Right after they crossed into Arkansas, they had to pull beneath an underpass to wait out a rain shower. She asked him where they were going, not expecting him to answer. But he did, at least partially. “We should be close to Memphis by nightfall.”

His bike had Texas license plates, he vacationed on the Louisiana border, they were headed for Tennessee, and he had a resident ferry pass to an island somewhere in Michigan. Were these the practices of an itinerate construction worker or simply the lifestyle of a wanderer? She wished she could be as mysterious, but it was hard to have secrets when your life had been laid out for public examination while you were still a teenager.

Their nighttime lodging was a backwater Arkansas motel near the Tennessee border. She took in the room’s painted cinder-block walls and ugly puce bedspreads. “I’m sure there’s a Hyatt someplace nearby.”

He dropped his pack on the bed closest to the door. “I like it. It has character.”

“Characters. We’ll be lucky if those drug dealers lurking outside don’t break in and murder us in our sleep.”

“Exactly why you can’t have your own room.”

“Why I can’t have my own room is because you like being difficult.”

“True.” He cocked his head and gave her his calculated biker’s sneer. “Plus, this way, I might see you naked.”

“Good luck with that.” She grabbed the pajama shorts and T-shirt she’d bought when they were at Caddo and headed for the bathroom. Once she’d sealed herself in, she took a deep breath. She was flustered enough from spending the day plastered against his back with the vibrations from that big bike stirring her up. She didn’t need him baiting her.

The flimsy shower stall was barely larger than a phone booth, and every time she moved, she banged her elbow into the plastic panels. She tried to imagine Panda attempting to wedge his body into such an uncomfortably small space.

His naked body.

She dropped her hands from the breasts she’d been soaping for too long. She was female. She couldn’t help the way Panda stirred her baser instincts. There was something primal about him. He was earthy and carnal, all brawn and muscle. Made for sex. It would be rough and raunchy, so different from sex with Ted, who’d been the gold standard of male erotic perfection—polished, inexhaustible, selfless.