Читать книгу Baily's Irish Dream: Baily's Irish Dream / Czech Mate - Stephanie Doyle - Страница 11

“WILL THIS NIGHTMARE ever be over?” Daniel asked himself after being forced to put his foot on the brake yet again. It was only day two of his trip, but at this rate he would never reach his sister’s wedding in time. Not when the vehicles in front of him insisted on driving as slow as his late great-grandmother. A Volkswagen Bug and a semi both conspired against him by only driving sixty miles per hour each in their own lane. For a brief moment Daniel considered passing the truck on the shoulder of the road, but it would be just his luck to get caught in a rut and end up with a flat tire. What he needed to do was to get the attention of the woman in the car in front of him.

He knew it was a woman because it was hard to miss the mass of red hair that spilled over the headrest of her seat. However, she clearly wasn’t aware of his presence behind her. Daniel hunched forward over the steering wheel in the hope that by bringing his body inches closer to the lady in front of him she might sense his desire to pass. Since she remained at a constant speed, he had to assume she hadn’t picked up on his mental vibe.

He tried another ploy and flipped on his headlights. A reflection of bright light bounced off her silver bumper. He could see his high beams clearly. No such luck from Red.

The woman was obviously too distracted to check her rearview mirror. The curls that he’d noticed before were bouncing around her head. She was bobbing and weaving and thrusting an occasional finger at the passenger in the seat next to her. If Daniel had to guess, she was either having a seizure or singing to a very short companion. It must have been his imagination that conjured up the image of pointy ears peeking around the front seat. She wasn’t actually singing to a cat?

“HOW WAS I?” Baily asked, slightly out of breath from sining along with the radio. Baily was no Aretha Franklin, but Miss Roosevelt didn’t seem to mind. Madam President had soul.

Baily waited anxiously for the next song. In the interim she took stock of where she was. A glance in her rearview mirror revealed an ominous black Mercedes practically sitting on her back bumper.

“Jeesh. Sorry, buddy,” Baily muttered a little sheepishly. “I didn’t realize you were back there.” After all, Aretha demanded full concentration. She hit the gas and attempted to accelerate enough so that she could pull ahead of the semi next to her. Her Bug had other ideas.

The car sputtered a bit and sped up a mere five miles per hour on the decline. Since the truck was also picking up speed, there was no way Baily would be able to pass it let alone pull in front of it. Poor car, she thought. She’d pushed it too hard, and it let her know that it didn’t appreciate it. Her only recourse was to slow down and pull in behind the semi.

SHE WAS SLOWING DOWN! There was only one option left. Daniel laid his hand on the horn and left it there out of sheer frustration. Frustration at the woman in front of him for driving too slow. Frustration at his sister for marrying the wrong man. Frustration at having to walk away from his business at a crucial time. It was undignified to shout at the top of his lungs, but there was nothing in the rule books about using a car horn to let off a little steam. The noise was an awful wonderful sound that made his ears ache joyously. The blare filled the car, zoomed out around him, and echoed against the vast Montana landscape.

MISS ROOSEVELT SHRIEKED and dove for cover under the seat. “Oh!” Baily shouted with indignation. The big bully. She’d been trying to move over to do him a favor and he had gone and scared her baby. The semi passed, and she immediately swung into the lane behind it. The truck picked up speed and was soon out of sight. Baily, meanwhile, couldn’t help but stare at the man in the Mercedes as he pulled even with her.

WITH ONE LAST FINAL PUSH, Daniel released his horn. A dreamy sort of peace invaded him. Damn that had felt good. If he smoked he would have had a cigarette. Nothing like a good blow of the horn to relieve a little stress. Heck, now that the car in front of him had moved, Daniel no longer felt the sudden rush to get ahead. He pulled up slowly alongside the yellow Volkswagen Bug. Belatedly he turned to get a better look at the driver, wondering if she was as pretty as her hair.

