Dixie rolled her dark eyes at me and reached for the helmet that I held out to her. “Of course I’ve been on a bike. Do you think Brite would have hired me back in the day if I couldn’t talk shop with his clientele? The bar used to be one of the biggest baddest biker hangouts in all of Denver. I think that was the first question he asked in the interview. Darcy made him clean the place up when Avett started getting old enough to come hang out in the kitchen with her.” She smirked at me and slapped the borrowed helmet onto the top of her head. I knew the history of the place that Rome now called his but I guess I never really stopped to think about the integral part this little spitfire had played in all of it before now. “Plus, before the accident my dad used to ride, not a Harley, but still. I was on the back of a motorcycle a lot when I was younger.”

She strapped the chin strap in place and hefted the backpack that was loaded down with whatever she had packed for the week over her shoulders. She was so goddamn cute it made everything inside my chest feel too tight and had all those naughty thoughts about what could happen once it was just me and her and the road roaring back to the forefront. It also made my blood heat up and dick twitch in a way she was bound to notice if she bothered to look in that direction.

I cleared my throat and reached for my own helmet as we moved to the bike. “Your dad was in an accident?” That was the thing about separating yourself from the people around you, they didn’t get to know me, but I also missed out on really knowing anything about them. Typically, I thought that distance and indifference were for the best but as I swung a leg over the bike and settled in, waiting for Dixie to climb on behind me, I really started to resent the fact I didn’t know anything beyond the superficial where she was concerned.

The leather creaked as she wiggled into place with her legs clamped around the outside of mine and the soft press of her breasts into my back. Her hands slipped around my waist like she had held on to me a thousand times before when in reality today was the most we had ever touched. I knew why I was compelled to keep my distance. Once her palms flattened onto my abs under the material of my open leather jacket and the soft whoosh of her exhaled breath hit the back of my neck I knew I would never be able to sit on this bike again and not feel her there behind me. She was going to be a memory I couldn’t shake.

“Yeah.” She breathed deep and low, her chest rising and falling where it pressed into me. I had to bite back a groan as her fingers curled into my tense stomach muscles. “The summer right before I started high school he got into an accident on his motorcycle. A truck changed lanes and didn’t see him. He was thrown over a hundred yards and had to be airlifted to Denver General. He was fortunate he had his helmet on or else he wouldn’t have made it.”

I could feel a tremor move throughout her tiny frame as she recounted the story. I turned to look at her over my shoulder and noticed the corners of her mouth pulled into a frown. “He’s lucky, then.”

She lifted a shoulder and let if fall. “He survived, but he’s been in a wheelchair ever since. So yes, he’s lucky, we all were because he’s a great dad, he was before and he continued to be after the accident, but our family was changed forever.”

We stared at each other for a long, silent moment. Sometimes it felt like it was easier to communicate with her through a look than it was through words. It wasn’t lost on me that she had survived something horrifying and life changing at the hands of the very machine she was currently propped up on. The amount of trust and faith she had to have in me in order for her to agree to ride for days on the back of something that had almost taken a parent from her was humbling and terrifying. I hadn’t done anything to earn that kind of conviction from her but now that I knew I had it I was going to do everything in my power to live up to it.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you on this trip, Dixie. I promise that you will be safe with me.” I meant it. I would keep her safe from everything, including me and the way it was impossible to ignore the heat of her pressed against the plane of my back.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to go with you if I didn’t believe that you would take care of both of us, Church.” Her voice was quiet but I heard the truth in her words loud and clear.

I cranked the key in the ignition and let the growl of the V-twin motor drown out the sound of the taunting voice in the back of my head chanting the word “friend” over and over again. I might have to tattoo the damn reminder on my forehead before we crossed the state line.

She was cute. She was curvy. She was sweet and sunny … What she wasn’t was a chick I could take to bed and walk away from no harm no foul, and I needed to keep that in mind even as she flipped me a nervous grin in one of the mirrors that jutted off the handlebars. Everything about Dixie Carmichael screamed forever, and I knew probably better than anyone on this planet that forever wasn’t something that was real, no matter how good you had it. Forever was an illusion that soft hearts and warm brown eyes built dreams around. It wasn’t something a man that knew how quickly everything could be ripped away and shredded to pieces put much stock in.

It also surprised me that Dixie had been through something that very easily could have crippled someone else and she was still nothing but sunshine and roses. I on the other hand took life’s unexpected misfortunes and let them mold me into a man I could hardly stand to face most days.

I wanted her because she was Dixie and there was something about her that shed light on all the dark places I’d been living in for so long, but I knew with every fiber of my being I didn’t deserve her and that if I wanted what was best for her I wouldn’t let either of us believe for a single second that I could keep her.