Page 75 of Stand

Whatever happened. She could love him from afar, right? That would be better than loving him up close and running the risk of losing him right in front of her face.

She shook a little and breathed in his hair.

“I know you will,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever trusted anyone as much as I trust you.”

“Ditto.”

They stood there for a minute more, exchanging soundless emotions, their bodies touching from head to knees. The cool desert air pimpled Sam’s arms, but she wasn’t letting go until he did. This might be her only chance to love him, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

Cairo twitched on the end of his leash and whined, and the moment had to pass. Sam looked up from Ty’s shoulder and saw a figure walking another dog across the street. Cairo was only doing his job. “Good boy,” she said.

“Thank you,” Ty said. She heard the smile in his voice and smiled back at him. Sighing, she outlined his lips with her spare hand, then kissed them.One more time. She loved his lips, loved their softness. Loved how they yielded to her but were well able to control the kiss when she let him.

She let him.

Who cared if they kissed on a nameless road in a nameless zip code mere hours from their destination? Who cared if Ty pulled out her ponytail and gathered her hair in his hand as though they were alone and he’d be taking off the rest of her clothes as slow or as fast as he liked? Who cared if Sam moaned into his mouth, not holding the sound back this time, and grabbed the muscles of his back as though she were going to push him back against a wall and climb him like a tree?

This may be the last time I get to kiss him.

So she made it count.

“Get a room!”

The shout came from the gas station, whose light was probably helping them put on quite a show. They broke apart and laughed. Sam waved at the heckler and smoothed her hair. Ty straightened his shirt and bent to pet Cairo, who’d waited patiently for their PDA to end.

“Let’s get you to Noah’s,” Sam said. She entangled her free hand in his, and they stayed that way until they got to the lights of the diner.

Back inside, Matt and Alyssa still looked mostly asleep. The detritus of their dinner/breakfast was all over the table.

“We’re at five thousand feet elevation,” Lyss said, looking at her phone with her head in both hands. “In Kansas we were only at two thousand.”

“Impressive,” Sam murmured. “Good thing we’re driving instead of climbing.”

Alyssa wrinkled her nose. She was all done with driving. Yet onward they had to go.Our last meal together, Sam couldn’t help but think.Maybe the last time we get gas. Stupid, pathetic, teenage thoughts. She should have spent the full seven minutes in Heaven kissing Ty. She’d wasted so much time avoiding intimacy with men, when the perfect man had been right in front of her all along.

Eventually, the towns became more numerous, the roads more winding. Ty and Sam continued to alternate shifts, and the children slept. When Sam was driving, she spent her time either looking over at Ty, who was also asleep, andnotlooking over at him. She’d gotten so used to him, to having a teammate by her side whom she knew would always have her best interests at heart.

To be loved by Ty would be intoxicating.

And there was the kissing. She clenched things when she thought about the kissing and what it might have led to. Ty’s mouth was relaxed in sleep, his lips slightly parted. His blond hair seemed to catch specks of light that didn’t exist outside the car. Sam wanted to stroke his head. She wanted to kiss the pants off him. Literally.

She shook herself and focused on the road. In the rearview mirror, she noticed a tiny crack of dark-gray frosting along the quiet, flat landscape. Day was coming. After another few minutes, the crack became a seam, which became a thread, which became a ribbon. And in front of Sam—was that a mountain? An actual honest-to-goodness rock formation that wasn’t a flat field or a small stand of trees?

“Wake up, baby,” she whispered before she could stop herself. And she put her hand on Ty’s knee.

He stretched and opened his eyes. His hand squeezed hers. “Time already?” he said.

“No. Just… look ahead. The mountains. We’re nearly there.”

He squinted. The mountains were still a dark-gray mass against a dark-blue sky, but they were there. “Wow,” he said. Sam felt the breath leave him. “We made it.”

“Of course we did.” But she’d wondered too.

Together they watched the sun light up the mountains from behind them, turning them orange the way it had turned Kansas orange the night before. The mountains weren’t just ahead of them; they were all around them, in a U-shape that felt like a hug, like congratulations for getting the children here at last.

In all that time, Ty didn’t let go of Sam’s hand.

And Sam didn’t want him to.

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