Joy Ride (6 page)

Blow it off. There are a lot more out there just like her
.

But the fact of the matter was, that wasn’t exactly true. His Music Lady was one of a kind.

And he’d have to figure out how to find her again.

The anticipation of preparing food dissipated. With rapid strides he pushed his cart up and down the aisles, tossing in the bare essentials he needed.

Hoping to see her again.

And trying to convince himself that he was imagining the hurt burning in his heart.

***

Emma hurried to the farthest corner of the store, as far away as she could get. She huddled in the soft drink aisle, hand pressed to her chest, heart pounding. She was more mortified than anything else. A stranger walked up to her and she panicked? What could possibly happen in the grocery store? Was she so freaked out moving passed her boundaries last night that strangers frightened her? Could she have acted any more like an immature teenager? Or worse yet, a prickly spinster?

She had to admit good-looking men didn’t usually come on to her in the grocery store. Or any place else. Probably because for years, she’d walked around with that “Keep Away” sign all but plastered on her forehead. There had been something familiar about him, but at the moment she was still wrestling with her late night joy ride. She couldn’t handle another strange guy stepping into her life.

Of course, she could have handled it better. Right? Instead, she’d just made an ass of herself and the guy was really cute. Sexy. Neatly combed mink brown hair. Lean body in jeans and a long-sleeved, collared shirt. A vest. Clean shaven with the scent of something fresh and outdoorsy tickling her nostrils. Stormy blue eyes.

Stormy blue eyes?

Really?

Ohmigod!

Was it him?

Shit, shit, shit
.

Discomfiture crept over her like a thermal blanket. How could she not have recognized him? After the incredibly intimate hours she’d spent with him? Bad enough she was still trying to straighten out the maelstrom her emotions had become. Now she had embarrassment to add to the mix.

Okay, so she wasn’t expecting him to look like Nick Next Door when she saw him again. But that was no excuse. You didn’t have incredible erotic sex with a man one night and then not know who he was the next day, even if he wasn’t wearing his rock star persona. No wonder hurt had flashed in his eyes.

Dork—that was the word for her.

Emma was torn between wanting to find him again and hiding until she was sure he’d left the store. What if someone saw them together? Told Andrew? Okay, told him…what? That she was talking to a strange man in the grocery?

A hysterical laugh bubbled up in her throat.

What if Andrew himself showed up here? He shopped here sometimes. He was already angry at being unable to reach her. Just one question about the man she was talking to and her face would give her away. She had never been a very good liar.

And then, of course, Andrew would immediately be on his cell talking to her parents.

More fun.

Emma, Emma, Emma. You wanted to experience life. Okay, here it is
.

But give her a break. Who expected a rock musician to be wandering the aisles in a grocery store? In her limited, distorted view she never associated them with mundane, every day activities. Big mistake.

Sliding open the door to the cooler, she pulled out a can of soda and rolled the cool aluminum against her hot cheeks while she tried to pull together the fragments of her brain. She waited in the corner as long as she could before venturing down the aisles again. She moved slowly, keeping an eye out for her Guitar Man, wanting to apologize yet afraid to face him again. Finally, she made it to the front of the store without running into him. Her grocery shopping was done for the day. She couldn’t look at melons and tomatoes when all she could see was the hurt in Marc’s eyes.

Way to go, Emma. You can kiss sexy boy goodbye.

No, wait. She wouldn’t be able to kiss him at all now.

Disgusted with herself, she shoved her grocery cart back into place at the front of the store and hurried out to her car. She’d lost any desire to prepare food, anyway. She drove home in a fog, cursing herself and wondering if she’d be able to scrape up the courage to go back to Aftershock and see if he’d give her another chance or just blow her off. But the club, just like Marc, was forbidden fruit that good girls should stay away from.