“BIG…JERK!” Baily shouted, rolling down her window in an effort to make herself heard. Unfortunately it was doubtful that he heard her because his car window was still rolled up. Not that he would be overly offended by such a comment. Baily really needed to work on the whole swearing thing. She had lived too long with her mother’s words ringing in her head. A lady simply doesn’t swear. Obviously her mother never had to put up with jerks that drove Mercedes.

WHAT WAS HER PROBLEM? Daniel thought. He hadn’t heard her, but it didn’t take a genius to understand that she was furious. After all, she was the one who wouldn’t pull ahead of the truck. When Daniel had tried to encourage her forward, she’d had the nerve to slow down. Of course now Daniel realized that she had only slowed down so that she could get behind the truck. More than likely the little car didn’t have the acceleration required for a high-speed pass. It was Daniel’s turn to feel a bit sheepish.

The only thing to do was to apologize. No chance she would hear him through two car widths. Daniel improvised with a shrug of his shoulders and a harmless smile that said, “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to honk so loud.”

BAILY GASPED. “The nerve of that man! He’s smirking and shrugging at me like he doesn’t even care that he turned five of my hairs gray with that blasted horn of his.”

The meanest action she could think to do popped into her head. Without a second’s hesitation she did it.

SHE STUCK HER TONGUE OUT at him! Here he was trying to apologize, and she was showing him tongue. Obviously she was disturbed. Probably an escapee from some kind of mental facility. The best thing to do would be to hightail it out of there before she did something really crazy.

Like the pig face. Daniel hated the pig face. The one where the person pushed his nose up on his face and slanted his eyes back toward his ears. It chilled him just thinking about it. With one last glare to show her that he didn’t appreciate her driving etiquette, Daniel hit the gas pedal with the full weight of his foot.

A mistake, considering he hadn’t taken his eyes off the redheaded driver. Daniel never saw the cow that had slowly made its way through the opening in the fence along the side of the road until it was actually on the road itself. He knew it was too late the minute he saw the big bovine. Completely oblivious to the damage the dumb animal was about to cause, the cow mooed at the oncoming car.

Daniel slammed on his brakes so hard he feared he would push the pedal through the floor of the car. The vehicle swerved then spun out of control. He tried to steer into the skid, but the car didn’t respond in time. Before he was aware of what was happening, he’d skidded off the road and crashed into a fence post. The air bag inflated, and Daniel was thrown back against the seat.

It all took exactly two seconds.

“Moooo.”

Well at least the cow made it.

“Mister! Mister! Are you all right?”

The air bag now deflated, Daniel was able to move within the car. First he took stock of his body. Both his legs and arms were okay. His chest and the rest of his body had been protected by the air bag. He bumped his head and he felt a burning sensation on his cheek from where the air bag had scraped his face. Other than that he was fine. And lucky.

His car…not so lucky.

“Answer me!”

Daniel turned his head and met the worried green eyes of his redheaded nemesis. “Why?”

Baily sat back on her haunches. That was an odd answer. “Because I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Obviously I am, or I wouldn’t have been able to answer you, now would I?”

Good point. He was awfully calm for someone who had just gotten into a car wreck. And by the looks of it the car was totaled. The hood was practically wrapped around the thick fence post. The fence post, however, looked fine. “Didn’t you see the cow?”

No words were necessary. Daniel’s sour face said it all.

“Okay, you didn’t see the cow,” Baily concluded.

Daniel attempted to open the car door. Not an easy task since the entire frame had been pushed in. Baily saw his intent and aided him by pulling on the door while he pushed. Together they managed to create enough space for him to escape. Finding his legs a bit unsteady, he took a few calming breaths before he inspected the damage.

“You should sit down while we wait for the cops.”

“What cops?”

“You know the cops that come after you’ve been in an accident,” Baily told him naively.

Daniel raised his arms to indicate the vast space around him. The only thing for miles was Baily’s Bug, Daniel’s wreck and a cow. “And just where do expect these magical cops to sprout from?”

“Oh.” She saw his point. The road they traveled wasn’t a hotbed of activity. The semi was the only other vehicle Baily had noticed for hours and by now it was long gone. “I don’t have a cell phone or anything.”

