I trapped my hair in pigtails on either side of my head, which made me look like I was twelve years old. Well, a twelve-year-old with some serious cleavage. I made a face in the mirror as I slathered on some tinted moisturizer and some ChapStick. I figured it would be wind in my face and more truck stops today, so there was no need for me to doll myself up. Besides, today was the second morning in a row Church had seen me the way I was when I woke up, so there was no putting lipstick on a pig after that. I figured he couldn’t be too repulsed by my au naturel state if he hadn’t run out the door yet and I tingled when I remembered that he’d told me he thought I was cute when I was all grumbly and growly in the morning.

“Who cares why she did it? Wheeler is a good guy and this is the second time she’s had no regard for how her actions will hurt him. There is no excuse that can justify what she’s done.” And I’d told her the same thing in no uncertain terms last night. I was pissed at her, and her tears and woe-is-me attitude over a situation of her own making only served to make me angrier as I talked to her. Eventually I’d had to hang up on her, which hadn’t stopped her from calling or texting me well into the wee hours of the morning.

Church lifted an eyebrow at me as I made my way to where he had stashed the breakfast goodies. I wasn’t fully awake yet but my stomach sure was. I didn’t hold back a delighted squeal when I found frosted doughnuts in the paper bag. I was going to need to figure out a way to fit a treadmill in my apartment after all of this road trip food but I wanted to eat now and worry about my ass later.

“Seems to me if she isn’t typically a bad person then there is more to why she did what she did than her getting tired of the same cock. There’s usually a reason why good folks do bad things.” He was watching me carefully and I felt like his somber words were some kind of warning I was supposed to heed.

I popped a sugary sweet bite of dough into my mouth and chewed while we stared at each other. It tasted like heaven and the jolt of sugar was enough to kick my sluggish system awake.

“I don’t care what her reason is. I care that she hurt someone I care about and I’m pissed that she was only thinking of herself, not how her actions could affect the rest of the people in her life that love both her and Wheeler.” I sounded sharp and slightly petulant but I didn’t care. I couldn’t imagine Kallie saying anything to me that would make the circumstances she had set in motion okay. I didn’t care where her head was at while she was carrying on behind Wheeler’s back, all I cared about was that her thoughts hadn’t been on the man that had given her everything or the family that had claimed him as one of their own.

Church lumbered to his feet and ran a hand over his closely cropped hair. His eyes were serious and intent as he told me, “Her reasons might not matter to you, but they could be everything to her. Sometimes people make choices that hurt other people because they feel like it would hurt the people they care about even more if they didn’t make that choice.”

I cocked my head to the side as the chocolate frosting from my doughnut started to melt all over my fingers. “Are we still talking about my sister, Church?” I wondered if he was trying to explain why he had felt compelled to stay away from home for so long in a roundabout way.

“We’re just talking, Dixie. That’s what friends do.” He looked at me, intensity and things I couldn’t decipher burning bright in his brilliant eyes as he made his way to the door. “Finish your breakfast. I want to see if we can get to at least the Arkansas border today.”

I licked along the side of my thumb and heard him suck in a sharp breath. I grinned at him and nodded. “Thanks for breakfast. Chocolate is my favorite.”

He gave me another look, this one followed by a smirk, and then disappeared out the door with a snort. He didn’t smile but there was definitely a lip twitch involved. I would take what I could get and consider the almost grin a win for the morning.

He was already on the bike with the motor running when I made my way to the parking lot. I had the leathers on so I wouldn’t have to take any unnecessary trips to scary bathrooms and he tilted his chin in approval. He had on mirrored sunglasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes anymore, but something instinctive told me that he more than liked the way the leather covered my legs and framed the part of me that fluttered and went damp as soon as I put a hand on his rock-hard shoulder so I could get the leverage I needed to climb on behind him. By the end of this trip I was going to be nothing more than one giant orgasm waiting to happen. He was going to accidentally brush up against me and I was going to make a fool of myself as all that desire finally burst out unable to be contained. I was bound to look like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, only my public climax was going to be very real because there was no faking that he turned me on and inside out.

I chuckled at the image, which had Church whipping his head around to look at me questioningly. I shook my head and smiled at him. There was no way I was going to pass along the information that all it would take for him to turn me into a sexual time bomb was the touch of his hands. Something told me he would use that intel to his advantage. His eyebrows winged up so that I could see them over the rims of his sunglasses but he turned back around and guided us back onto the highway. We had a long way to go, both in miles and in what it was going to take for Church to actually find his way back home, and there wasn’t any time to waste.

Kansas was a straight shot, and I made it almost all the way through the entire state before we had to stop. This time Church wouldn’t let me out of his sight, so I had to go to the bathroom while he waited outside the door. I wanted to tell him it was overboard, but honestly I felt better knowing I could do my thing without worrying about what was happening beyond the closed door. The truck stop had a diner attached to it, so we stopped for lunch and he ordered a steak that was the size of my head. When I questioned him he said he was used to a high protein diet and that typically he worked out enough that he needed the fuel. I was already burned-out on all the greasy food we’d been eating, so I tried to order a salad. Unfortunately, the only salad they offered was driven towards trucker taste, so it came in a fried tortilla bowl with taco meat, cheese, and sour cream on it. It was really good but I could feel the waistband of my jeans getting tighter with each bite.