Her life was changing in a dramatic way. She wanted to embrace this change, wanted to be the person hidden inside her all this time. There was a freedom waiting for her and an exploration of her own sensuality if she could just come to terms with it. There was no way she could make any kind of decision until she figured out how to deal with it. She had a lot of thinking to do.

But then she turned onto her street and her stomach clenched. As if things weren’t bad enough, Andrew’s car was parked in front of her house and he was sitting on her steps. He didn’t look happy either.

Oh, God. Just what I don’t need right now.

Chapter Four

Emma pulled into her driveway, shut off the engine, and drew in a deep breath. As she got out of the car, Andrew rose from the steps, his forehead creased in a scowl.

He folded his arms and glared at her. “Where have you been?”

“What?” She started to answer him then clamped her mouth shut, irritated by his attitude. “Andrew, I can’t talk to you right now.”

“Now that’s where we disagree. You definitely need to explain what last night was all about.” He glanced at her front door. “I think we should take this inside, don’t you? We don’t need the neighbors listening in on our conversation.”

Emma wondered if she could vaporize into the air, but she had to talk to him and give him some kind of explanation. After all, she was the one who had an emotional fit and raced out of his house. Poor stuffy Andrew didn’t even know yet that they’d broken up. She certainly couldn’t tell him that she’d practically gone from his bed to that of a total stranger. Good girls didn’t do things like that.

You’ve made a real mess, Emma. A big stinking mess
.

But she needed some time and space to process the upheaval in her life before she could have a conversation with Andrew.

“I wasn’t aware I had invited you in.” And wasn’t she just being rude on top of everything else?

His entire body tensed into one rigid mass of muscle. The frown on his forehead could have cut grooves into his skin and his mouth tightened into a straight line. At his sides his fingers curled tightly into his palms.

“I didn’t think I needed a special invitation. I never did before.”

“Things have changed. Listen, Andrew.” She sighed. He had every right to be angry, but please not now. “I know we need to talk but I can’t right this minute. Okay? Please? Just call me.” She started up the stairs to the porch.

“I would,” he snapped, “except you don’t seem to answer your phone. Where the hell were you last night?”

Emma glanced over her shoulder at him, spotted her neighbor across the street standing on her porch blatantly staring, and she sighed.

“Come in,” she told him, resigned to the confrontation.

She unlocked the door and left it open for Andrew to follow her. In the kitchen, she popped a K-Cup of hazelnut coffee into her Keurig machine, stuck a mug under the spout, and pressed the button.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked, ingrained courtesy getting the best of her.

“Yes. I would.”

The hostility simmering in his voice reached out and blanketed her. She couldn’t blame him. This was not going to be easy no matter what she did. He had every right to be furious with her and any explanation she’d gave him would just confuse him. How could she tell him that the conservative good girl he was used to had an overnight epiphany and a new woman stood in her place? She accepted the fact that she and Andrew were a dead issue. Now to convince him….

To make matters worse, the new Emma was already wondering if she had another chance with Marc.

Suck it up, Emma. Get your head screwed on straight. You owe this man something and whether he understands or not you have to give him an explanation
.

Pulling another mug from the cupboard, she filled it from the same K-cup, handed it to Andrew and leaned against the counter, sipping her own drink. She studied him, standing in front of her so stiffly in his trademark khakis and golf shirt, hair combed back from his forehead, and brown eyes dark with a level of anger that vibrated in the air. She swallowed a sigh.

Just yesterday she’d been more than ready to settle for the routine of a life with this man. And routine definitely described their situation. But that was before her friend blew into town and gave her a wakeup call on how much she was really missing out. Jacie, whose eyes sparkled with life and excitement, who spoke of her husband as if describing a hot lover whose bed she’d just left.

“He makes my life complete and my body sing.” Jacie had smiled as if she alone had a special secret and described her marriage, her five-year-old daughter, and her career with equal parts of excitement and satisfaction.

