Over the Line (32 page)

He hesitated. "Thought I had. Didn't work out, either."

Before she could ask him what happened, he'd jumped up onto the seat, cranked the key, and fired up the tractor. And that was the end of
that
conversation.

By now she knew the drill. She scooted back onto the middle of the rack and hung on as he caught up with the hay baler.

Had some creeps in your life, too, Baby Blue?
she wondered.
Or have you just never met the right woman?

Obviously, he didn't consider her the right one, she thought, as they bounced along through the rough field. After they'd talked in the machine shed last night, she'd hoped that... well, she'd hoped that maybe they'd made a connection. One that had opened up more than candid dialogue between them.

She'd hoped for a lot of things last night. As she'd lain in his brother's old bed with Baby Blue in his room down the hall, his parents in their room downstairs, and the house as quiet as a church, she'd actually listened for footsteps in the hall, the turn of the doorknob, the pleasant squeak of a hinge in need of oil.

She'd fallen asleep waiting.

And all day today, she'd wondered.

What if she had gone to him?

The tractor came to a jerky stop, jarring her back to the heat and the hard work yet ahead of them.

"You know, you really don't have to be out here in this heat," Baby Blue said after jumping down from the tractor and rounding the hayrack. "Why don't you head on back to the house? Take the truck."

"Trying to get rid of me?" She eased to the ground and tugged a pair of borrowed work gloves out of her hip pocket.

"Trying to figure out what kind of spin the paparazzi would put on this if they could see the rock star of the decade decked out like Ellie Mae Klampett and getting blisters on her hands."

"Rocker rolls in the hay with hunky bodyguard?" she suggested, then laughed when he shook his head.

"Seriously, Janey. Go on up to the house. Get out of this heat."

"If you can take it, I can take it," she insisted.

"That's not the point."

"Then what is? It's like you said. Nothing wrong with sweating for a living."

When his gaze made a slow, intense sweep of her body—she'd done some sweating, too, and her cotton T-shirt was pretty much molded to her body and transparent—she shivered, despite the blistering heat.

"Suit yourself." He dragged his gaze away. "Just let me know if you need a break."

She needed a break all right, Janey thought, climbing up into the tractor seat. She needed Baby Blue to give her a break and consider thinking about her as something other than someone he needed to take care of.

"Come on," Jase said, opening the screen door after dinner that night. "Let's go for a ride."

"Sounds good." Janey, squeaky clean again, her nose a little sunburned from working out in the sun all day, gamely left the cool air-conditioning of the house and walked outside ahead of him into a sultry summer night.

She'd worked like a dog today. Jase still couldn't get over it. A real trouper, this one. She'd even pitched in and helped his mom with dinner—then dug in like a Ranger who'd lived for a year on MREs.

He should let her rest. But he was inexplicably restless. He needed to get out. Needed some action. Maybe the sight of her dressed in that short little pink shirt with the little-girl ruffle along the bottom again and that band of bare skin between the hip-hugging skirt and midriff-skimming top had something to do with it. If his hands were otherwise occupied on the steering wheel of the Mustang, they wouldn't be so itchy to get ahold of her.

"Hold on." He left her outside and opened the overhead shed door.

Then he climbed behind the wheel, tugged the S & W out from under his shirt, and tucked it under the seat. He hadn't wanted her to see it. She was relaxed for a change and didn't need the reminder that there was still a threat. He didn't expect to need it, but didn't feel comfortable without it, either.

After backing out of the shed, he leaned over, and opened the passenger door, shoving it open for her. "Let's roll."

"Did I mention," she said, easing inside and getting comfy, "that this really is a hot car?"

He grinned. "Couple of times." Then he drove about twenty-five miles per hour on the gravel—as much to irritate her as avoid chipping the paint—before opening the Mustang up when they hit the highway.

"Wow!" Janey laughed as they roared down the blacktop, windows down, radio blasting out rockin' country and the cool night air washing over their skin. "This baby moves. Must be more than a few horses under the hood. Who knew they made cars this fast back then?"

Yeah, who knew?
Jase thought as he backed off on the gas when they reached the Clear Creek city limits sign. Who knew that bringing Janey Rock Star Perkins home to Iowa would lead to a positive spin on the relationship with his father that he'd been wrestling to come to terms with for years?

There was something else he was also wrestling with. The way he'd treated Janey after that night—that amazing night—they'd spent together. She hadn't deserved that from him. Just like she didn't deserve that Larson creep cheating on her.

He couldn't do anything about the way Larson had treated her but could apologize for the way
he
had. He was going to do that tonight.

But first he had to work up the guts.

Pathetic. He'd tangled with the best the Taliban had to offer in the mountain wilderness of Afghanistan, faced off with a shitload of heavily armed jihad extremists on a barren stretch of desert, down to his last round of ammo and his squad ten clicks away.

