Worth The Battle (Heaven Hill Series) (21 page)

Jessica could see why she loved it so much. There weren’t concrete barriers everywhere. You could actually see both sides of the road; you could see trees and in some places nothing else. One day that would be replaced with “progress”, but it was so nice to not see bumper-to-bumper traffic and smell gas fumes. She realized that if she wanted to, she really could get used to life here. Going this whole day without her cell phone hadn’t even been a burden. It had been nice. It had been quiet, and it had been far less stressful than most of her days were.

“This is an amazing little drive,” she said as she shifted in her seat, turning behind her to pop her back.

As she turned, she noticed a group of motorcycles coming up on their left.

“Wonder who these guys are?”

Both Jessica and Meredith glanced over, both looking at the group of about fifteen guys on bikes.

“Can’t see their colors or patches.” Bianca squinted, but it was too dark to make out details, especially with the tint that Tyler had on his windows.

For some reason Jessica began to feel uneasy. The only guy on a motorcycle she had any affiliation with was Layne. “They seem to be getting closer.”

Just when Jessica would have said something else, they blew past the truck. The two lead guys stuck out a hand in acknowledgement. Jessica couldn’t tell if it was exactly a wave or something else.

“Well, what the fuck are the Vojnik doing down here?” Bianca asked, glancing over at Meredith. “Maybe we should call one of the guys?”

“You call,” Meredith told her. “Jagger is a little less apt to get pissed and beat some ass than Tyler would be.”

Jessica wondered who the Vojnik were and what it mattered where they were, but she decided not to question it as Bianca spoke to her boyfriend on the phone. It was a phone call that was filled with a lot of nodding and eye rolling on Bianca’s part. Finally, she flung it in the cup holder.

“They’re meeting us,” she blew out a deep breath.

“Well, if they meet us, that means they’re going to meet
them
first,” Meredith argued.

“Exactly what I said, but Jagger said that they wouldn’t even share words; they’re still in the middle of their truce. They just want a show of force.”

“That makes no sense,” Jessica said quietly from the back seat.

“Welcome to our world,” Bianca blew out another loud breath. “Where respect is measured by the size of your dick and how loud your bike revs. It’s just something that you learn to live with. Guarantee you they’ll be caught up with us in less than twenty minutes. They are probably breakin’ every speed limit law as they come out of Warren County.”

Desperate to break the tension yet again, Jessica grinned. “That’s something y’all have in common, huh?”

“You sure you aren’t a comedy actress? You’re pretty funny when you need to be.”

“Nope, but acting in comedies would have made things a hell of a lot easier.”

Chapter Twenty

“S
hit, they’re waiting on the side of the road,” Meredith laughed.

Jessica scooted so that she sat in between the two front seats, leaning on the console. “Can they just do that? Sit in that construction zone where it says ‘no U-turn’?”

Bianca grinned. “You’ll find out with these guys, they kinda just do what they want.”

Meredith sighed as she flipped on her emergency lights and pulled off at the exit that proclaimed itself the Natcher Parkway.

“Umm, how are we going to get back on the interstate?” Jessica asked.

“It’s one of those that you can drive through if you take the wrong exit. It’s got direct access. They’ll just block it for anyone coming off the Parkway trying to get onto I-65, but hopefully we won’t even have to deal with that tonight,” Bianca explained.

They parked and waited for Tyler, Jagger, and Layne to make their way over to the truck. Meredith reluctantly let down the window and watched for the big Native American to make his way over.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he flirted, as he sauntered up the vehicle. “You have a little trouble?”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a saucy smile. “We had no trouble until we decided to call you boys and, as a courtesy, let you know that we had some company.”

He reached into the window and grasped her under the chin. “You ladies did the right thing. Just because we have a shaky, at best, agreement with the Vojnik right now, doesn’t mean we can let our guard down.”

“So what did they want?” Bianca asked from where she sat.

Jagger smiled from where he stood behind Tyler. “Not a damn thing, just wanted us to see them. I’m figurin’ we’ll hear more from them when they’re ready to let us know what they have up their sleeve.”

For some reason none of the women in the truck believed the words that came out of his mouth.

Jessica jumped when someone tapped on the back window where she sat. Turning to face it, she saw Layne standing outside. Meredith had shut the truck off, so she reached over and opened the door. “Hey.”

He chanced a glance over at the other two guys. “While they’re flirting with their women, I figured I would come over here and talk to you.”

She visibly swallowed. It wasn’t that she was nervous to be around him, but it was still slightly awkward between the two of them. “Do they flirt a lot?”

“Too much,” he admitted. Layne cleared his throat. “Really the reason I came over here was to see if you wanted to go for a ride with me? I have some things to say to you, and I would much rather do it without everyone around to listen to it.”

