at the side of the road with no regard for where they were, or why they were there. He started towards Bonne but Harry said, “Here they come,” and he had to stay.
Rand had his arm around Rielle’s shoulder and his face was as ruined as hers, but there was also a resignation and peace about them both. They’d faced this horror fresh again and it hadn’t destroyed them.
Watching them, he said to Harry, “You’ll take her back.” It was an instruction, not a question.
“Rie needs you,” Harry said.
“No, she doesn’t.” Jake threw his leg over Bonne’s seat, but halted his hand on the ignition when Rielle broke into a run. She stopped in front of the bike. “I’m coming with you.”
He couldn’t meet her eyes. “No. Go back in the car with Harry.”
“Make me.”
It was so unexpectedly feisty. His words from last night thrown back at him, that it rocked him. He looked up; she was drawn and tear-stained, but standing straight and strong, hands on her hips—the Rielle of the football field, the Rielle of the trapeze: brave, charged and certain. He hated himself, but he could not leave her.
He gave her his hand and she climbed up behind him, hugged close, splayed her hands over his abdomen and chest. She breathed into his ear, “I’ve been frightened of this forever. Thank you for talking me down.”
She pressed her face into his shirt and he thought she might be crying again. He had no idea what to say to her. He picked up her right hand, all healed now, no bruises or tenderness, and held it over his heart, pressing it down like a bandage, and she curled her index finger over his thumb.
Rand joined them with Rielle’s helmet. He had another he’d taken from the car for himself. He had a quiet smile on his face. “I don’t know if I should let you ride with this guy now I’ve seen what he can do on a bike.” He touched Rielle on the shoulder. “He’s a maniac.”
“He’s my maniac,” she said, taking the helmet. Jake jammed his own on so he wouldn’t have to say anything.
With Rand and Harry following, they formed a cavalcade back to the city, hitting school pick up traffic and the early peak hour. The closer they got to the hotel, the more anxious Jake became. The right thing to do was to leave Rielle, give her space; because he no longer trusted himself to be around her and do the right thing.
When they pulled into the hotel’s front drive he was reluctant to shut down the bike. He wanted a quick getaway. He wanted to go home, sit on the back deck and argue with his dad about returning to the family business, con a meal from his mum, throw a ball for Monty. Anything to get some distance from the self-loathing he felt.
Rielle dismounted and shook her hair free of the helmet and went to Rand. But when she realised he hadn’t followed her, she came back and took his hand. “Don’t go. I need you.”
He shut down and dismounted, leaned against the bike. “You should stay with Rand tonight.”
She glanced back at her brother, settling himself in the passenger seat of Harry’s car, and shook her head. “No, he needs his own time. He’s lived with me and this whole nightmare for too long.”
“Rie, I… it’s not right. I don’t trust myself. What happened back there—you didn’t need—”
“What happened is that you saved me, Jake. You brought me back from that dark place and you showed me what I was living for. Please don’t leave me alone tonight.”
38. Survivors
Back in her suite, Rielle left him with a pink sunset for company. Once she’d asked him to stay, she made it impossible for him to leave. But he was unsure what she needed from him, the distraction of a lover or the care of a friend. Jake didn’t think it should be possible to separate the two, but that’s what she’d wanted from him: one not the other, lover not friend, distraction not companion, and look where that had gotten them. He’d been no real help to her when she needed it and even his white knight act was tarnished by his raging lust for her.
This wasn’t purgatory; this was hell.
He took a beer from the bar and chased it with another. He might have had a third but she called him from the big marble bathroom.