“Who doesn’t have a cell phone in today’s world?” he asked incredulously. He didn’t know why he cared, but it seemed wrong for a woman to be on the road alone without a cell phone.

“Me. I’m a schoolteacher on a budget. It was either a cell phone or my monthly manicure.”

“Cell phones are very useful in cases of emergencies, accidents…”

“Yes, but well-painted nails are a joy every day,” she said holding out her pretty pink nails for inspection. He didn’t seem impressed. “I take it you have a cell phone.”

“Of course I have a cell phone,” he stated haughtily. He reached for his right pants’ pocket and found it empty. Then he reached for his left pocket and also found it empty. Looking down at his pants, he realized they weren’t the same ones he’d been wearing on his trip back from California. The ones with his cell phone still in the pocket. They were on the floor of his bathroom where he’d last left them. Not here. With him. In the middle of Montana.

“No cell phone?”

He almost wanted to growl at her.

“So what should we do?”

Again, Daniel was beyond words. He moved around the car slowly and carefully. The hood, the engine, the frame—the whole damn car was trashed. He began to swear with the skill of a sailor.

Baily smiled uncomfortably. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard the words before. Growing up with five brothers, she could give vocabulary lessons in swearing. She just envied the ease with which he did it. Boy, if her mother could hear him now, she’d shove enough soap in his mouth to keep his language clean for years.

Finally, after he’d surveyed the wreck and realized that he wasn’t going anywhere, Daniel turned his attention on the woman. “You,” he accused.

“Me?” Baily asked.

“This is all your fault!” It was a lie. He’d been driving too fast, but it felt good to blame someone else for his stupidity.

“My fault! You were the one who almost hit that poor cow and drove off the road.”

“Poor cow?” Daniel searched and found the cow off to the side of the road munching on some grass. “The cow is fine! What about my car?”

Baily spared a glance at the car. “It’s pretty much totaled.”

“Ah-hh,” Daniel yelled in frustration.

Perhaps this would have been a good time for Baily to get in her car and get the hell out of Dodge. Who knew what the man would do next? Honking and yelling, he was obviously the emotional sort. But she couldn’t leave. Although she’d denied it, she did feel partly responsible for the accident. She wasn’t about to admit it to him, but he had been staring at her tongue. The tongue she’d so childishly thrust at him. It was why he hadn’t seen the cow until it was too late. For that reason, she had to at least offer her assistance.

“What am I going to do?” Daniel yelled. Now that he had regained some of his senses, he realized that he was in big trouble. Totaling his car wasn’t part of the plan. Being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a redhead wasn’t part of the plan, either.

Baily refrained from making a comment, but she had asked a similar question only moments before. They were still all alone. Not counting the cow.

That’s when the trepidation hit. She was alone in Montana with a strange man who liked to beep his horn and swear. The smart course of action, the one the self-defense books suggested, would be to get into her car, drive to the nearest phone, and call someone to help him. That idea, however, didn’t sit well with Baily. Not while she was still feeling slightly, just slightly, guilty.

Besides that, the poor man appeared to be desperate. It was a safe bet he hadn’t staged the accident as part of some diabolical plot to kidnap, rape and murder her. Had that been the case he wouldn’t have been driving a Mercedes. No one totaled a sixty-thousand-dollar car just to commit murder. He could do that in a Ford.

“Listen, I could drive you to the nearest gas station. You could call a tow truck.”

Daniel stood there for a moment and contemplated his choices. There were none. That had already been established. It was just that he had a sinking suspicion getting into the yellow Bug with its redheaded owner was going to be a life-altering decision. He couldn’t see how, but his gut was never wrong. And it was telling him the woman was trouble.

Baily opened the driver’s side door of her car and got in, then leaned her head out the open window. “Hey! Are you coming or what?”

Daniel removed his suitcase from his trunk. He opened the hood of the ancient Bug and shoved his suitcase inside. Then he closed it and stared at her through the windshield.

She stared back and shrugged her shoulders as if to ask what was taking him so long. Sighing, he moved around the car to the passenger side and got in. Or at least tried to. It was an effort, but he managed to squeeze himself into the compact automobile, feeling the car lurch as his weight was added.

