Rush - Blue Devils MC Book 2 (Book 1 Included FREE for a short time only!) (15 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Rush

With lunch from
La Casita
in his backpack along with snacks and water, he handed it to Blue who loaded it up onto her back and then snuggled up behind him on the bike. They headed out of town, and up into the mountains.

As they rode, Rush grinned to himself. He couldn’t
wait
to see the look on Blue’s face when she saw their destination. Lain and him had found it years ago and had sworn each other to secrecy on the spot. Rush had never shown it to anyone else.

Until today.

They wound their way up the mountain, Blue’s curves pressed against him as they rode. She felt so fucking good. He’d loved riding since the moment he was able to buy his first Harley - a ’94 Sportster 600 - but he’d always done it alone. Just like remodeling the house, riding with Blue was even better than riding alone.

Everything
was better with Blue.

As they reached an outlook point on the road, Rush pulled over and parked the bike. They swung off, Blue leaving the backpack behind, and walked to the edge, where a solid fence made of local rock kept people from going any further. They stood together, his arms wrapped around her, as they looked over the Copper Lode valley below.

He loved it. He knew that to some people, it was brown and dusty and ugly, but he knew the moods of the Sonoran Desert. So green, it hurt your eyes after a monsoon rain. Dark rain clouds on the horizon, boiling with rain and lightning. Early morning as the sun rose over the desert, promising a new start to the world below.

After a while, Blue turned in his arms and grinned up at him. “Well, handsome, if you’re going to feed me some of this food in the backpack, we should probably get to a place where we can eat it.”

“So practical!” he said, laughing, and then kissed her. Because he could and oh God, it felt so good to kiss her whenever he wanted.

They headed back to the bike, but Rush grabbed the backpack and said, “Let’s hike from here. I have something I want to show you.”

She looked at him, surprised, but said, “Sure! I’ll follow you.”

They crossed the street and began climbing the hill, following a seemingly insignificant dirt path. He could hear Blue’s breathing behind him, and stopped to let her suck on the Camelback tube to keep hydrated. It was a hell of a vertical climb, and it was hot. The last thing he wanted was for her to get sick.

Finally, they rounded a corner and the vista opened up.

“Oh. My. God,” Blue breathed. He grinned at her, happy that she loved it as much as he’d hoped she would.

“I…I had no idea this existed!” she said, shock and excitement clearly stamped all over her face.

It was an oasis, a small piece of paradise, hidden up in the mountains. Green trees and shrubs surrounded the small body of water, and birds were calling out from the tree tops to each other. There was a spring off to the side where water bubbled and spilled out into the lake. After the brown of the desert, it was shocking to see, like they’d been transported to another world without warning.

She grinned up at him. “Oh, thank you, Rush! This is so gorgeous!” She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him. They stood for a minute, content in the shade of the trees, a cool breeze softly caressing them, her head against his chest.

It just felt…perfect. Like it always did with Blue in his arms.

They pulled out the food and then, digging his hand around, Rush pulled out a light fleece blanket that he’d shoved in there before they’d left the house. “I thought we could sit on this while we eat - keep the sand eating to a minimum.”

“There goes my diet,” Blue grumbled playfully and he laughed. Which, if he thought about it, was
all
he seemed to do around her. She made him genuinely happy. It was a state of being he’d forgotten existed, until she came back.

They ate their way through the burritos and chips and salsa, throwing a chip to a particularly inquisitive bird who picked it up and flew away, chattering as it went. It was incredibly liberating to be this relaxed. To have nothing on his to-do list except feed Blue and hike and fuck and to do whatever he wanted to do, really.

He should thank the
Chupas
for the vacation, right before he killed them, of course.

As happy and carefree as he felt, though, he knew that it was time. He had to tell Blue how he felt; lay it all out on the line. Let her shoot him down, or let them truly be together. But he couldn’t continue to live with the thought that she was going to leave any day now and never come back.

He had to try.

She was laying on her back, the sunlight filtering through the trees, her hand trailing lazily in the water. Her eyes were closed and she was humming a happy tune. She was the very embodiment of contentment.

Here goes nothing.

“Hey Blue,” he said and then his fucking voice
cracked
like a teenager and he had to clear his throat and start again and now she was staring at him, puzzled about his behavior. He hadn’t been this nervous since he’d tried to ask Molly Harper out to a dance in 9th grade. As he recalled, she’d told him no, she already had a date.

Rush was rather terrified that talking to Blue would lead to a similar result.

He swallowed, and tried again.

“I need to talk - will you just listen?”

She nodded hesitantly, her gorgeous aquamarine eyes showing her confusion, but she held her tongue. She rolled onto her side and gave him her full attention.

Blue always was a good listener
.

“All through school, the Abernathys were my life. In most ways, Suzi Abernathy is more of a mother to me than my own mom could ever dream to be. Same with John, before he…passed away in that motorcycle accident.”

He remembered that day after high school, out on the road with the Blue Devils. He’d been at the back of the pack and had only barely managed to swerve out of the way and not hit John and Suzi when John’s tire blew. Two of the other members did hit them, and it was awful and Lain was upfront and had kept riding and hadn’t even realized what had happened and Rush had gunned it to the front of the pack to tell him and the look on Lain’s face when he saw his dad…

It was the same look Rush had on his face, he was sure. Because John Abernathy was his father in everything but blood and that day almost killed him too.

“Anyway,” Rush said, clearing his throat again, “at our high school graduation, I couldn’t leave John. Or the Blue Devils. I couldn’t leave my family behind.

