Road Tripping (9 page)

“You nearly
gave me a heart attack. Don’t do that to me again.” But then he added, “But I
think our truck might be a keeper. Let’s try not to destroy it tomorrow.”

Ashley laughed
and snuggled under the covers to get more comfortable.

She had to
admit that she didn’t really dislike Ethan after all. He might be infuriating
sometimes, but she cared about him. A lot.

And it was the
end of the fourth day.

Williamstown,
Kentucky

Ashley dreamed about the ants.

It started like
the dream she’d had the previous afternoon—Ethan coming to her, kissing her,
starting to make love to her—but then it transformed into a nightmare. His hands
were everywhere, tickling her, crawling on her. And then his hands turned into
hundreds of ants all over her body. But Ethan didn’t go away. In the nightmare,
he was somehow connected to the ants, part of them. To her dreaming mind, Ethan
and the ants became indistinguishable.

And so she
tried to push him away. Cried out for Ethan to stop, to leave, to get off her.

And then he was
speaking. “Ashley, wake up. Wake up.”

It was just
like the day before. If she opened her eyes, she’d be covered with ants. So she
kept pushing him away, telling him to stop touching her.

“You’re having
a nightmare.” His voice had grown stronger, more commanding. “Ashley, damn it,
wake up.”

And then she
felt his hands on her body. And not just in the dream. They were holding her
firmly by the shoulder. Shaking her. It felt almost violent.

So
instinctively she fought back. Swung her arms out wildly to protect herself.
Felt her fist connect with something. Heard a satisfying grunt.

Finally awoke
enough to open her eyes.

She gave a startled
little gasp when she saw Ethan above her on the bed in the dim room, holding a
hand over his eye.

“What—” she
choked out, trying to orient herself. Her heart was still pounding wildly, and
her skin was drenched with perspiration.

“Damn it, Ashley,”
Ethan roared. “You just punched me in the eye.”

“Oh.” She blinked
several times and shook her head roughly. “I must have been having a bad
dream.”

“I know that,” Ethan
responded through clenched teeth. “That’s why I was trying to wake you up.”

At last coming
to her senses, Ashley started to regret her unintentional brutality. “Sorry. Did
I hurt you?”

Ethan glared at
her with his one uncovered eye. “What does it look like?”

“I’m sorry,” Ashley
said again, sitting up in bed so she could see him better. “I guess I was still
in the dream. Here, let me see it.” She reached over and tried to remove his
hand so she could peer at the damage.

He resisted,
pushing her fingers away. They had a brief struggle before Ashley finally gave
up. “Will you have a black eye?”

“No. Don’t
exaggerate your strength. It’s mostly just the mind-numbing pain.”

Well, he was
clearly fine. If he had been really hurt, he would have acted like it was
nothing and been all martyr-like.

Ashley lay back
down in the bed. It was only three in the morning. She had time for a few more
hours of sleep. “All right. I’ll let you deal with the mind-numbing pain on
your own. I have aspirin in my bag if you need it. I’m going back to sleep.”

Mumbling under
his breath about heartless partners and violent females, Ethan got out of bed
and headed for the bathroom. She heard the water running but noticed he didn’t
get the aspirin.

She knew she
hadn’t really hurt him.

She lay
silently and pretended to be asleep when he got back into the bed.

But he must
have known she was faking because after about fifteen minutes, he asked into
the dark room, “What was your nightmare about?”

She’d hoped he
wouldn’t ask. “The ants.”

“That’s all?” He
adjusted his position in bed. She was facing the other way, but she could feel
the mattress shift.

“What do you
mean?” She hoped she hadn’t been talking in her sleep. “Aren’t ants enough of a
nightmare?”

There was a
long pause. Finally, he said, “You were talking.”

Damn
.

“You seemed to
be talking to me,” he added.

Ashley thought
for a moment. “Really?”

“Ashley.” The
word was spoken as almost a warning, as if he’d known she was trying to deceive
him. “Tell me the truth. Was I hurting you in your dream? You kept telling me
to get off you, to stop touching you.”

She thought her
heart stopped beating for moment, as she rolled over onto her other side so she
was facing him. “It was a dream. I guess my unconscious got you mixed up with
the ants.”

