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  As the noon sun sprayed through the windshield, she shoved the images away, straightening in her seat and fumbling with her CD cases until she chose a music mix.

  Still, the fantasy remained alive, as if it’d finally been unleashed. She turned on the stereo so her Mellow Mix could sing through her and take her over.

  Ben Harper, soulful and soft. Perfect.

  But when Carmen opened the door and got into the passenger seat, the relaxing flow—the rhythm of repeated verses and chained notes—was broken.

  “We’re totally going to that motel tonight,” Carmen said, a canary-eating grin on her face as she lowered the music’s volume.

  That motel—the one where the cowboy said he’d be staying, as well.

  Lucy’s carefully constructed day fractured ever so slightly, but then she remembered the lure of those MGM reservations. “We can’t cancel in Vegas now. Not unless we want to pay for that room whether we’re there or not. That might happen, you know.”

  “I’ll fork over the cash, Luce. We don’t have to be structured. It’s vacation.”

  “I’m not thinking about the money so much as…” As what? Lucy put on her “mature face” and turned to Carmen. “You’d rather party with kids than relax in Vegas. Vegas, where we can go wine tasting at the Rio or see a Cirque du Soleil show.”

  “Pretty please?” Carmen playfully batted her eyelashes and smiled. “We live five hours by car from the place, and it’s not going anywhere. But, I daresay, Eddie won’t be waiting quite as long.”

  “Eddie. Yikes, Carm. Don’t we have any thirtysomethings to hang out with instead? Are we so desperate to recapture our youth?”

  Carmen’s brows furrowed, and Lucy knew she’d pushed a well-buried button. Her friend often talked about how having a serious boyfriend so young had caused her to “miss out.” Besides, if her family ever found out that she was gallivanting around with someone as young as Eddie, most of them would freak. A younger guy would be seen as a boy toy, and they were all ready for Carmen to finally tie the knot with the gold-stamped Malcolm.

  But then the rebel got a hold of Carmen, as it always did. “Eddie’s twenty-three. A graduate student in political science at UCSD. Age is just a number anyway.”

  “You keep telling yourself that,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “Once we’re checked into our MGM room, your hormones will have taken it down a notch and you’ll be glad we escaped a bummer night.”

  Lucy made to start the car, but Carmen stopped her by placing a hand on the steering wheel. “Okay, yes, I’m amping out a little because he’s so young, but what’s one night?”

  An eyebrow cock from Lucy was sufficient answer to that. Looked like the breakup had changed all Carmen’s big talk to action.

  Her friend continued. “He seems like a safe kind of guy—and you must admit that I have good people radar—and it’s not like anyone is ever going to know anyway. That’s the beauty of the road…of strangers. We can drive away tomorrow morning and it won’t matter.”

  A stranger…

  A shock zinged through Lucy as she thought of the cowboy leaning against the wall, so near that she could smell the hint of grass on a breeze, of grit and smoke. Her breathing came harder as she fought the naughty craving of his fantasy. Of the improbable.

  A tremble overtook her hands, but she overcame it by ignoring it. As usual.

  Point A to point B…

  There. Trembles…gone.

  “Here’s the thing,” Carmen said, keeping her grip on the steering wheel, “and don’t think any less of me for this. But consider the appeal. A stranger gets what he first sees, and there’s very little judgment involved beyond an initial attraction. One night of fun will do wonders for the spirit, know what I mean? You could be as bad as you want to be and, as long as we’re careful, there’d be no consequences unless we wanted to deal with them.” Carmen wiggled her eyebrows. “How’s that for some breakup-blues erasure?”

  A pulse strummed in Lucy’s neck. Pale eyes, devouring her from across the diner. Muscles beneath tanned skin and a worn T-shirt. A carnal appetite that gnawed at the lining of her belly.

  She turned the ignition key, and Carmen’s hand fell away from the steering wheel.

  “First,” Lucy said, “I could never think anything but good about you. Ever since college, we’ve spilled our guts to each other, no matter how goofy or embarrassing our secrets were.”

  “So we’re off to the Timberline Inn?”

  “Carm, I don’t—”

  A trilling ring from Carmen’s canvas tote interrupted Lucy. When her friend checked the phone’s screen, she cut off the call, then shut the device altogether, stuffing it back into her bag.

  “Let me guess who that was,” Lucy said over the sound of the idling engine.

  “Malcolm, himself.” Carmen ran a hand through her crazy hair. “It’s bad enough that he ignores the fact that I broke up with him three weeks ago, but he showed up for dinner last night with the family.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to put a damper on the festivities. I wanted to leave him behind.”

  “Is it like he’s stalking you?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not stalking when Mama and my sisters all invite him over because they still think he’s the one. They don’t seem to understand that I broke up with him, and they’re trying to persuade me to take him back.”

  “Then you should tell them about his extracurricular activities.”

  “I’m not ready.”

