It Takes Two (11 page)

He gave her a grim smile. “I know. It does sound stupid. But it’s not. Not really. Because of what’s behind all of that. You like to knit—but it’s actually because you can only take so much stimulation and need something to help you chill out. I don’t know how to sit still because I don’t
want
to sit still.”

“Not even with me?”

“Well, there’s the thing we need to find out. We need to find out if we can do this.”

They did. He was completely, absolutely right. And she needed to tell him her whole story, tell him what the chilling-out anti-stimulation-thing was all about. She intended to help him know her, understand, and then let him make the decision about what was next for them.

But right now she felt the need to…heal him. Or something. Somehow. She didn’t fully understand it, but she wanted to make him feel better. Yes, it had all happened when he was six, and when he was six she was four, but still…it really, really, really sucked that she hadn’t been around then to hug him, or give him cookies, or tell him it would be okay, or
something
.

It was stupid to think that way, but she ached with the inability to help him. So
now
she needed to do something to make him feel good. And that definitely didn’t include telling him about her pain and getting into all the things that would mean.

Not right now. There was time for that later.

“Let’s go.” Shane gave her a quick kiss on the mouth and then turned toward his bike.

She didn’t have a better idea—yet—but she would, so for now, they could drive. Because yeah, the vacation-alone-at-the-cabin thing had to happen too.

Dammit. If only her body would let her reach out and grab the life that Shane had and wanted. Tears pricked her eyes as she watched him swing his leg over the motorcycle and settle onto the seat as he pulled his helmet on. She was so often frustrated with her condition and the fricking limitations it put on her. But falling in love with Shane was by far the most unfair of all the things that had happened.

This was the craziest fucking thing he’d ever done.

He was going on a trip with a woman he had a fifty-fifty chance of breaking up with after about twenty-four hours.

He knew it. She knew it. And yet, here they were, driving north on I-29 anyway.

Well, why not? He liked things unconventional. He was definitely not a fan of predictable and lackluster. If he was going to break up with the only woman he’d ever really loved, why not drive over five hundred miles to do it? And why not take ten hours to get there instead of the seven and a half it should have taken?

In fact, the way Isabelle was going right now, it might take them double the time to get there.

Isabelle’s brake lights lit up just then and she signaled to exit. In Vermillion, South Dakota.

They were never going to get to the cabin.

Vermillion was only two hours from Omaha, yet they’d left three hours ago. They’d already stopped in Sioux City to visit the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. Considering they were going there to potentially break up, Shane realized he shouldn’t be so anxious to get there. He should also probably appreciate that Isabelle seemed to be drawing the trip out for the same reason.

They exited, but just as he expected her to pull into one of the gas stations, she kept going. For several more miles. Finally she turned and pulled into the parking lot of a long brick building.

It was a museum.

At least the Lewis and Clark place had been right off the interstate.

Shane sighed and pulled in to park beside her. She got out of the car as he pulled his helmet off.

“You’ve always wanted to visit the W.H. Over Museum?” he asked dryly.

“I saw this online.”

“You planned all of this? A thousand stops on the way to the Black Hills?” he asked, swinging his leg over the bike.

She smiled and nodded. “Yeah.”

He paused. “You did?”

“Well, yeah. That’s what road trips are all about, right? Seeing things along the way.”

“I thought this trip was about going to the cabin to see if we can spend the rest of our lives together.”

Her smile died. She nodded. “Yeah. It’s that too.”

He stepped close and took her hand. “I’m anxious about it too. But dragging it out like this won’t make it any easier, will it?”

She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped and pressed her lips together. Finally she took a breath and said, “I planned to stop along the way because it’s hard to sit and drive that long. I want to break the trip up. And,” she added, narrowing her eyes slightly. “I thought I was going to be doing the drive alone. You weren’t invited, remember?”

“Now knowing that you’re going to stop every hour along the way, I’ll never let you do a drive alone again. You don’t know who you’re going to meet out here alone. You need to be more careful. I need to know you’re safe and—”

She cut his lecture off with a kiss.

When she pulled back, she smiled up at him. “Let’s go in and see Hero the elephant.”

Shane sighed and let her take his hand and pull him along the sidewalk leading into the museum.

It was a typical museum in every way. Glass displays, small and large, including butterflies and a stuffed bison, a one-room schoolhouse, clothes and tools from long ago, stuffed native animals, displays of local plants. And then they arrived at the display for Hero the elephant.

It was a huge elephant skull mounted above a collection of bones.

Holding hands with Isabelle, Shane found himself drawn in to the story of the circus elephant and his demise. When he finished reading he looked at Isabelle. She had tears in her eyes.

“You’re
crying
?”

“Well, it’s sad,” she exclaimed. “He was a poor, defenseless animal that they shot. Repeatedly.”

“He trampled two horses to death and tried to kill his trainer.”

“His trainer who was being mean to him.” She sniffed and swung her big-ass purse from one shoulder to the other.

Shane reacted on instinct, grabbing the strap just in time to keep her from knocking over a display of rocks. “Watch it, girl.”

She sniffed again, unconcerned with the rocks.

Moving her purse where she couldn’t do any damage, he said, “Hey, he was a hell of a fighter. They shot him repeatedly and chased him for twelve hours before he went down.”

Isabelle swatted his arm. “If they’d treated him well, he wouldn’t have gotten mean. And then they killed him because he didn’t like being
flogged
.”