He was silent
for another long time, lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Are you
afraid that I could hurt you?”

And suddenly, Ashley
forgot all about her stupid nightmare. Forgot about the ants. Forgot about the
entire trip.

Only heard the
veiled fear in Ethan’s voice.

And she knew
then that, no matter how much trouble Ethan had gotten into, no matter how much
trouble he’d dragged her brother into too, he wasn’t a bad guy at heart. He’d
never been truly a bad guy.

For the first
time in the last eighteen months, she knew it for sure.

She scooted
closer to him, propped herself up until she was looking down at his face. “No. Don’t
be ridiculous. I know you’d never really hurt me.” She met his eyes in the
dark, trying to communicate the truth of her words through the shared gaze. “It
was a dream. Ethan, I’m trusting you right now. On this trip. I couldn’t do
that if I was really afraid of you. You won’t hurt me—I know who you really are.”

She was
breathing heavily. And so was he. And neither one could look away. Her face was
inches from his. One of her hands was splayed out on his chest.

For one
ridiculous moment, Ashley thought that he might lean up and kiss her.

But nothing
happened. They just kept staring. Finally, to break the strange tension, Ashley
added, “The only way that you might hurt me is if I finally explode from too
much contact with your obnoxious, infuriating personality.” She backed away
from him, lay back down on the bed.

Ethan grinned.
“If any exploding occurs, it will definitely be on my side. I’m the one who
just got socked in the eye.”

Ashley couldn’t
stifle a chuckle. “Nothing more than you deserved. I’ve wanted to do that about
a hundred times in the last four days.”

He chuckled too
as he rolled over to his edge of the bed. “You better hope I never do what I’ve
wanted to do a hundred times in the last four days.”

“What does that
mean?” she asked, trying to figure out if she’d just been insulted.

Ethan didn’t
answer.

“Ethan?”

Still nothing.
He was breathing deeply, pretending to be asleep.

Ashley tried to
make one of his growls, just so he’d know she wasn’t happy with him.

Then she rolled
over too and fell asleep for real.

***

When she woke up, the sun was
starting to rise, and she was snuggled up against Ethan, just like she’d been
the previous day.

There was no
drowsy lag time this morning. She went from cozy to aroused in about ten seconds.

When she
shifted against him, every inch of her skin that made contact with his
body—despite the clothes they were wearing—felt sensitized and overly
stimulated. She could tell her nipples were tight, so she was glad she was
wearing Ethan’s shirt rather than just her bra.

She lifted her
head to see Ethan’s face. He was already awake, just as he had been yesterday.

Well, there was
no way Ashley was going to do the cuddle-thing again this morning. She jerked
away from him, rolled off the bed, and hurried into the bathroom. “I’m first
today,” she called out over her shoulder.

As she turned
on the shower, she thought about the conversation they’d had after her
nightmare. Thought about how she’d just felt as she was pressed up against Ethan’s
body. Realized something.

She’d told Ethan
a lie last night.

He
could
hurt her. Not physically, of course. And not intentionally. But in ways that
would hurt just as much.

So she had to
admit a few things to herself as she stepped naked into the shower. Acknowledge
that she’d developed certain feelings. She wasn’t a moron, although she
sometimes acted like one.

Despite the
history they shared and her knowledge that he would never intentionally hurt
her, he was still a dangerous man in more than one way, and he’d betrayed her
brother. There was no way he could ever fit into the safe, clean life she
wanted for herself. No future with him was possible.

Plus, he
obviously didn’t want her at all, or he would have made some sort of move on
her in the last four days.

So Ashley had
better start protecting herself. Put up more boundaries, stronger walls. Things
had gotten too intense yesterday—she had started feeling too mushy.

Far wiser to
keep on fighting with him. At least when they were arguing, they were both
comfortably distant.

So that was Ashley’s
plan for the day, she decided, as she stepped wet out of the shower.
Self-preservation. She was going to be as antagonistic as she could.

And she could
be
very
antagonistic.

***

Ashley thought she’d done pretty
well.

They’d been driving
almost two hours, and Ashley had already managed to start six different
arguments. Two had been about Ethan hogging all the drive time, one about their
lack of breakfast, one about his driving too slow, and the other two about
absolutely nothing.