“Meeeooow!”

“What the hell was that?” Daniel bellowed.

“Poor, poor, Miss Roosevelt. Did the big bad man take your seat?” Baily held Theodora in her arms, crooning to her as if she were an overly spoiled child. Which, in fact, she was.

“A cat.” So it had been a cat she’d been singing to.

“I hope you’re not allergic,” Baily announced, “because let me tell you who is going to get the boot if you are.”

Her smile was evil. Daniel returned it with full force. “Not the cat?”

Satisfied, Baily decided to play nice. “Her name is Theodora Roosevelt. You can call her Miss Roosevelt or Theodora or, if you prefer, Madam President. She likes that name best, but I try not to encourage her delusions of grandeur too often.”

He was in Oz. That must be it. His car had driven off the road, a tornado had picked him up, and now he was in Oz. Either that or he had just agreed to drive the next twenty or so miles with a lunatic.

Baily introduced her cat to her new passenger. “Miss Roosevelt, this is…I don’t know your name.”

“Blake. My name is Daniel Blake.” Daniel thought about offering his hand, but he’d be damned before he shook a cat’s paw.

“Oh,” Baily commented. Starting up the car, she maneuvered herself back onto the highway. “My name is Baily Monohan.”

“Bailey, huh? Is that like the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life? George Bailey, wasn’t it?” It would be typical for her to be named after a fictional character. She, herself, was fictional-like. The red hair, the green eyes, the cat.

“No. It’s Baily as in Irish Cream.”

“The drink? Baileys Irish Cream?”

“Yes,” explained Baily, “only it’s not spelled the same. I was born around Christmastime you see, and my father…well Baileys is his favorite drink at Christmas. So he had a few when mother went into labor. I was born and he named me Bailey, but he spelled it wrong on the birth certificate. It’s sort of the family joke.”

“Good thing your dad wasn’t drinking tequila. Any brothers or sisters? Maybe a Jack Daniels or a Wild Turkey?” Daniel chuckled at his own joke.

“Very funny. And original, too. No, my brothers are Nick, Michael, Billy, Sean, and James. All very Irish and very proper. But I was the first girl, you see, so my parents were stumped. Not to mention I was number six, and they were running low on options.”

“Six children!” The thought of having more than six people in his house at the same time made Daniel nervous. Families in general made him nervous. “Big family.”

Baily shook her head, laughing. “You don’t know the half of it. Three of my brothers are married with children. One still lives at home, and one is temporarily living at home because he just got a divorce. Other than Nick and James, the family has practically quadrupled in the last ten years. It’s really a lot of fun.”

“I wouldn’t know about families and fun,” Daniel remarked grimly. His family, his sister, was the reason he was in his current predicament. It finally dawned on him the magnitude of his dilemma. “I’m never going to reach my sister in time.”

“Is your sister in trouble?”

Daniel redirected his attention back to the woman. He hadn’t realized he said his thoughts out loud. “Yes, my sister is in trouble. Thanks to the accident, I’ll never make it in time to save her.” Daniel pushed his hands through his hair in frustration and grimaced when he found a goose egg that had suddenly sprouted on his head.

Baily witnessed the grimace out of the corner of her eye. “Are you hurt?”

“Hurt?” That was the understatement of the year. “My car is totaled. My sister’s life is about to be destroyed, and to top it all off I’ve got a bump the size of Mount Rainier on my head.”

Baily had to humph a bit at that last comment. Really, the size of Mount Rainier?

“You don’t believe me?” Daniel bellowed. Reaching out he took her right hand off the steering wheel and shoved it over the lump on his forehead that had only been partially covered by his brown bangs. Baily brushed her fingers through his thick chestnut hair, trying to ignore the silky feeling of it and how it made her fingers tingle. It wasn’t too hard to find the lump. A startled gasp left her mouth before she could stop it.

“It’s really big,” she stated, as if he didn’t already have that information. “Maybe I should take you to a hospital.”

