Still the One

  the day, right?”

  The wet grass was seeping through his clothes as drops of rain splashed right in his eye. They had a long drive ahead of them, but all he could feel was her fingers in his, and then there was her smile.

  Brighter than the sun that hadn’t come out in weeks.

  The front door of the house across the street opened. An older woman in a thick bathrobe and curlers peered out. “What the hell are you crazy kids doing?” she yelled.

  Darcy laughed her musical laugh. “Being crazy kids,” she yelled back.

  The woman muttered something and slammed her door.

  “She’ll call the cops,” Darcy said. “And poor Kel will have to come out and investigate.”

  Kel was the local sheriff and a friend of AJ’s. “We’re not doing anything illegal,” he said. “Stupid, yes. Illegal, no.”

  Darcy shrugged. “Mrs. Willingham likes to cover all her bases when it comes to me.” She blew out a sigh and sat up. “We’ve got eight point five minutes to get out of here.”

  A few minutes later they were on the highway. “I’m not even going to mention how disturbing it is that you know the exact response time for the police to get to your house.”

  Darcy leaned forward, peering out at the long stretch of narrow two-lane road ahead of them. “Where are we going? This isn’t the way.”

  “We have to take back roads today. Turns out they’re repaving the main and the detour they’ve set isn’t the best way to get there.”

  “Back roads?” she asked. “Isn’t that going to take longer?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her silence spoke volumes on her opinion of the matter.

  “We there yet?” she asked five minutes later.

  “Funny.”

  She squeezed the excess water out of her hair and stripped out of her sweater, which left her in a ribbed neon pink The Who tank.

  To drown out the silence—and to keep himself from staring at her skimpy top—AJ turned on the radio. Rap blared through the cab.

  Darcy leaned forward and changed the station. Vintage rock filled the cab. With a smile, she began to sing along to Van Halen.

  He flicked the station back to Eminem.

  “My fillings are going to fall right out of my head,” she said and changed the station again. Bubblegum pop this time.

  She sent him an evil smile that he knew better than to trust. Plus, he was pretty sure it was Justin Bieber, and he hated himself for even knowing that. “And I’m going to need fillings just from listening to this,” he said. “Use your iPod.”

  “I’m doing you a favor,” she reminded him. “The favoree picks the tunes.”

  “I’m driving. Driver picks the tunes.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Pull over. I’ll drive.”

  He pulled over to the side of the highway so fast that she squeaked in surprise. Biting her lower lip, she made a show of looking over her shoulder. “You’re going to get a ticket.”

  “You wanted to drive,” he said. “Well worth a ticket.”

  Silence, which he let fill the interior of the truck because they both knew one undisputable fact—she hadn’t driven on any highway since her accident. She was cleared to drive and she drove around town when she had to, but she’d made every excuse not to go further. She was a woman who leapt without looking first, who always took a dare, who thrived on challenges, and he loved that about her. He missed that about her. He removed his seat belt and reached for hers.

  “You’re an asshole,” she said softly and clutched her seat belt to her.

  “Much as I’d love to listen to you whisper endearments in my ear, we’re on a tight schedule,” he said. “You’ve changed your mind, then?”

  Ignoring the question, she cranked up the radio again. This time Poison blared out, singing “Talk Dirty to Me.”

  Shaking his head, he pulled back onto the highway.

  “You know,” she said, a loaded fifteen minutes of silence later, “most people baby me through all this stuff and my new milestones. Not you.”

  “Not me,” he agreed.

  “You just plow right through the shit, expecting miracles out of me. I annoy you that much?”

  He glanced at her in surprise. “Annoyance doesn’t play into it at all.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said dryly to the passenger window.

  He passed an old couple doing fifty miles an hour before continuing their conversation. “I do it because I care,” he said.

  She snorted.

  He looked at her again, starting to get pissed off that she kept thinking the worst of him. “And also because I believe you can do anything you want to do.”

