They barreled over a wooden bridge and past a decrepit barn with a Lone Star flag painted on its side. Signs for cave tours and dude ranches flashed by. The miles slipped away. Twenty? More? She didn’t know.

As they reached the outskirts of a one-stoplight town, he turned toward a shabby convenience store and parked in the shadows at the side of the building. He jerked his head at her, indicating she was to get off. She tangled her legs in her robe and nearly fell.

“You hungry?”

Even the thought of food made her nauseated. She eased her stiff legs and shook her head. He shrugged and headed for the door.

Through the helmet’s dusty visor, she saw that he was taller than she’d thought, about six feet, longer in the leg than the trunk. With his wild blue-black hair, olive complexion, and rolling gait, he couldn’t have been more unlike the congressmen, senators, and captains of industry who populated her life. She could see part of the store’s interior through the window. He walked toward the cooler at the back. The female clerk stopped what she was doing to watch him. He disappeared for a few minutes, then reappeared to set a six-pack of beer on the counter. The clerk tossed her hair, openly flirting with him. He placed a few more items by the register.

Lucy’s shoes were rubbing a blister on her feet. As she shifted her weight, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. The big blue helmet swallowed her head, hiding the small features that always made her appear younger than her age. The robe hid the fact that prewedding stress had left her normally slender figure a little too thin. She was thirty-one years old, five feet four inches, but she felt tiny; stupid; a selfish, irresponsible waif.

Even though no one was around to see, she didn’t take off the helmet but lifted it slightly, trying to ease the pressure on the hairpins digging into her scalp. Normally she wore her hair almost to her shoulders, straight and tidy, generally held back with one of those narrow headbands Meg detested.

“They make you look like a fifty-year-old Greenwich socialite,” Meg had declared. “And unless you’re wearing jeans, ditch those stupid pearls. Ditto your whole stupid-ass preppy wardrobe.” Then she’d softened. “You’re not Nealy, Luce. She doesn’t expect you to be.”

Meg didn’t understand. She’d grown up in L.A. with the same parents who’d given birth to her. She could wear all the outrageous clothes she wanted, dangle exotic jewelry around her neck, even have a dragon tattooed on her hip, but not Lucy.