The concern in her eyes and the tremor in her voice made him realize how much his little speech had affected her. Good, he thought evilly.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” he assured her. Rubbing a hand over his face in an attempt to alleviate some of his frustration, he murmured, “What I need is to get to Philadelphia.”

“Philadelphia? Did you say Philadelphia?” Baily asked, thinking she hadn’t heard what she thought she’d heard. It was too much of a coincidence.

“Yeah. What about it? I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do now. It’s going to take days to fix my car, and I don’t have that long to wait. I could rent a car, but where the hell am I going to find a car rental place around here.” Daniel muttered to himself as he sorted through his options. “I’ll never make it in time.” What would happen to Sarah?

Before she could stop herself the words seemed to pop out of her mouth. “I’m going to New Jersey. South Jersey, actually, right over the Ben Franklin Bridge just a few miles from Philadelphia.” It was a ridiculous thought. Surely she wasn’t offering to drive this complete stranger across the country. It sounded like it though, didn’t it? It might not be so bad. She would have someone to split the driving time, and she wouldn’t be so defenseless. Unless of course he turned out to be a psychopathic killer. What had Janice said about not picking up hitchhikers?

The ashen color of his skin made the red bump stand out even more. He didn’t look like the average menacing hitchhiker. Besides, the company wouldn’t hurt. It would give her someone to talk to besides Miss Roosevelt. As for him being a stranger, he didn’t feel like a stranger.

He’d seen her tongue.

She’d felt his bump.

In the short time they had shared the car ride, Baily was pretty confident that she could trust this man. Of course she was sure that was what every woman had said when she’d first met Ted Bundy.

“Or,” she suggested, “I could just take you on to the next town like we originally planned.”

“What am I going to do there?”

“What am I, your guidance counselor? I don’t know. You could have a tow truck pick up your car for starters. Then see about a rental.”

“A Hertz? In the two street blocks they call towns around here? I don’t think so,” he stated sarcastically.

Baily was now beginning to get angry. He was quick to shoot down her ideas, but what was he coming up with? “Well what do you want to do?” Baily shouted back.

The shouting was beginning to get to him. His head throbbed. The best thing to do was to make peace first. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated. I’ve got to be in Philadelphia in five days at the latest. I know this isn’t all your fault.”

“All my fault? It isn’t any of my fault!” That was her story and she was sticking to it, guilty conscience aside. “If you hadn’t beeped at me…”

“If you hadn’t put your brakes on…”

“If you hadn’t been on my bumper…”

Daniel clenched his teeth. This was getting them nowhere. “The point is, my sister’s life depends on me getting to Philadelphia.”

“If it was that important, why didn’t you fly?” It seemed like the obvious solution. “You can probably get an airline ticket at Billings. That isn’t so far. I could drive you there.”

“I don’t fly,” Daniel replied without explanation.

This man could try the patience of Mother Teresa. “Your sister’s life is on the line, and you can’t get over your fear of flying?”

If he clenched his teeth any tighter, he knew they would break. “I didn’t say I was afraid of flying. I said I don’t fly. There is a very big difference. The end result is still the same though. I don’t fly. I won’t fly. Now let’s move on to the next suggestion.”

It should have dawned on him then the way he had so casually brought her into his decision-making process that this wasn’t any ordinary woman who had entered his life.

“I offered to drive you to Philadelphia,” she pointed out, feeling as if they had wasted a long time just to get back to the point from which they’d started.

It was a good offer, but the last thing he wanted to do. He couldn’t drive across the country with this woman. Not this woman.

“I can’t do it,” he announced, giving voice to his thoughts.

“Why not?” Baily waited for his reasons. She had a hunch this was going to be good. “What’s the matter, isn’t my car luxurious enough for you?”

His knees hit the dashboard. The top of his head scraped the roof of the car. The only place to put his arms was in his lap or around a cat named Madam President. The Bug wasn’t his big roomy Mercedes. But he’d be a fool to tell her that. The problem was less substantial than that. He stared at her hard and something inside him screamed at him to jump out of the car now while he still had the chance. “I simply can’t drive with you all the way to Philadelphia.”

