notion that they were now having a conversation about a conversation they’d
never had.
 
The next exit sign indicated
a rest stop in five miles.
 
He planned to
pull into it.
 

Just as he put on the blinker, her knees
tensed and pulled together.
 
If he’d
managed to throw her into shock, there was little time to waste.
 
He drove right up to the curb, parked, turned
off the engine and undid his seat belt.
 
Then he unsnapped hers and turned in the seat to face her.

“I love you.”
 
He reached a hand up to her cheek to feel the
strong bone beneath it.
 
“I realize you
weren’t expecting to hear that from me.
 
But it’s the truth, more
true
than anything
I’ve felt in a very long time.
 
You’re
not the only one who is afraid of that.”

“You barely know me.”

“But I do.
 
I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours
thinking about all the things I know about you and the things I want to
discover.
 
I know the way your breathing
sounds when you fall asleep and how you smell when you get out of the shower.”

“That’s not love, Lucky.
 
You’re just very observant.”
 

“Trista, I’m not joking around.
 
Call it what you want.”

The dull, waxy aura melted away before
his eyes as she became life-like again.
 
“Lucky, you don’t have to say that.
 
I told you, I’m not one of those girls who
teases
a guy because I can.
 
I will make the
time to be with you.”

He cut her off with silence and throbbing
eyes.
 
She has absolutely no idea of what I feel
.
 
Lost at her inability to relate to the
feeling, he somberly turned back to face front, refastened his seat belt, and
headed back for the highway.
 
He may as
well have just declared the end.

Chapter
Thirteen

“It’s been an hour and you haven’t said a
word to me.”
 
Trista stared out her
window, up at Orion’s belt that shone timelessly against the midnight blue sky.

“I’d appreciate it if you put your
seatbelt on.
 
You’re being reckless.
 
There’s no point to prove, Trista.
 
I’d rather have you safe,” he said.

Concern wasn’t what she’d expected to
hear fly out of his mouth.
 
Statements
like the one she’d just made had always worked to goad Jaxon into letting out
his true frustrations.
 
But Lucky had
already proved to her he had more self-control than that.

“I told you I was nuts, Lucky.”
  
It was her way of apologizing.

His breathing remained as steady now as
his hands on the wheel.
 
Not a flinch or
involuntary muscle spasm accompanied his words.
 
“No, you asked me not to think you’re crazy, that you knew you probably
looked like it.
 
And I told you that I didn’t
think you were.”

“Oh, so just because you have perfect
recall of what I said, you think that qualifies as love?”
 
It was easier to prod him into an argument
than accept what he was feeling.

“I didn’t say that, Trista.”

“You don’t know enough, Lucky.
 
Okay, please trust me.
 
I really don’t want to hurt you.”
 
There, she’d been honest.
 
She stole a look in his direction but didn’t
make it past his knees that nearly butted up against the steering compartment.

“Would you feel better if I took it
back?”
 
For the first time she heard
something other than niceness in his voice.

The offer caused her to nearly choke on a
gulp of air.
 
No, she didn’t want him to
take it back.
 
Had her crazy rubbed off
on him?

She took a second to iron it out in her
mind.
 
His love would be good and oddly
enough, she could even see herself loving him back—in a perfect world where she
didn’t belong to a traveling band, tied to the leader like some sick,
masochistic puppy, traipsing across the country in the wake of jet fuel and turbulence.

One where he wasn’t
related to the center of her damned dysfunctional universe.
 

Lucky was his own man, one with a country
home and probably a horse or two.
 
Enough youth on his side to meet up with and wed a blushing
southern bride and have a few tow-headed babies.
 
She could keep going, putting more and more
distance between their two paths.
 

“Don’t love me.
 
Just
be
my
friend.”
 
She wanted to cry.