Did she want to go someplace with him where there weren’t people around? Was she comfortable with that? Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she thought about it for a few seconds “Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll go with you.”

He held his hand out to her, palm turned upward.

She looked at it for a second before putting her hand in his, grasping the leather that he wore over his hand.

Talk at the front of the truck stopped. “Hey,” Bianca yelled. “Where are you going?”

“I convinced her to come with me instead of hanging out with you bad influences,” Layne joked. Something he wasn’t used to doing anymore, but that little moment of carefreeness, it felt good.

“Bad influences?” Meredith asked. “She’s the bad influence. You watch that she doesn’t make you the lead character in her scenes.”

“Would you shut up?” Jessica shouted as quietly as possible.

“What does she mean?” Layne asked, looking back over his shoulder at her.

She trailed slightly behind him, still clasping his hand in hers. “Nothing, she’s crazy.”

Layne gave her a raised eyebrow, but said nothing. They got to his bike, and he handed her a helmet. “Maybe you can get on this time with a little more grace than last time.”

“Layne O’Connor, a real gentleman would not have mentioned that,” she huffed, gathering her bearings about her to attempt this without making a fool of herself.

He steadied the bike for her and held her arm as she got on the back. “Never said I was a gentleman,” he told her before getting on in front of her. “You better hold on tight.”

She squealed as he took off, causing her hands to grip tightly against his cut, her arms to squeeze around his ribs. A part of her didn’t want to squeeze too hard, afraid of what it might do to him. The other part wanted to squeeze the life out of him, to show him that she wasn’t going to give up on him. She wasn’t going to let him go, but in the end, she held on not for him, but for herself.

Layne focused on what Doc Jones had told him. When he got twitchy, he should remember his happy place. His breathing picked up speed as she squeezed her arms tightly around him, holding on when they took a turn too fast. In a flash, his mind went back to a weekend they had spent together, her arms around him in a hug before she left. His breathing leveled as he thought about it that way. It wasn’t suffocating, it was comforting, and he knew that was his way of dealing with this. That was his way of figuring out how to turn that part of his brain off that allowed him to go to those hurtful places.

He had driven them further down the road and into the county than she had ever been. They passed Sugar Maple Square and hit Highway 185 at a rate of speed that made her stomach tickle. It was difficult for her not to laugh from the way her stomach dropped when he would take a hill. It was like riding a roller coaster. Jessica couldn’t get a glimpse of most of the scenery as it whizzed by. She vaguely saw a convenience store and what appeared to have once been a black Volkswagen bug hanging from old chains along the side of the road. They continued on the highway until they got to a large rock wall formation, and he stopped the bike, turning it to the left. A sign welcomed them that read Richardsville.

“It’s just a little ways longer. If you need to stop and take a break, we can,” he offered over the roar of the bike.

“No, I’m fine,” she assured him, not wanting them to stop.

The night was muggy but held with it the promise of something different. They hadn’t been alone like this in a very long time. She couldn’t even remember. It was before he had been sent overseas and he was stationed in Georgia. It had been on a night like this. The Georgia and Kentucky humidity were interchangeable. Her clothes stuck to her, even though she sat on the bike with the wind blowing around them.

Layne pulled the bike into a cropping of trees, and she realized just how much cooler it was. She could slightly hear the sound of water. “Are we near a river?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Kinda reminds me of Georgia.”

That caused a spot within her to warm. Georgia held so many good memories for them. Did this mean he wanted to make more with her? “Me too,” she whispered.

He got off the bike and situated the two of them back on it so that he faced her. Reaching up, he took her helmet off her head before placing it behind him. For the first time in a long time, he wanted to touch a woman. Not to just get his rocks off, but to actually touch her and give her pleasure too. He removed his gloves and stuck them inside his pocket. The idea that he wanted to touch her kept jumping to the forefront of his mind. He wasn’t sure he deserved that with her after what had happened, but he absolutely had to see how she would react.

“Can I touch you?” he whispered.

She almost whimpered. This was the one thing she had wanted since she had come to this place. It was confusing. One minute she was nervous that he would touch her, the next minute she was nervous that he wouldn’t, but she knew one thing for sure. Here in this setting, with the look he had in his brown eyes, this was the boy she knew, inside of the man that he was now. “Yes,” she whispered back at him. “Please.”

It was almost like he was reluctant to do so, even though she had given him permission.

“Are you sure?”

“I trust you,” she told him.

He lifted his hands up and cupped her cheeks, softly at first before increasing the pressure. Her skin was so soft against the roughness of his fingers. Her eyes were closed as he stroked her face. He wanted to see them. “Open them for me, please,” he begged her, the tone of his voice tearing her apart.

Her eyes popped open, their emerald color holding him hostage. “I know it’s you, Layne. It’s always been you, it’s only been you I’ve wanted, but you’ve never been ready for it.”