It wasn’t only time and geography that had separated us. I had spent four years in a prison of my own. My time with Lee left me feeling worthless. I couldn’t even contemplate having Evan in my life again. Someone so clean and good… How could he want me?
Yet here he was. And here I was the first woman he’d made love to. He waited for this. Wanted this. As he’d pressed and pushed into my body and back into my life, my reflection in his eyes was one I could finally bear to look at. Even admire.
“I can’t move,” he said, his voice muffled.
I laughed, running my hands over the hard muscles in his back. “Don’t. Stay here forever.”
He raised his head to look at me.
I brushed back the hair falling in his face. “What is it?”
“We’re here. This happened. And you’re with me, Jo. More than anything else, you’re here with me.”
“I can’t believe you waited so long,” I said, nuzzling his neck. “For me.”
He moved off of me, carefully pulling out with a small groan. I missed him immediately.
“Of course I waited for you. I was locked up. Who was I going to fuck in prison? Don’t answer that.”
I laughed, warm all over, and snuggled closer to him.
“Even had I been free, it wouldn’t have mattered. I couldn’t think about any other woman. All I cared about was finding you.”
“How did you find me? The dream…How does it work?”
He gazed at the ceiling, thinking. “I can’t remember all of it. Just bits and pieces. The best way to describe it…it’s like déjà vu. When I felt like I’d been on a road before, or had seen a sign for a certain town, I knew I was on the right track.”
I didn’t push him for more. On the road, I’d been unnerved by the doses of unreality and Evan only giving me information on a need-to-know basis. But now I trusted him. I loved him for who he was. I wanted to tell him, but the words stuck in my throat, trapped by fear of what lay ahead.
He kept saying I would be safe and he would be free. Free of what? Some shadow that trailed us, and not the police either. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it, and that night, I didn’t want to think about it. That night was just about us. I’d been scrambling for purchase on the edge of great cliff. Evan had reached down and pulled me up. Now I was in his arms.
Evan turned off the lamp. Wrapped tightly in him, I drifted into a satiated sleep. When I next woke it was some hours later, in the deepest part of the night. Evan was still wrapped around me. My back to his chest, his arms around me, our fingers laced together and our legs entwined. His breath warmed the nape of my neck. The motel room’s AC unit was humming, yet I felt the sweat where our skin touched. I wanted more of it. More sweat, more kisses, more shared breath. I wanted him inside me again. Wanted to take every bit of his male essence until he was spent and I was full.
But Evan came awake before I could move. I felt him raise his head, his body suddenly tense, and tight. Alert.
“What is it?” I asked.
He didn’t reply, but disentangled himself from me and went to the window. From where I lay, it was dark and silent outside, but I saw Evan’s shoulder muscles tense and his hands clench and unclench.
“Evan?”
He turned from the window, picked up his boxers and jeans from the floor and pulled them on. “I have to go.”
My heart clanged dully against my ribs. “What do you mean, you have to go? Go where?” I turned on the lamp and looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. “It’s two in the morning.”
He put on a t-shirt then, sat on the edge of the bed and yanked his boots on. “Listen to me, Jo,” he said. “There’s a bus stop on the corner. You can see it from the window. If I’m not back in three hours, you need to take that bus east. Get off at the truck stop on the edge of town by Route 412.”
“I need to what?” Dread settled into my gut, choking my air.
“The truck stop has a diner. Get a table and wait for me.”
“Wait for you? And where the hell will you be? No, don’t answer. Fuck that, I’m coming with you.” I threw off the covers and looked around for my clothes.
Evan strode to me and took hold of my shoulders. “You have to do as I say, Jo. Promise me.”
“No,” I thrust him away. “No promises until you tell me what’s happening.”
“I think it was the toll road. I think my truck got flagged when I paid the toll coming off the highway.”
“You think or you know? Evan, quit fucking around and—”
He took my face in his hands, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity I’d never seen before. “I’m not fucking around. You stay here until five. If I’m not back by then, you get to that diner and you wait for me there. Promise me.”
A thousand different ways of saying no flooded me, but I only stood mute as he shrugged on his jean jacket, put on a baseball cap and grabbed his keys from the table. I stared as he pulled out his wallet and threw what looked like a couple hundred dollars in cash on the bed.
“Bus fare and anything else.”
“Evan.”