Page 8 of Rolling Thunder

“How do you fix that?” He asked.

“She just needs time to figure out that every time someone gets on her, she doesn’t have to run for her life.” Kayla said. Immediately, she realized again that he really wasn’t asking about the horse. And she’d walked right into it again. She cleared her throat and untangled herself from him to zip her jacket. This was going about as well as Rocket’s first training session.

The twilight ride home passed quickly. He pulled up to her gate and cut the engine as she dismounted. She wasn’t sure if she was thrilled or terrified that he didn’t mean to immediately ride off. When he also swung off the bike, she turned hastily to face him. What the hell was it about this guy that made her feel so much?

“I’m walking you up to the door,” he said decisively.

After a short mental gamble, she unlocked her gate. She shouldn’t trust him. He was barely more than an acquaintance.

The moon was a mere sliver, but the stars were like a blanket of diamonds beyond the palms waving gently in the night breeze. He didn’t touch her, didn’t say anything, until they arrived at her porch.

“Don’t you have a porch light?”

“It’s broken,” she said softly, feeling suddenly tired and a little defeated. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Bet I do,” he said, his voice a little quieter. A heavy pause fell between them in the dark. “I can’t figure out if you want me to kiss you or for me to get lost.”

The tension was too much, and a nervous giggle burst out of her. It didn’t last. Then the silence was upon them again, and he turned to go.

“Wait,” she said suddenly, and he turned back in one fluid movement. His dark form overtook her and backed her up against the railing to her porch. His hands moved over her face to hold her still. She gasped a little bit at the shock of his touch. Her heart reminded her of the hoofbeats of a wildly galloping horse; it was equally out of control. His mouth closed over hers; he might as well have shot adrenaline straight into her veins. Everything he did was perfect. Her skin seemed to wake up in the same instant and beg for more. He fit perfectly over her, his hands callused and sure, but not rough where he touched her.

His kiss was a dominant thrill. He had complete power over himself and her, and a mere brush of his fingertips on her could trigger her to swoon into him so that he could enter her mouth with his tongue. It was primal. Her body responded without hesitation even while her mind battled. She was swept away by him, and she wrestled with herself for control. The conflict shuddered through her, making her tremble. It took her a long, long moment to realize he’d stopped kissing her and was softly caressing her face in the balmy night. She waited for him to ask her what her problem was, but instead, he slipped a hand under her hair at the back of her neck and drew her against him, wrapping her in strong arms against his impenetrable chest.

This was worse… If he would just kiss her or grope her, she could topple into the void of numbness where she usually went to protect herself. This tender comfort was something foreign, and it triggered a surge of emotion from somewhere deep in her chest.

She choked back a whimper, then cleared her throat, hoping to disguise it, grateful that it was too dark for him to see her face clearly. She had to get out of this. This was everything she didn’t do. If he’d just taken her inside and fucked her, she could have rolled with it. She was used to that. But tenderness and respect was way out of bounds. It threw her off balance in an unrecoverable way. On a horse, it meant a hard fall was imminent.

Enveloped in his scent of leather, smoke, and the Florida night, he was a strange combination of utterly foreign and totally familiar. Had a man ever held her like this? She didn’t think so.

She steeled herself to disengage from him, the comfort of his embrace a fleeting thing, a small wild animal chased back into the forest by the gnashing teeth of her fear, that would not let her have it. On its heels was a much more practical state of mind. Did he expect sex?

She managed to push back from him. He let her go.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said, testing the waters.

“Why don’t you go inside, so I know you’re safe.”

Inside wasn’t always safe either. A shock of panic shot through her. She hoped he couldn’t see it in the dark.

“Okay, good night,” she said. She felt for the doorknob, found her house key by feel, and let herself in.

“Good night,” he said as the darkness enveloped him, and then he was gone. Had he even been real? She flipped the switch, and the living room lit up. She stood with her back pressed against the door for a few minutes, her heart slamming into her chest like a fist trying to punch its way out. She could still taste his kiss, so yeah, it was real.

As a child, she’d gone riding with her Gram Kay in the Babcock Webb Wilderness area, a 3000-acre wildlife preserve which was only a few miles away as the crow flew. Kay, after whom she was named back when her mother was sober and they still had a relationship, had assigned her a young horse to ride. At twelve, Kayla was athletic and could stick to most any horse like a burr regardless of what they did. Kay took advantage of Kayla’s skills to tame impetuous horses.

They startled a huge alligator sunning by one of the thousands of ponds. With surprising speed for its size, it had launched off the bank and back into the black water with a slick splash. Her horse spooked and bolted. True to form, she didn’t fall off, but she didn’t quite have the strength to wrangle the runaway horse back under control either. For a moment, it was the thrill of her life.

The strides of a horse became almost imperceptible when going that fast. It became a steady staccato rhythm she was irresistibly married to. She had to simply sink her weight into her heels and allow her body to follow it. The slightest loss of balance now meant disaster. But ahead of her, she managed to make out an old barbed-wire fence, fast approaching. Much of this land had once been ranched for cattle, and the remnants were still everywhere, in varying states of disrepair. If her horse ran through that fence at this speed, it might be the end of them both.

Her mouth went instantly dry and tasted of cobwebs. Stopping the runaway horse wasn’t going to happen, and her only hope, she realized, was to try to turn. She had begun to crank on her left-hand rein with all her might. Her muscles shook and the horse veered, but not nearly enough. And just when she thought it was all over, a movement caught her eye, and she saw her grandmother bearing down on her, using her own horse to steer Kayla’s to make up the extra turn. Kay reached down between the galloping horses and caught the flopping right rein that Kayla had abandoned in her frantic attempt for a left-hand turn, and she steered them both into steadily smaller circles until finally, the horse was brought to a halt. Both Kayla and the horse heaved and shuddered from exertion and terror. Kay smiled, crinkling the corners of her eyes.

“Nice riding, kid,” she said. Kayla didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Wasn’t that just what Kay had done her whole life, ride to the rescue when there was no fate left but certain disaster, saving the day with a smile and a steady hand?

Evan had brought the same rush of exhilaration, loss of control and then terror. Evan had also calmed her gently and made her feel safe, holding her in his arms. She had no idea where to put that in her mind. But she had a more pressing issue to attend to.

As she finally got her breathing under control, she began her nightly prowl, stalking through her house like a person in a horror movie, pushing each door open, flipping each light on, holding her breath until she saw the room was empty. Was she alone? Or was Trent waiting in ambush for her? This was total madness. She needed to get a dog, or three. She didn’t because she was afraid of what Trent might do to them too. Another reason she shouldn’t have gone out with Evan in the first place.

At last, she got a flashlight and stepped out to check on Rocket. She’d left her in the pasture closest to the house so it would be easy to see her or hear if something went wrong. Rocket was grazing contentedly in the dark, so Kayla was officially off duty. This little glimpse of peace was what she fought for every day of her life. If only it could last.

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