  He could feel her surprise, and again he met her gaze because he wanted her to see that he wasn’t kidding. “There’s more to life than simply surviving a car wreck,” he said. “You need to live. Even if it means you’re going back to doing stuff that scares me.”

  Her mouth twitched. “Nothing scares you.”

  “Wrong,” he said. “You scare me.”

  She looked at him again. He could feel the weight of her stare as she studied him.

  “I’m not going to ever baby you,” he told her. “I realize you’ve got your brother and sister and friends all wrapped around your pinkie, but that’s not my style.”

  She stared at him some more. Then she changed the station again and cranked it up.

  Country this time.

  As someone sang about his tractor and his dead dog and his wife sleeping with Santa Claus, AJ considered offing himself. It would be less painful. He looked at the time.

  Only five and a half hours to go.

  Perfect.

  Twenty minutes later he glanced over at the sound of Darcy’s low laugh. She was texting, her thumbs flying, a big smile on her face.

  Damn, he thought, staggered. That smile was a hell of a good look on her. “Who you texting?”

  “I’m not texting. I’m sexting.”

  “Sexting,” he repeated.

  “Yes. It’s the act of sending sexually explicit content via text.”

  “I know what sexting is.” He pulled out his phone and made a show of glancing at the screen. It was dark.

  “Not you,” she said.

  “Who?”

  No answer. More thumb flying, and then another laugh.

  Don’t get sucked in, you don’t need to know. She’s fucking with you, just stay out of her vortex. This was what his common sense told him. But his common sense wasn’t in charge. “Who?” his dick asked.

  She gave him a long look.

  And … kept on sexting.

  And cracking herself up. This went on for another half hour before AJ took the next exit. They were out in the middle of nowhere, but there was a gas station and a convenience store, and he needed more caffeine.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’ve got to go to the bathroom already? Weak bladder?”

  He shoved the truck into park and slid her a look that would’ve intimidated anyone else.

  Not Darcy. Of course not Darcy.

  “They have meds for that, old man.”

  He grated his teeth as he tossed off his seat belt. He had a good life, he told himself. Hell, he had a great life. He had a thriving business, his own home, and he did alright in the women department as well.

  So why the hell he let this one get to him, he had no clue. “I don’t have to go to the damn bathroom,” he snapped. “And I sure as hell don’t have a bladder problem.”

  “Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not like I questioned the size of your—”

  He shoved out of the truck. “Wait here,” he said curtly, and started to walk off. At the last minute he went back for the keys and yanked them out of the ignition.

  She laughed. “Nice show of trust.”

  “There’s trust, and there’s stupidity,” he said, and strode into the convenience store. He bought a coffee, a Gatorade, and, because he knew his passenger, he also bought a bag of Gummy Bea
rs. He’d bribe her to shut up if needed.

  When he got back to the truck all he could see was an iPad in the passenger window. “What the—?” He moved closer and stared. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Darcy was using the iPad as a sign and it read:

  Help, I’m being held captive by a diabolical madman with a weak bladder!

  Eight

  AJ confiscated the iPad, which turned out to be his. Darcy had liberated it from the backseat. “Nice job on spelling diabolical,” he said. “I used spell check.”

  He slid into the truck and touched the iPad screen to activate it, looking to see what she might have messed with. He half expected to be locked out of the thing, but no. She’d been online checking her e-mail, which she’d not signed out of. He saw e-mails from both Nat Geo and the Travel Channel.

  “Talking to work again?” He didn’t want to think about why that made his gut hurt. When she left Sunshine, he’d celebrate.

  “Just enough to get two big ‘no thank you, we don’t want you back’s,” she said. She shrugged. “I’ve been replaced. It happens. Let’s go. Time’s a’ticking.”

  He didn’t start the truck. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not like I’m in a place to go gallivanting across the world anyway.” She gestured to his phone, which he’d left in the console. “And while we’re on the subject of you snooping, you got two text messages. First one’s from your dad.”

  “I wasn’t snooping.”