And he couldn't find the balls to tell it right, tell it straight, to one unarmed one-hundred-pound woman.

Some Hooah he was.

Janey loved Iowa. From the verdant green timbers and lush pastures dotted with cattle grazing on rolling hillsides to the old-fashioned and original drive-in where Baby Blue treated her to the most decedent turtle sundae she'd ever had.

People waved when Jase and Janey drove down the street. Lifted a finger in greeting when they met them on the road.

"I love it," she said when they cruised out of town past a lit sign:

You are now leaving Clear Creek, Iowa

Population two thousand, three hundred wonderful

people and one grumpy old man.

It
was
Mayberry. But in an updated way. Teens wore pretty much what teens wore in Florida or California. They listened to the same music. The little theater on Main Street played the same movies that the multiplexes played in the cities across America.

Okay, so the news reports on the radio included corn and hog futures along with the rundown on the Dow. It was wonderful. It was ... special. And so was the man at her side.

She'd never had a car date when she was a teen. The boys she'd known hadn't had money for cars. The life she'd led hadn't left much time for dating.

This must be what it feels like,
she thought as they headed back to his parents' farm.
This must be what it feels like to be on a special date with that guy you've been dying to go out with.

And then she got real. This was no date. This was an air bubble in time. Some incredible twist of fate had dropped her inside that bubble and floated her to this Midwest summer night. Where she felt safe. Safe from Edwin Grimm. Safe from the reality of her mother's murder and all the unknowns that went with it.

Safe enough, evidently, to let her guard down and start thinking sappy thoughts about her and Baby Blue.

They flew along the blacktop road back toward the Wilson farm; the night smelled of cool dew and new-mown hay. The car smelled of lemon wax and age. An oldies station played a John Cougar song on the radio. And the man behind the wheel—well, the man behind the wheel was as out of reach to her as a father's dream of his only son coming home to run the farm was out of reach to him.

It made her melancholy. It made her sad.

And it made her mad, suddenly, that there didn't seem to be any happily ever afters on the horizon for any of them.

Chapter 18

It was like the Mustang had a mind of its own, Jase thought when he found himself turning off the blacktop and heading for the gravel pit. Truth was, he wasn't ready to go back to the house yet.

He checked his watch. Almost ten o'clock.

Yep. The Mustang had taken this road before. Most often this time of night. Most often with a pretty girl snuggled up close to his side. And how convenient was it that the local lovers' lane was empty when he pulled up to the edge of the rise overlooking the sand pit lake and killed the motor?

He was out of his mind. He had no business bringing her here. Just like he'd had no business giving her the silent treatment after the night they'd spent together. He'd been an asshole about it for as long as he could stand it.

"Pretty," Janey said quietly beside him.

He looked at her. At this woman who could buy and sell damn near anything she wanted to buy or sell, who had seen the wonders of the world on her tours yet could still look at a gravel pit on a backcountry road and see something pretty.

"It's a gravel pit," he pointed out.

"Really? Hm. Looks like a little lake. And it's still pretty. Look how the moon is shimmering down over the water."

Yeah. Okay. Jase supposed it was pretty. A little. The moon was big and round and ... and he was letting himself get sidetracked.

"I'm guessing this is a parking spot."

She knew more about country life than she'd let on. "Used to be. Don't know if it is anymore. We used to have parties out here. The landlocked version of going to the beach."

"Bet the girls fell all over you."

Jase didn't know if she was teasing or curious or just making idle conversation. The only thing he knew for certain was that he couldn't stop wondering about her.

"And what about you? You must have driven the Mississippi boys out of their minds."

She gave a little snort. "Not so much, no. I was what you call a late bloomer. Always the smallest one in my class. Skinny as a rail. Didn't need a bra until I was almost sixteen. So, no. The boys didn't pay much attention to me."

"Which was probably a good thing," she added, sounding introspective suddenly. "Some of the 'friends' my mom brought around—well. Let's just say my ugly-duckling looks most likely saved me more than once."

His stomach knotted when he realized what she was talking about. He shifted in the driver's seat until his back was against the door, hooked one arm over the seat back, one over the steering wheel. "God, Janey. I'm... sorry."

He could see her perfect profile as the moon illuminated the inside of the Mustang. She shrugged. "Yeah, well, we can't all grow up in Mayberry."

She lowered her head. Shook it. "Sorry. That was—"

"True?" he suggested, hating what she must have lived through as a kid.

"Unnecessary." She shot him a tight, brief smile. "It's not your fault my mom was a drunk. Besides, you had your own things to deal with."

Like Jeremy's death. Yeah. He'd had that. But he'd also had a mother and a father who loved him to help him through it even though they were struggling with their own pain.

"You're... you're really something." He searched her eyes when she turned to him. "What you've done. What you've accomplished. What you've overcome."