Her Road Home. Laura Drake
shot his cuffs, squared his shoulders and walked down the porch steps.
Gravel shot from the tires as he backed out. When he hit the asphalt, the car surged and fishtailed, tires squealing for purchase.
Still shaking, Sam watched from the top step of the porch. What was it about her that made men think they could get away with that shit? There must be some kind of mark on her forehead that only perverts could see—something that told them it was safe to approach. Many times, she’d studied her face in the mirror, trying to make it out. But she only saw what everyone else did—cursed, unwanted beauty.
The car disappeared over the hill. She waited until the sound faded, then her knees gave out and the screwdriver fell from her hand. Clinging to the support post, she sank onto the wooden step. Shivers ran from her neck through her body in pulsing, shivery spasms. She hunched over her knees, staring at the ground, her thoughts years away.
Some untold time later, she stood, rubbed her sore buns, straightened her shoulders and went back to work. Mulling over the past was a waste. If you never put it down, you wouldn’t stand a chance at moving beyond it. Just because that philosophy hadn’t worked to date, didn’t mean it never would.
She couldn’t afford to contemplate the alternative.
CHAPTER SIX
NICK LOOKED UP from the computer screen. The late afternoon splashed window-shaped sunshine over his polished waiting room floor. No new Vulcan parts for sale. Hell, there had to be junked Kawasakis all over the country—just his luck they’d be owned by the technologically challenged.
Not that it would break his heart to see the biker chick as a fixture around here.
Gold hair, full lower lip, her long and elegantly boned face. He liked her small shoulders and long legs, in denim. But even a killer body could easily be dismissed, once you had an eyeful. Instead, Nick’s attention snagged on the air of mystery that surrounded her like a gossamer shawl. It was more than her odd career and her mode of transport. He sensed she had walls. He got a vague sense of them from her conversation, but their true magnitude lay in what she didn’t say.
Intriguing. He thought about calling her. But with what? Non-progress on her bike?
Wake up, dude, you’re dreaming. She’d made it clear she was gone as soon as the remodel of the Sutton place was complete. And he was in Widow’s Grove to stay.
But regardless of the facts, Samantha Crozier remained a puzzle his brain wouldn’t put down. He wasn’t even sure why he’d offered her his mother’s car, that first day. He hadn’t had that car out except to keep the battery charged since—well, since forever.
Sure, she was gorgeous, but it was more than that. Other beautiful women had needed loaners and it never occurred to him to offer them his mother’s car. He sensed that Sam didn’t need help often, and wouldn’t have asked for it if she did. That made him want to help.
He looked up at the sound of the door opening. He sat up straight and watched his puzzle walk in, a neon daisy keychain dangling from her fingers.
“I’ve brought the Love Machine home.”
“Hey, Sam.” Nick ripped off his horn-rimmed glasses, stuffed them in the lap drawer and slammed it closed. “Good timing. I’m starving. Want to go to lunch?”
She walked to the desk and dropped the key in his hand. “Sorry, I can’t. I’ve got to get back to work at the house.”
He snatched his blue jacket from the back of the chair. “Come on, Sam, let me take you to lunch.”
“Thanks, but I’m just walking down to Jesse’s. She’ll run me home.”
There were those walls again. “Oh, come on. Carl is a great cook, but aren’t you tired of eggs and burgers by now?”
“No. Thanks, but no.” She turned for the door.
There had to be a way around her walls without pulling a muscle climbing. “You don’t want to pull Jesse away from work to drive you home, do you?”
She winced. “I’ll just call a cab.”
He strode across the room, pulled the glass door open and held it. “Don’t be silly. I know a place that serves killer crab.” He yelled, “Tom, I’m going to lunch. Hold the fort.”
She stood there, waffling.
“Sam.” He stood, watching her. “It’s just lunch. Promise.” What had made this woman so wary? Well, he intended to find out. She was like no other beautiful woman he’d ever met.
“Thanks. I guess that would be fun.” Her smile transformed her from worried waif to magazine model.
He walked ahead to open the passenger door of the Love Machine for her, then trotted around the car, opened the door and settled into the driver’s seat. “Glad you left the top down. It’s a perfect day for a ride.”
It was, too. Nick cranked a rock ’n roll station, and they cruised through town. He drove, one hand on the wheel, the other hung over the door, waving every few feet to a pedestrian who hailed him, feeling as if he were chauffeuring the homecoming queen in a parade.
Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac” blared as they turned onto Pacific Coast Highway. Sam kept the beat with her hand on the car door, singing in what he supposed she meant as harmony, but wasn’t, quite. Well, thank God, she isn’t perfect.
The smell of hot sand and salt whipped by on the wind, and Sam pulled her hair back to keep it out of her eyes. She laughed, looking like a carefree teen playing hooky.
Ten minutes later, they passed a sign welcoming them to Pismo Beach. The town looked like a throwback to the ’60s, when surfers were gods and before the term yuppie had been coined. The small, gaudy painted stucco buildings held an odd charm, and the Love Machine fit right in.
He pulled off PCH and parked in front of Dougie’s Place, a long, flamingo-pink building sprawled at the edge of the surf, like a fat, bikini-clad woman.
He held the thick metal front door for her. “Don’t judge it by the exterior. They have the best seafood for fifty miles.”
“If you say it, I believe it. I think.” She ducked under his arm.
A jukebox belted out the Beach Boys in the corner, and the bar stretched along the wall to the left. Behind the bar, where a mirror would normally reflect liquor bottles, stood a saltwater fish tank, stretching the entire length of the back wall. It was brightly lit from above, but the back had been blacked out, so the exotic fish stood out in bold relief. Schools of small bright yellow, red and blue fish darted around the huge tank like pennants fluttering in the wind.
He led the way past the bar to a dining area, where empty tables sat, dressed in red-and-white checked tablecloths. She followed him down a step to the patio. A glass wall blocked the wind coming in from the ocean side. Red and white umbrellas touting Mexican beer shaded glass-topped tables. The patio extended to the high tide point of the surf, the waves nearly lapping its base.
“Oh, I take back everything I was thinking. This is even better than the California I heard about, back in Ohio. How did you find this place?”
“It’s a closely guarded secret. The outside is to discourage tourists, I think.”
* * *
HE LED SAM to an unoccupied sun-filled corner. At a square table he pulled out a chair facing the ocean, and settled her into it before taking the one alongside. The waitress arrived, wanting their drink order.
She ordered a glass of the house Chablis without ever pulling her eyes from the long low waves combing the beach.
He took the proffered menus and ordered a Coke, thinking how pretty her hair looked, glinting platinum in the sun. With a bit more tan, she could pass for a vacationing movie star.
“Can you give me your mother’s address,