  “I was. Your dad said he found the spot for next month and there’d be no arguments.” She looked at him. “You must hate it when he bosses you around.”

  “Nah,” AJ said. “He’s a grumpy old fart, but we’re good.”

  “What spot is he talking about?”

  “For ice fishing. We always take a winter trip.”

  She seemed surprised. “Wow. That’s kinda … cute.”

  “Not cute,” he said. “Manly.”

  She grinned. “Sorry, it’s cute. Manly would be alligator hunting or something. And I thought your dad was this hard-ass Navy captain who busts your balls all the time.”

  “He is.”

  “But you still go fishing together,” she said.

  “And camping.”

  “So you … like each other.”

  He met her gaze and saw the genuine curiosity. “Liking each other doesn’t usually play into things,” he said. “But he’s my dad.”

  “I get it,” she said.

  His heart squeezed because he knew she didn’t get it at all. Her dad hadn’t even shown up when she’d nearly died. He’d certainly never spent any time renovating a house with her or taken her camping.

  “Your second text was from Ariana,” she said. “She wants you to know she created a new meditation tape for you.”

  He still hadn’t used the last two she’d made him.

  “Oh, and she’ll be thinking of you,” Darcy said. “Apparently while meditating. Although I thought the whole point of meditating is to not think.”

  He shook his head. “Is that what this mood is about? Ariana?”

  Darcy stared at him and then turned away to look out the window. “I’m not in a mood. This is just me being my usual ray-of-sunshine self.”

  There was something in her voice now that had him taking a second look at her. “You don’t like Ariana.”

  “No, I do,” she said. “She’s a lovely person. Kind and gentle, caring … bendy.”

  He raised a brow. “Bendy?”

  “Yeah. You know anyone else who can wrap both of her legs around her own neck when she’s doing her yoga stuff? If I was a guy, I’d think that was … something.”

  AJ opened his mouth, and then shut it. “Not touching that one with a ten-foot pole.”

  She shifted, looking irritated. “Look, forget it,” she said, doing a dismissive gesture with her hand. “I just meant some people are bendy and some people aren’t, and I’m sure if a guy had a choice, he’d pick bendy, that’s all.”

  He wasn’t sure what was going on here. But then again, this was Darcy. When it came to her, he always operated in the dark.

  “She’s helping me, you know,” Darcy said. “You asked her to give me some yoga stretches and she did. They’re working, although I’m not ever going to be bendy.”

  And that bothered her, he could tell. That he’d actually followed her convoluted, twisted logic scared him to death, but that was a concern for later. “Darcy, you know that Ariana and I aren’t—”

  “Hey,” she said, holding up a hand. “Whoever you’re doing, that’s your own business. I don’t care. Not in the slightest. Not even a little tiny bit. Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

  He turned her to face him again and made a point of looking over her features.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

  “Checking to see if your nose grew on that lie.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t care if you’re with Ariana.”

  “Okay, good. But I’m not,” he repeated.

  “You were.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Past tense.”

  She crossed her arms, her body tight. She couldn’t have put herself into a more defensive position. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” she said.

  “Happy to hear that.” He smiled when she huffed a little to herself in her seat, grumbling wordlessly beneath her breath.

  She was jealous. He couldn’t believe it but didn’t dare say it out loud because he liked his nose right where it was, thank you very much. But damn. She was jealous.

  “It’s probably because of your crappy taste in music, right? She dumped you?”

  “Okay, how about a truce for the rest of the ride?”

  Her eyes went wary. “What did you have in mind?”

  He pulled out the bag of Gummy Bears and she lit up. “Maybe,” she said, and reached for the bag.

  He held it out of reach. “Nope. Truce or no Gummy Bears.”

  She laughed, and that was the thing about Darcy. She had the most amazing laugh. It was full bellied and like music to his ears, and absolutely, one hundred percent contagious.

  “You should use the facilities first,” he said. “We won’t be stopping again.”

  “Even if I irritate you?”

  “You won’t.”

  “How do you know?”