“But Blue,” he said, staring into her eyes, unblinking, as serious as he’d ever been in his whole life, and he could only pray that she knew how goddamn much this conversation meant to him, “the last 13 years taught me that I can’t live without you, either. I don’t want to pressure you, but I need you to know that life is not worth living without you.”

He glanced away, gathering up his courage, and then said the words of his heart, even if they killed him to be spoken. “If you want me to, I’ll sell the house and my bike, and I’ll follow you wherever you go. Anywhere in the world, I’ll be there. If you want to climb K2 before breakfast every morning, I’ll carry your pack.

“Just…don’t make me tell Turbo that you’re not here to stay. I think he’d chew the leg off my favorite chair in retribution. I will do anything to make you happy, and if that means leaving Copper Lode and the Blue Devils and Lain and Suzi, I’ll do it.”

It would kill him, but he meant it. Living without Blue…it was unthinkable. He couldn’t go back to an empty house and a dog who whined at the door, always wondering where his Blue went to and an empty bitch seat on his bike and a toilet seat that would stay any damn place he put it.

He sat there and she didn’t talk. She fucking didn’t say a word, and the silence went on and on, and she was staring off into the distance, and he had no idea what she was thinking and it was killing him. Just fucking killing him. He was tempted to lean over and shake her shoulders but he didn’t dare. He let the silence linger as she thought.

“I’ve been running all my life,” she finally said simply, breaking the interminable silence. “Did you know I begged my dad to send me to boarding school? After that awful Muddy Hanny summer,” she quirked the corner of her lips and he smiled back but his stomach was in knots and he wondered if Blue had some sort of fast forward button on her because he wanted to
know,
“I didn’t want to go back to Harris Elementary. I hated Copper Lode. I hated you.” She shook her head slightly, smiling, and said, “My nine-year-old self is very upset with me right now, you know. She’d never believe that I’d ended up dating you.” She grinned at him then, her eyes sparkling in the sunlight, a brilliant color that defied description.

“Anyway, my dad never really knew how to be a dad. When my mom divorced him and moved to wherever the hell she ended up, he had this little girl and I had, you know, hormones, and I think I was just too girly for him. Instead of telling me to buck up and that that the nickname would eventually die off, he sent me to boarding school. He let me run away. Just like my mother had run away. And I think he was
happy
to do it because it was his ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card as a parent. The school could raise me, and he wouldn’t have to.

“But I’ve been running away ever since. Do you know how many schools I’ve taught at in nine years? Seven. I loved Santa Maria’s, and of course my Isabel, but I’d already been there a year. I was starting to feel the itch, the need to go. If the kidnapping hadn’t happened this summer, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have been there by fall anyway.”

Rush watched her carefully, trying to figure out where this was going. He loved hearing her talk, as always, but that fast-forward button would be damn handy about now.

“Seeing your house and what you did with the old Miller place…seeing Turbo and how happy he is after all these years…seeing your relationship with Lain…

“Rush, I didn’t know what I was missing. These are all things I never even let myself
want
. I couldn’t grow up and settle down. Hell, I got it from
both
of my parents - look at my dad. That second marriage that ended halfway through our senior year? He never even tried again. He’s got commitment-phobia so bad, I’m surprised he even tried a second time, and hadn’t just given up after my mom left. And why the hell my mom and dad got married in the first place is beyond me.”

Blue shook her head, bemused, and Rush broke out in a cold sweat. This was
not
going the way he wanted it to. In fact, he’d say that her comments were downright terrifying.

“But, the last 13 years also taught me something: I don’t want to be without you.” Rush let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and reached out to her face, stroking her cheek, and she turned towards him, kissing the palm of his hand, before she looked back at him.

“I can teach in Copper Lode. I’m pretty sure Harris Elementary is still there, and I imagine that a teacher who is completely fluent in Spanish and English would be in high demand. And then, we can travel during the summers - it’s a great way to escape the heat anyway.

“I’m starting to realize that being with you, loving you, doesn’t mean I have to give up my independence. It isn’t claustrophobic - it’s
freeing
. And I never thought I’d feel that way in a million years.

“Rush Blackburn, I love you with all of my heart, and I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to give up Copper Lode, or, even,” the slightest pause, “the Blue Devils.”

Rush moved forward then, to kiss her, and she held up her hand to stop him. “I should tell you that I spent many years hating the Blue Devils. And hating Lain. Now that I’m here again and not, you know, a teenager, I can see what they mean to you. I would never ask you to give them up, just like you’d never ask me to give up teaching, even if the pay is shit and the hours during the school year are asinine.

“But I’ll admit that it’s going to take me a bit to wrap my head around the Blue Devils and what part they’re going to play in your life. I’m going to have to share you with them, and damn, that’s hard. But I couldn’t truly love you and then ask you to be miserable because of me. That isn’t love. That’s selfishness.”

Rush stroked her hair back, watching her freckles on her nose crinkle as she smiled at him and he knew that he’d do anything in the whole wide world for this woman who was made for him. He leaned over and kissed her and she moaned into his open mouth and his dick jumped in response to the sexy sound.
Oh fucking God above, I cannot wait to get back to the house to make love to her. I cannot.

He gently guided her down on her back, trying to keep her body on the blanket and out of the sand, and began kissing his way up her belly, soft and tan and gorgeous. As he nipped his way up her stomach, he looked up at her and grinned. “I don’t think I’ll ever—”

And then he saw it. Coiled. Tongue flicking. Just past Blue’s head. They stared at each other for a moment and he knew that if he told Blue how close a snake was to her head, she’d scream or pass out or become hysterical and none of those reactions were useful so he had to pretend nothing was wrong but he
had
to get her away from it.