“What’s the matter with me?”

Nothing obvious. The trouble was hidden. It was there in the way her jean shorts rode up high on her thighs and the way her shirt clung to her breasts. It was the way her hair bounced around her shoulders as if it were alive and the way her green eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Well, look at you, for one thing.”

Actually, the whole picture had only just registered in Daniel’s mind. He’d seen her profile; he’d seen her standing in front of him. He’d seen her hair, of course. But it was only a second ago that all of those images filtered back through his mind and he put them all together into one extremely attractive, heart-pumping package that would disturb his equilibrium. Which was exactly the last complication he needed at this time.

Baily glanced down at herself. She was wearing a pair of cutoffs and a white T-shirt. She didn’t see the problem. “What is wrong with the way I look?” she asked defensively. She was no beauty but no one had ever told her that she was too repulsive to drive with.

Daniel didn’t know how to articulate it. “It’s your red hair, and the eyes, and the freckles. All I have to do is look at you to know that you are going to irritate me like no one on this planet has ever irritated me before.”

“Listen you overbearing, Mercedes-driving jerk! I didn’t have to pull over to help you. I didn’t have to offer to drive you to the next town. I could have left you there looking for the cell phone you don’t seem to have. I certainly didn’t have to offer to drive you to Philadelphia. But you’re in a bind. And your sister, whom I’ve suddenly developed a great sympathy for, is in trouble. So why don’t you just say yes, then shut the hell up. Because let me tell you, you have already irritated me more than anyone I’ve ever known. And I’ve been irritated by the best, pal.”

Daniel snorted. He refused to agree to anything until he had a chance to weigh his options. He wouldn’t know what those options were until they reached civilization.

It was twenty silent miles to the next town. One that had a gas station, a quickie mart, five dwellings and nothing else. Certainly no rental car facilities. Even if Daniel had wanted to wait while the car was being repaired, there wasn’t an available hotel room for at least another hundred miles. His options were becoming fewer and his hope of avoiding a three-thousand-mile car trip with a batty redhead was becoming dimmer.

The only bright spot was that the gas attendant, Doug, was the helpful sort. He took Daniel’s credit card number and assured Daniel that he would bill him fairly for the damage to the car. Daniel told the man he’d be back in less than two weeks to pick up his car. No problem for Doug as there was plenty of room in his garage. Western courtesy. It wasn’t a myth. Doug also mentioned that Jackson Hole, just over the border of Montana, would have the rental car facilities Daniel needed.

“See, your problems are solved. I’ll take you to Jackson Hole. I was planning on stopping there anyway. And Doug said he would take good care of the car.” Baily had trusted the attendant completely.

“He’ll probably be joyriding in it once he gets it fixed,” Daniel said cynically. Nobody was that nice. Then again he had just accepted a ride from a woman who had selflessly offered to drive him where he needed to go. Maybe he was the one with the problem.

“Well, we’re off,” Baily announced.

Daniel groaned as he struggled to fit his frame back into her car. She started the engine and the car sputtered to life. It was going to be the longest trip of his life. That he knew, absolutely. If nothing else, the cramped confines of the car would more than likely cause him permanent injury. To keep his mind off his already sore knees he looked around for something to distract him. Unfortunately, that would be Red’s too tight T-shirt. Even while she irritated his mind, she stirred his body. A lethal combination.

A thought occurred to Daniel, but he was almost hesitant to ask. “Are you married? What am I saying, of course you’re not.”

She had opened her mouth to tell him no, but then closed it when he answered his own question. “What is that supposed to mean? Don’t I look like someone who might be married? Don’t you think I could get a husband if I wanted one? Don’t you think it’s possible, even a little, that someone somewhere might find me vaguely attractive enough or interesting enough to marry? Huh?”

“Sensitive subject, I see,” Daniel remarked while he watched her face turn several shades of purple.

“Meow,” Miss Roosevelt concurred from the back seat.

