“Not for me, babe. I’m just getting started.”

She’d thrown him off balance almost as much as she’d thrown herself off. “Whatever you think you’re doing,” he said with a glare, “stop it.”

She grabbed her helmet from him. “Maybe you want to stand here all day and talk, but I want to ride.”

As she strapped on the helmet, he muttered something she couldn’t hear, and then they were off. It didn’t take them long to cross the Arkansas border and reach the Memphis outer belt. Until yesterday, Panda had stayed off freeways, but not today. He blew past a sign for Graceland, switched lanes, and merged onto another freeway. Before long, he pulled off at an exit. The triumph she’d felt over her display of bravado vanished when she saw the sign.

MEMPHIS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

She squeezed his ribs and shouted, “Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer.

But she knew, and the scope of his betrayal was so huge she couldn’t take it in.

He pulled up in front of the airport departure area and stopped between two SUVs. “End of the road.”

He said it as if it didn’t matter, as if she should hop off, shake his hand, and breeze away. When she didn’t move, he took over. He grasped her arm, and the next thing she knew, they were both standing next to the bike. “It’s time for you to go home.” He tugged her chinstrap free, pulled off her helmet, and secured it to the bike.

Her lungs had collapsed. This was the way Ted had felt. Blindsided and deceived. “That’s my decision to make,” she said.

Instead of responding, he unfastened her pack and set it on the sidewalk. He reached into the saddlebags, withdrew an envelope, and pressed it into her hands. “Everything you need is in here.”

She stared at him.

“It’s two weeks, Lucy. Two weeks. Do you know what I’m saying? I have another job waiting.”

She couldn’t—wouldn’t—grasp his meaning.

He stood before her. Withdrawn. Indifferent. Maybe a little bored. She was one more woman. One more female body. One more job …

GAS, GRASS, OR ASS. NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE.

And then something shifted. The smallest furrow gathered between those dark eyebrows. His lids dropped, and when he lifted them again, she saw everything the man she knew as Panda had worked so hard to suppress. She saw the intelligence he’d kept so tightly veiled. She saw pain and doubt, remorse maybe. And she saw a soul-deep hunger that had nothing to do with smutty T-shirts and obscene bumper stickers.