She was feeling
quite healthy, and annoyed, and non-mushy. Although she’d had a weak spell when
Ethan had looked so smoking hot when he’d growled at her to shut up and stop
nagging him.

They were still
taking the back roads, and there were no other cars in sight. Their old,
reliable truck was chugging along and didn’t seem to be in danger of
collapsing.

Ashley and Ethan
had been sitting in silence for a while—she was feeling drowsy, content, and
kind of sweet—so Ashley realized it was time to start another fight.

“Can we stop
for lunch soon?”

Ethan rolled
his eyes. “It’s not even 11:00 yet.”

“We didn’t have
any breakfast. I need sustenance.”

“Do you see any
restaurants around?”

They both
scanned the scene around them—nothing but grass, rolling hills, and trees. “Do
we have any more chips left?” she asked.

Ethan made a
throaty noise of irritation. “They’re in the back.”

“I’m hungry,”
she demanded, peering at him insistently, trying not to find his exasperated
expression appealing.

Ethan kept
driving, clenched his jaw, didn’t respond.

Ashley
continued staring at him, tapping her fingers on her thigh.

Finally, Ethan
let out a loud exhalation of disgust and pulled to the side of the road. Put
the truck into park. Turned his head to glower at her. “Go get them. Hurry up.”

So Ashley,
having won a battle she didn’t care about, had to get out and retrieve the
chips from the back of the truck. She grabbed a bottle of water too.

When she got
back in her seat, she gave a long sigh of satisfaction and made a great show of
crinkling the chip bag—merely for Ethan’s benefit.

He looked like
he wanted to strangle something (someone?), but he silently put the truck back
into drive. Hit the gas.

The truck made
a couple of jerks, then sputtered a few times. Wheezed into dead silence.

Both Ashley and
Ethan just sat there in shock.

Finally, she
breathed, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What did I
ever do?” Ethan whispered, almost as if he were praying. “What horrible sin did
I commit to make me deserve this kind of suffering?”

Clearly he wasn’t
talking to her. Ashley would have been perfectly happy to list an endless
number of his sins for him, if he happened to have forgotten some of them.

“What could
have happened?” she asked. The engine had gone totally dead.

Ethan sighed.
“With our luck? How can you even ask? Pretty soon, the truck will probably just
explode.”

Ashley randomly
glanced at the gauges behind the steering wheel. “We ran out of gas!”

“We did not.”

She reached
over his body and tapped on the gas gauge. “Empty. I can’t believe you let us
run out of gas.”

Ethan had
turned to study the gas gauge, which was clearly displaying an empty tank. He
made a strange choking sound. “It’s impossible. I checked the gauge twenty
minutes ago. It was just under half a tank.”

“No use making
up excuses now.”

“Damn it, Ashley,”
Ethan snarled, fisting his hands over the steering wheel. “I’m telling you
there’s something wrong with the gauge.”

Since Ashley
was quite sure he was telling the truth, she didn’t follow up on that line of
argument. “Well, what are we going to do now? There’s nothing around for miles.
And no cars to ask for help.”

Ethan sat
silently, his face shifting into his focused, intent expression—the one that
revealed he was concocting a plan.

She finally
asked, “Can we call for help?”

“We can if we
have to, but it will give away our location.”

He pulled out
his phone, which had been turned off all this time, and was looking at it when Ashley
heard a familiar, beautiful sound on the road behind them.

She jumped out
of the truck and started waving her arms wildly. Relaxed in relief when the
driver of red pickup truck pulled over behind their dead vehicle.

The oldest lady
Ashley had ever seen still functioning was sitting behind the wheel. She rolled
down the passenger window and called out, “Need some help, hon?”

“We ran out of
gas,” Ashley explained, as Ethan got out of the truck as well.

The lady
grinned—she was missing two of her teeth. “Hop in. There’s a gas station about
ten miles up. Then I’ll drive you back so you can get your truck going again.”

They thanked
her and got into the passenger side of her pickup. Ashley was in the middle,
and purely out of courtesy, she stayed closer to Ethan than to their ancient
Good Samaritan.