Emma’s job with a textbook publishing house had suddenly seemed embarrassingly dull. What she really wanted was to write books, not edit them. And definitely not dull textbooks. And the only song she heard with Andrew was a Sousa march that kept the rhythm of her life in perfect ordinary time.

Last night it had all boiled over, making her all too aware that she’d
settled
. She’d done what everyone expected of her—in her choice of career as well as her choice of men. And she’d understood with startling clarity that she was just damn tired of it. Finally. She wanted to grab life the way Jacie had.

Still, she owed it to Andrew to make him understand, even if she thought the task next to impossible.

She gestured toward the kitchen table. “If we’re going to have this discussion, why don’t we sit down?”

“No, thanks. I’ll stand.”

“Fine. Whatever.” She took a sip of the hot liquid in her mug. “I’m sorry I didn’t return your phone calls but…I wasn’t sure what to say to you yet.”

Or ever
.

“You didn’t think you owed me an explanation for running out the way you did? In the middle of the evening?” He glared at her over the rim of his mug.

She bit back another sigh. “I…just needed some time to get my thoughts together.”

And figure out how to tell you it’s over. Finished. And how to make my well-meaning parents understand that I’m not a teenager anymore and can make my own choices. Even if people won’t like them
.

“I’ll take them any way you deliver them,” he told her. “But I want to know what I did to make you leave the way you did. One minute we’re watching a movie and I’m looking forward to going to bed with you, the next you run out like a crazy person. What’s up, Emma? This is just not like you.”

No kidding
.

She moved to the little bay window that looked out into her backyard, staring outside but not really seeing anything.

“No matter what I say, Andrew, I don’t think you’ll understand. I’m afraid you’ll be hurt and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She tried to swallow but the strain of the situation made her mouth too dry. She was all too aware she should have thought of this earlier, but when she fled his house, the only thing on her mind was escaping a suffocating situation. And didn’t that just say something about her feelings for this man that she hadn’t even given one thought to his reactions?

Yes, Emma. Something you should have done before racing out of his house as if your pants were on fire. Or when you tried to blow him off a while ago. He might be dull and stuffy but you were with him a long time and he’s still a human being
.

“Hurt? Damn straight I will.” His anger rolled through the room in waves. It was the most emotion Emma had ever seen from him. “But there’s certainly something you can do about it. You can forget all this nonsense.” He smoothed his hand over his hair. “Emma, we’ve been together for two years. I thought we had plans. I just assumed….”

“Yes.” She whirled around, coffee sloshing onto her hand. The liquid burned and she grabbed a paper towel from the counter to blot it. “You assumed. And that’s as much my fault as yours. I know you love me, in your own way, but my feelings for you have changed.”

“In my own way?” He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean? My way was good enough for two years.”

“Andrew, I can’t think of another way to say this except we aren’t going to be seeing each other any more.”

Hurt and confusion were etched on his face. “You’re breaking up with me? Why? I thought…expected….”

“And that’s part of the problem.” She set her mug on the table, guilt and irritation waging a battle inside her. “We met, everyone thought we were perfect for each other, including my folks. I was convinced everyone was right. Except….” She turned away, unwilling to deal with what she knew she’d seen in his eyes. It was so clear to her now he’d never understand her motivation—her desperate need for change.

“Except what, Emma?
You
didn’t think so? Then what was the past two years all about? We’re comfortable with each other, for God’s sake.”

“But that’s just it,” she cried. “I’m tired of being comfortable. Tired of doing what everyone expects of me. Tired of being the poster child for the typical good girl. I want more out of life. A lot more.”

He stared at her for a long time, a mixture of emotions shifting across his face. “You’re bored with me.” He said the words as if each one was a poison pellet.

“Not just you.” She held out her hands, palms open, as if pleading with him. “With my
life
, Andrew. All of it.” She bit her lip. “Try to understand. I like you a lot but I don’t think I’ve ever really been in love with you.” God, she was such a coward. And selfish. She just wanted this conversation to be over with. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with
anyone
.”