He kisses the top of my head. “I’m not.” He draws back and turns my face up, kisses me. “Put ’em out of your mind. I’ve got you.”
“How can I put them out of my mind?”
He swings onto his bike, grinning at me. “Climb on and let’s ride.”
So, I slide on behind him, settle in, and hold on tight.
Before we leave town, he buys another cell phone which he calls a burner, and contacts his friend back in Las Vegas with the new number.
And then…we ride.
* * *
As we ride,my mind is turning, thinking, considering.
But not my problems—Kane’s.
Luke.
The tragic story he told me.
Something is bothering me, and I cannot quite decide what it is. I turn the story he told me over in my mind for the hours we spend on a two-lane highway, riding east through the mountains along winding roads with breath-taking views all around.
We are in an area where there are not very many good places to camp out along the roadside, so after a long day on the motorcycle, we end up at a small motel, eating pizza Kane had delivered.
I am so lost in my thoughts of Kane and his story that at first, I do not realize how lost inhisthoughts Kane is.
I only realize it when we lie down in the bed, side by side, not touching. Not kissing. Certainly not doing anything else.
The light is still on. The white pizza box is open on the other bed, two slices left. The air conditioning unit rattles away noisily, blowing too-cold air.
Kane is on his back, hands tucked behind his head, his enormous arms not quite flat to the pillow. His eyes are open, but they see nothing. Or, if they do see anything, it is the past.
And that is when the answer comes to me.
“Kane?” I hear the smallness of my own voice, the hesitancy.
He rotates his head to me. “Hmm?”
“I believe I have seen enough of the Rocky Mountains, now.”
He frowns. “You have? Haven’t even gotten to the Garden of the Gods.”
I shrug. “If you feel it is a necessary part of the experience, we will go there tomorrow. But I know where I would like to go next.”
He makes a face, which communicates a sense ofhuh, okay then.Otherwise, he says nothing.
I lick my lips, knowing I am playing with fire. Perhaps more accurately stated, I am meddling in something which is not entirely my business. “Montana.”
How a man who is lying motionless can go still, I do not know. But he does. He is tense. No longer a man of flesh and blood but a statue carved from marble. Also, he exudes anger.
“Shouldn’t have told you that shit.” His voice is a tight, hard, violent sound.
“But you did.”
“And now you think you can fuckin’ fix me.” He launches off the bed, going from lying beside me to pacing across the room faster than my eye can follow.
I sit up on the bed, legs crossed. “No, that is not what I think.”