Slightly embarrassed, Baily tried to compose herself. Okay, maybe she was a little too sensitive about the whole topic of marriage. Besides, there was nothing to worry about now. She was going to marry Harry.

“All I meant was that if you were married, your husband would most likely be with you and you would be wearing a ring. Since neither of those things are true, I assumed you weren’t married.”

Daniel’s logical explanation only turned her cheeks rosier. “I’m not,” she quietly replied.

“That’s what I thought,” Daniel said smugly.

A little too smugly, Baily decided. “But I’m going to be.”

Not quite sure what she meant, he conceded, “Sure. Most people think they’ll get married and have a family someday.”

“No, I mean I’m getting married. When I get back to New Jersey,” Baily clarified.

He was at an absolute loss to explain the sudden sense of regret that washed over him. It was as if he tried to capture something in his grasp but it was gone before he could close his fingers around it. Then he shook his head. He was being ridiculous.

“So you’re engaged?” Daniel concluded. “Where’s your ring if you’re engaged?”

Shifting slightly in her seat, Baily thought of a few legitimate excuses, but none of them rang true. “Technically…I’m not…we really haven’t quite…he hasn’t actually…”

“He hasn’t proposed yet.” It was a statement. Ha! Daniel felt triumphant. Although he had no idea why.

“He hasn’t proposed, but he will. He’s waiting for me to come home.” There, that was reasonable. It was also the truth.

Daniel was confused. And really, none of this was his business. He should let the subject drop, lean his head back and catch a few winks. That was sound thinking.

“So he’s been waiting for you in New Jersey while you’ve been Seattle.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

She squirmed in her seat a little bit, then muttered something under her breath.

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch that.”

“Seven years,” she said clearly.

There wasn’t any reaction at first. For a second, Baily thought he might have fallen asleep. That was until she glanced quickly to her right and saw his face turning red and his eyes watering up. Shortly after that, the laughter started.

Five minutes later he was still laughing. Baily’s anger grew proportionately. She didn’t know what had made her say anything in the first place. That wasn’t true. Maybe she’d wanted to share the story with someone. Get someone else’s feedback to decide whether or not she was making a huge mistake. Stupid idea. Now on top of everything else she was completely humiliated.

Breathing in deep gulps of air, Daniel tried to get control of his body. He couldn’t say why he found the story so amusing, but he had a feeling that the laughter had been building inside him from the first moment he’d seen her. Seven years. She certainly could deliver a punch line. Once he was calm he was able to ask his next series of questions.

“Okay, give. You’re telling me your soon-to-be fiancé has been waiting for you for seven years. What the hell have you been doing, picking out bridemaids’ dresses?” Daniel amazed himself with his witty banter.

His question was met with stony silence. Taking in her profile, he could see her proud chin was raised slightly. While he waited for her reaction, he took the time to study her other features. He couldn’t help but notice that her nose sloped up at the cutest angle. Her lips were firm, but were currently stiff with irritation. Long lashes dusted her cheeks when they closed. If he looked close, he could even count the number of freckles that covered the right side of her face. Seventeen.

“I’m sorry for laughing,” Daniel apologized, unused to the sound of those words echoing off his own lips. “I really want to know the whole story.”

“Why? So you can make fun of me some more?” Baily was no masochist.

The long highway stretched in front of them, and Daniel felt penned in by the confines of the small car. The question and its answer was just a way to pass the time. At least that was what he told himself. “I won’t make fun. Hey, I’m not even married.”

“Big shock there,” Baily retorted.

“See, I won’t even rise to your bait. Now tell me about this guy…What’s his name?”

Sniffing past her indignation, Baily muttered, “Harry.”

“Henry?”

“Harry. His name is Harry, and I’ve known him since I was ten. We grew up together. Dated in high school. Dated in college. Everybody assumed that we were going to get married. I wanted to experience a little more of the world before I settled down. My family was adamantly against me leaving. Harry was bothered, too. I guess.”

“You guess?”

Baily winced at the implication. “You have to know Harry. He’s the supportive, sensitive type.”

