With his eyes on hers, Sebastian reached in the top pocket of the jacket. Through the lining, his hand brushed lightly over her breast, lingering for a heartbeat before he lifted the folded sketch out.

She knew she was breathing too fast. She knew she was feeling more than that brief, meaningless contact warranted. To compensate, she snatched the paper out of his hand and strode toward the store.

As she went inside to verify what he had just told her, Sebastian secured his gas cap and rolled the bike away from the pumps.

It took her less than five minutes. She was pale when she returned, her eyes burning dark in her face. But her hand was steady when she tucked the sketch away again. She didn’t want to think, not yet. Sometimes it was better to act.

“All right,” she told him. “Let’s go.”

*  *  *

She didn’t doze. That could be suicide on a bike. But she did find her mind wandering, with old images passing over new. It was all so familiar, this middle-of-the-night traveling. Never being quite sure where you were going or what you would do when you got there.

Her mother had always been so happy driving down nameless roads with the radio blaring. Mel could remember the comfort of stretching out on the front seat, her head in her mother’s lap, and the simplicity of trusting that somehow they would find a home again.

Heavy with fatigue, her head dropped to Sebastian’s back. She jerked up, forcing her eyes wide.

“Want to stop for a while?” he called to her. “Take a break?”

“No. Keep going.”

Toward dawn he did stop, refueling himself with coffee. Mel opted for a caffeine-laden soft drink and wolfed down a sugar-spiked pastry.

“I feel I owe you a decent meal,” Sebastian commented while they took a five-minute breather somewhere near Devil’s Playground.

“This is my idea of a decent meal.” Content, she licked sugar and frosting off her fingers. “You can keep the pheasant under glass.”

Her eyes were shadowed. He was sorry for that, but he’d acted on instinct—an instinct he’d known was right. When he slipped an arm around her, she stiffened, but only for a moment. Perhaps she recognized that the gesture was one of friendly support and nothing more.

“We’ll be there soon,” he told her. “Another hour.”

She nodded. She had no choice but to trust him now. To trust him, and the feeling inside her. What Mel would have called a gut hunch. “I just want to know it’s worth it. That it’s going to make a difference.”

“We’ll have that answer, too.”