When I'm With You

Kerry walked to the car. Avery got out.

“Hey, girl.” She opened her back door, pulled out her suitcase and came around to the sidewalk, where Kerry was standing. They hugged.

“You good?” Kerry asked, the concern etched between her brows.

“Yeah,” she said on a breath. “Thanks for letting me stay here.”

“Girl, please. Come on in.” She draped her arm over Avery’s shoulders and they walked inside.

“Can I get you anything?” Kerry asked once they were settled inside.

“No. Thanks. Just want to sit here for a minute.”

Kerry plopped down in the side chair opposite Avery, just as her cellphone rang. Avery took the phone from her back pocket. “It’s Rafe,” she mouthed to Kerry, who eased out of her chair and walked away.

Avery dragged in a breath and pressed the talk icon. “Hey.”

“Avery, what’s going on? I got a call from Alice. She said you packed your bag and went to Kerry’s.”

“I got here a little while ago.”

“Why!”

“I went for a run this morning. When I was on my way back to the house, I was stopped by a reporter who wanted to know had I moved in. He wanted me to comment on our engagement.” She heard his muffled expletives. “I can’t be a target, Rafe. Especially now when I’m getting ready to go back to work.”

“I know,” he ground out. “I get it. Look, I’ll take care of it.”

“I really don’t see what you can do. This is the media. You know better than anyone they can be relentless, and if one of them is following me, there will be others.”

“Every media storm has its moment. This is going to disappear the minute something more interesting happens.” He paused. “Darlin’... I’m sorry. I don’t want any of this for you.”

“I know that. It’s not your fault. But I have to do this for now. I need you to understand that.”

“I don’t like it, but I get it. My only concern is you.”

She sighed softly. “How is everything back home?”

“So far...okay. I’ll see the family tomorrow. You’ll see the doctor on Monday, right?”

“Yes. I don’t have a choice if I want to go back to work.” She would do whatever she needed to do to get cleared. Even if it meant lying about what she was still going through.

“And the headaches?”

Avery closed her eyes and as if conjuring a spell the lie slipped over her lips. “I’m fine.”

“You would tell me, right?”

She hesitated a beat. “Of course.”

Rafe blew out a breath. “I’ll be back in about a week. Sooner if I can get everything tied up here. I need to fly up to New York, get with Quinten.”

“Can’t wait.”

“We’re gonna get through this, darlin’—walk down that aisle and into forever. Me and you.”

Her heart always shook loose from its anchor when he talked like that...about them, forever. She smiled. “’Kay.”

“Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Absolutely.”

“I love you, Avery. No matter what.”

“Love you, too. Bye.” She disconnected the phone and wondered what he meant by “no matter what” again?

* * *

He had to get away from his thoughts at least for a little while. He went down to the garage and fired up his Harley. Not long after, he was racing along the blacktop with the thick Louisiana air whizzing around him.

The early Saturday-evening traffic was relatively light, allowing him to hopscotch across the three lanes at will. Beyond the ribbons of white and yellow lines, rooftops and spires, the sun took its final bow, stretching its fingers of orange and gold across the horizon in a last-ditch effort to cling to its illuminating power. Sunset always had a calming effect on him. As a kid, whenever he’d gotten into trouble at school or was feeling misunderstood, his mother, Louisa, would take him out on the back porch and they would watch the sun set over the lake that ran behind their home. His mother would remind him that the end of the day was the time to put all the happenings of the day to rest. It was the time to think about tomorrow and how to do things better or different. Funny he should think about that now.

Rafe bore down on the accelerator the moment there was an opening. He flipped down his tinted visor against the glare, leaned into the bike until they were one unit of flesh, bone and metal. Together they rode into the wind that pushed against him, tried to hold him back. This was what he did, who he was, even as the counsel of his mother still flowed through his veins. He pushed through the obstacles that tried to hold him back, whether it was his controlling father, who wanted to mold him into his image, a relentless media that chronicled his life and made up the rest, or the laundry list of wannabe matchmakers and conniving women that wanted nothing more than to claim the Lawson name. It was true that a bunch of what was in his way was a result of his own creation. He laughingly told his siblings that he had a “rebel gene” that compelled him to buck the status quo at every turn.

But in a few months he would be a husband, and if he wanted his marriage to last, he was going to have to permanently shake off the tentacles of his past and find a way to quiet, if not silence, the rebel in his soul.

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