Groaning, Daniel stopped her. “Oh, please, spare me the sensitive man stories. Whoever put those two words together should be shot.”

Baily ignored his sarcasm and continued with her story. “Well, he is. So when I told him I wanted to move to Seattle, he said that was fine. He said he would wait and that he loved me. My parents weren’t nearly as supportive. They made me promise that if I wasn’t married by the time I was thirty that I would come home where I belonged and marry Harry.”

“You’re kidding. And that worked?”

“My birthday is in three weeks. My thirtieth birthday.”

Daniel issued ultimatums to Sarah all the time. They never worked. He needed Sarah and Red to meet. Maybe Red would rub off on her and—Scratch that thought.

“I don’t think I need to point out to you that you are an adult. You don’t have to obey your parents. Although I do respect the fact that you are honoring your word.” Daniel couldn’t think of a woman he knew that he would have ever described as honorable, yet it was a characteristic he admired greatly.

Finally, she thought, here was someone who understood what it meant to keep one’s word. However, Baily had to admit that it wasn’t the only reason she was heading east. “I wouldn’t break my word, that’s true. But I also think it’s time for me to get married. I want a home and children. A family. Harry can provide that. The truth is, having almost reached the age of thirty, I’m beginning to believe that true romantic love doesn’t exist.”

“Damn right!” Daniel agreed readily.

“Somehow I knew you would agree with me.”

He wasn’t exactly sure how he should take that statement. He decided it was a credit to his logical way of thinking. Therefore, it was obviously a compliment, and he thanked her.

Baily chuckled. A man like him would view her comment as a compliment. Maybe it was wrong to judge him so quickly without really knowing him. But his short brown hair, his clean-shaven jaw, his green polo shirt, and his crisp new blue jeans with a brown belt that matched his casual shoes said a lot about the man. He was the bottom line, the practical choice, and the reasonable solution type.

“What I meant,” Baily clarified herself, “is that love isn’t like the storybooks. It doesn’t hit suddenly. It isn’t passionate and fiery and out of control. Sure some people say they experience that. But how long does it last? Instead I’ve decided that love is like a warm comforter. Snugly. Cuddly. Secure. Harry and I will love each other and our children. It won’t be a story for the fairy tales, but then fairy tales are fiction. Harry and I are nonfiction.” Baily nodded her head with conviction. She was definitely doing the right thing. How could being part of warm loving family, one that she would help to create, be wrong?

“Very practical,” Daniel added. Not that he understood her need to be married and have children, but at least she wasn’t one of those women who believed love would make everything all right. However, the thought of Red trapped in a loveless, lifeless marriage didn’t sit well with him. He saw Red as the fiery, passionate type. She was the throw-everything-off-the-table, toss-her-skirt-over-her-head and take-her-hard-and-long type.

Oh, hell! Where did that thought come from? It was one thing to notice a woman’s chest in a T-shirt; it was another to envision that chest naked. No, he told a certain part of his anatomy. Don’t even think about it. Don’t even twitch, you son of a bitch. Not her. She is absolutely out of the question.

That part of his body wasn’t listening. In fact the mere image of her thighs spread in front of him open and waiting for him to claim her was enough to make his sex do more than just twitch.

“Are you all right?” Baily caught a glimpse of a really pained expression on his face. “Is it your head? Is it bothering you?”

“Yes,” he replied gruffly. “It’s my head.” It was sort of the truth.

“Your problem is you’re still cranky. Why don’t you rest for a while? I’ll let you know when we get there,” Baily suggested.

Perhaps that wasn’t a bad idea. He could close his eyes and catch up on the sleep he so desperately needed. Then he would wake up refreshed and in charge of his own body. He would expunge all thoughts of Red as a sexual being while he slept and life would once again make sense. It was a wonderful idea. Closing his eyes, he yawned once then sighed deeply. One last thought occurred to him before he drifted off.

“You said you would wake me up when we got to where we were going, but Jackson Hole is hours away. I won’t sleep that long.” And there really wasn’t anything else that was noteworthy along the way.

“Oh, I meant when we get to Yellowstone, of course.”