Chance Encounter(29)

Not that she was trying to save him, of course. Or anyone. But she couldn’t stop the thought. Please, don’t be reckless with Brian.

Chance looked at her, and as if he’d heard her thoughts, he went still. There’d been a heat in his eyes every single time he’d looked at her, from the very first day, from that very first moment she’d stepped off the plane. That heat had always been there, and it’d only gotten stronger as the days had passed.

Yet now, right this minute, it…died.

“Maybe we can take another ride. Off trail this time,” Brian said into the charged silence.

“You’re not ready.” Chance was still looking at Ally with a disturbing lack of…anything.

It makes no difference to me… His words echoed in her head, but she pushed away the hurt because he’d never mislead her.

She’d mislead herself.

“I am ready,” Brian insisted. “That last ride we took, we raced down. You showed me how to get the most speed out of it, remember?”

“I also showed you how to do it without killing yourself,” Chance said. “Do you remember that part?”

“Yes. But—”

“No buts. Takes practice to be better than good.”

“You said I was.”

“Compared to any other fourteen-year-old, you are. You know that. Be different. Get better than good. And get to school. Only idiots ditch.”

“Don’t need school to be a pro boarder. Or a biker. Don’t need school for any of that.”

“Wrong,” Chance said firmly, looking ticked. “Trust me on this one, you gotta finish high school to become a professional anything.”

“Who says?”

“I say.”

Brian shrugged and amazingly enough, headed toward the parking lot instead of back on the trail.

Chance shot Ally one last undecipherable look before he walked away.

“You’re not going to your office?” she asked his back.

He shrugged, mirroring Brian’s attitude, and kept walking.

With no idea why, she followed him, though she had to run to keep up with his long-legged stride. “What’s your problem?”

“What makes you think I have one?”

“Because you won’t even look at me.”

He stopped so short she nearly plowed into the back of him. Her hands came up automatically, sliding over the sleek, taut muscles of his back. She snatched them back.

“I’m looking at you now,” he said, turning to face her.

He was…hurt, she realized with shock, when she was the one who should be hurt. “But why are you looking at me like that?”

“Drop it.”

In her not-too-distant past she might have meekly let it go, but she was no longer a mouse. She was big, bad, strong Ally who did as she pleased, when she pleased. “Tell me.”

Temper flashed in his eyes. “I saw you, Ally. I heard your thoughts as if you’d screamed them. You actually thought I would let Brian do whatever the hell he wanted. Ride recklessly, ditch school, whatever. You seem to have this preconceived notion of me and how I live my life, and I don’t like it.”

“At least you have to admit, you live up to it.”

He stepped close. “There you go again, assuming you know me.”

Refusing to back up, Ally kept her eyes on his. “Then help me know you, Chance.”

Lifting his hands, he shoved his fingers through his hair. The muscles in his arms were taut and strained. “This lifestyle is not for everyone. It’s…dangerous.”

“Are you trying to scare me off? Is that your new tactic to discourage me?” She laughed. “I’m not very frightened.”

“You should be,” he growled. “This kind of life can cost you big.”

There was something more than temper in his gaze now, but even as she watched him back away from her, all emotion—and pain?—vanished behind hooded, watchful eyes. Her stomach knotted, because this man, this brooding, edgy, dangerous man, drew her as no other ever had, and despite everything, she wanted to know him. “How can it cost, Chance? What has it cost you?”

“A friend.” He paused and his voice lowered a fraction. “A close friend.”

“What happened?”

“She underestimated the elements and it cost her everything. Her life,” he said flatly.

She. Ally’s stomach knotted again.

“I know you think I’m wild and out of control, but I have more control than you’ll ever know. If I didn’t, I’d have had you by now—and circumstances be damned.”

She actually had to lick her lips and clear her throat to talk. “Circumstances?”

“Yeah.” His eyes went hard. “You’re leaving, remember?” Then he turned and walked away before she could tell him she wasn’t going anywhere.

Not yet.



CHANCE HAD KNOWN she’d leave eventually. All along, it’d been what he’d wanted.

So why did he feel so empty?

“What’s your problem?” Jo asked, when he’d been sitting at his desk, brooding, staring out the window for thirty minutes.

“Nothing. Where’s Ally?”

“Ah.” She let out a secret smile.