“He weighed five tons. He would have taken them all out.”

“Whatever.” She wiped at one of her eyes and turned away from the exhibit. “Let’s go.”

Shane blocked her purse from knocking over a box of fossilized animal teeth and followed, glancing back at Hero as they left the room.

Okay, so out-of-the-way pit stops weren’t all bad. That was kind of interesting.

Back at the curb he asked, “Now where?”

She lifted a shoulder. “You’ll see. Or feel free to keep driving when I exit. I didn’t realize you were so cold hearted.”

He chuckled and grabbed her. Even as she stiffened and tried to push away, he hugged her against his chest. “Okay, I’m sorry. It is sad that they didn’t treat Hero better. I feel bad for those two ponies that got in the way of his temper tantrum too.”

She relaxed a little, but didn’t hug him back. “Yeah, me too.”

He kissed the top of her head and let her go. “And remind me to never take you to the circus.”

They were finally back on the interstate, headed for Sioux Falls. Shane breathed a sigh of relief when they made it through Sioux Falls without a stop and were finally on I-90. His relief lasted another hour. When they reached Mitchell, South Dakota.

The home of the Corn Palace.

He wasn’t even the slightest bit surprised when she signaled to turn into Mitchell and a few minutes later parked in front of the unique tourist attraction.

“I should have known,” he said as she joined him beside his bike.

“Oh, come on. You can’t see something like this just anywhere.”

He looked at the gaudy building and had to agree with that statement. He also had to be grateful for that. “A building covered in corn? Yeah, that’s true.”

“They use corn and other grains to make the murals,” she said, starting across the street. “And they change the murals every year according to a theme and they use local artists. They use different colors of corn and all of it is grown by a local farmer.” She looked back at him. “You have to admit that’s a little cool.”

It was still a building covered in corn. He almost dreaded seeing what was inside.

The building was huge. Could they actually fill it with corn-related displays? And if they could, did he really want to see what those displays consisted of?

“This is a lot of time and space to spend on corn,” he commented as Isabelle again took his hand and they stepped through the doors.

She laughed lightly. “This is a multi-purpose building for the city. They play basketball here, have shows and festivals. It’s not floor-to-ceiling corn, don’t worry.”

Well, that was something.

They wandered through the building to the inner arena area where the walls were, again, covered in artwork made of corn. There was a huge stage, stadium seating and on the floor of the arena was a collection of booths that sold everything from handmade jewelry to snacks.

“They hold the local high school’s graduation here,” Isabelle told him, reading from a brochure she’d picked up as they came in.

“This is…unique,” Shane agreed, checking out the gigantic murals on the walls around them.

She giggled. “It is.” She started weaving through the racks and displays of crafts and goodies, stopping here and there to study something that caught her eye.

Twice, Shane caught her purse from knocking over a display until finally, he was too slow.

A stand of decorative corncobs tumbled to the floor as her purse smacked it directly. She swung around at the sound and knocked over a small rack of postcards. She started to turn again, when Shane grabbed her.

“You can dance in four-inch heels but you can’t walk through a souvenir shop without creating a disaster?” he teased.

Her cheeks were bright red. “I don’t usually carry this huge thing.”

They both knelt to the floor to begin picking things up as a sales person hurried over and several other tourists turned to look. Her purse kept swinging and banging into the counter next to her and her leg, until she finally sighed, slid it off her shoulder and tossed it to the side.

“Here, let me help.” A man in typical tourist attire knelt beside her and began gathering the postcards that had fallen and slid in all directions.

Isabelle gave him a smile. “Thanks.”

“Is anything broken?” Shane asked the woman who was carefully inspecting the corncobs.

“A few,” she said, giving Isabelle an irritated look.

“We’ll pay for anything damaged,” Shane said calmly.

“It was an accident, I’m very sorry,” Isabelle said quickly, handing a corncob to the woman.

“You should watch where you’re going,” she snapped.

“Yes, I should,” Isabelle agreed.

The lady was right, but that didn’t stop Shane from giving her a frown. She didn’t have to be bitchy about it. They were corncobs. There had to be hundreds, even thousands, where these came from.

“The postcards are all intact,” the man next to Isabelle said. He smiled at the sales woman as he handed her the neat stack. “Not a broken one in the bunch.”

The woman didn’t say anything, but she took the postcards from him with another frown.

“I’m so embarrassed,” Isabelle said, getting to her feet.

“It could have happened to anyone. It’s pretty tight quarters through here,” the man said, bending to pick up her purse and hand it back to her. Clearly surprised by how heavy it was, he grinned. “Of course, I think you’re supposed to have a license to carry a weapon like this.”

Isabelle reached out to take it with a smile. “Well, I’d hate to be caught without…practically everything I own.”

He laughed as he let go of the strap. But Isabelle didn’t quite have a grip yet and the heavy bag hit the floor, contents scattering.

“Good lord,” Isabelle sighed, again kneeling to gather her items.

Shane got down next to her, but the first thing he reached for made him pause. As did the second and third thing.

They were medicine bottles. Pills.

He looked at the label. Yes, they were prescribed medications. Prescribed to Isabelle.

He didn’t know what any of them were, but he hadn’t been aware she was on anything at all.

Just more proof that they hadn’t known each other that long and not that well in that time, in spite of how intimate they had been.

Knitting and medication. What else did he not know about her?

How sick was she? Was it allergy medicine or something more serious?