  Silence fell, and Lucy knew that Carmen had ended the discussion for now. Hitting the road would allow her friend to do more than just figure out a way to tell the brood that their beloved Malcolm was trash.

  It would open a release valve for all the frustration her ex had put her through.

  Lucy eased down the top on the car, then put the engine into gear so she could back out of the parking space. Afterward, when they’d reached the road, she turned the music off altogether, wanting to hear the tune of travel instead.

  Wind blowing, tires humming over asphalt.

  They passed a sign informing them that Calico Ghost Town, the first official noneating stop on the itinerary, was four miles away. Lucy headed toward the destination, realizing that she wasn’t very excited about getting there, after all.

  Something was dancing in the back of her mind, finally coming out of the dark: the cowboy, staying at the Timberline tonight.

  Her cells crashed into each other, spinning alive.

  Rationalization—or maybe it was Lucy’s way of emerging—kicked in. Why was she forcing a friend who was also in need of some cheering up to go to a designated spot on an itinerary? Just because Lucy had planned it that way?

  All the doubts of the day caught up with her as she came to the crossroads of Interstate 15 and the side road leading to their first scheduled stop.

  Cowboys. Deviations.

  An unplanned turn.

  She’d done pretty well with taking a risk back at the diner with that cowboy, and she was going to be thirty, damn it.

  So what the hell?

  With a rush of screw-it rebellion, Lucy took the entrance to the road that would lead them to I-40.

  And the Timberline Inn.

  CARMEN’S WHOOP of approval had carried on the hair-blowing wind as the car picked up speed on the open road. She smiled, sticking her hand out of the window to surf the breezy waves that sped by.

  But the best part? Lucy was smiling, too, as if she’d accomplished a big feat by shucking the itinerary.

  That’s my girl, Carmen thought. The breakup brigade was going to have some fly-by-the-pants fun, not that Carmen intended to get them into any trouble at this Timberline detour though. No way. Throughout college and beyond, she’d always kept an eye on Luce, just as her friend had watched out for her in return. Best friends till the end.

  After flying through a stretch of desert filled with sienna-carved mountains and brown Historic
Route 66 markers that indicated turnoffs for remnants of the Mother Road, they came to the junction of the 15 and 40.

  “I’m guessing,” Carmen yelled over the wind as they took the unexpected fork, “that we’ll do Vegas another time? And we’ll catch what we already missed of Route 66 on the way back?”

  Lucy shrugged, suddenly all airy. Oh, Carmen liked this new attitude. Vacation was already taking them in exciting directions.

  “We’ll do what we can,” her buddy yelled back, her loose, dark hair fluttering as they sped toward an adventure Carmen was practically hyperventilating about starting.

  She leaned her head back on the rest, realizing that she was grinning like a tonta. A fool, for a guy named Eddie Kilpatrick, with young Leo DiCaprio–type hair and green eyes that held all sorts of enticing promises. Carmen didn’t normally go for guys out of her age range. She hadn’t ever even had a one-night stand, seeing as she’d been devoted to Malcolm for years…until she’d discovered that he’d been playing her so quietly and expertly.

  What would it be like to have a fling?

  Awesome, that was her answer, and she couldn’t wait to see if it worked out.

  Still…the good girl in her demanded to be heard. How would Mama and her sisters react if they ever found out? Not that they would, because Lucy always kept their secrets, but…

  What were they going to do when Carmen told them about Malcolm’s betrayal? Dad, with his honed father-suspicion, had accepted her old boyfriend only because Carmen had brought him home so long ago, and her judgment was good enough recommendation for him to play along until the breakup.

  But Mama? Ay, Mama already had the wedding cake picked out and had been slyly leaving bridal magazines at Carmen’s dinner-table spot for a while now.

  Ah, forget it. Eddie was waiting, and Malcolm with his desperate kissing up to the Ferris women could go to…well, wherever bad boyfriends like him went.

  It wasn’t hard to find the Timberline Inn, which was just off the 40, next to a sparse selection of generic motels. The place had a reaching Yosemite air about it, with faux-log walls and spindly trees taking over for pines near the mostly empty parking lot.

  Inside their room, the TV was small, yet serviceable, and the furnishings were clean, if not comfortably worn. Luckily, the quilted patterns of the bedspreads covered a lot of traffic, as Carmen found loose threads among the gingham and paisley squares.

  “Five star,” Lucy said, hands on her slim hips as she surveyed the bed.

  “You wanted the ruggedness of Route 66, and you got it. And we’re not even officially on that stretch yet.”

  Lucy heaved her suitcase onto the mattress. “You’re right. Cheap hotels and even cheaper comfort food. An adventure.”

  “To our grand adventure.”

  Carmen pretended to toast Lucy, who responded with a modest glee that warmed the heart. Two pals blazing trails together. Who knew what tonight might have in store for each of them?

  “What do you say we go to the pool,” Carmen said, digging through her luggage for her bikini, “then grab a bite at the coffee shop. After, we’ll get ready for the festivities.”

  Lucy nodded, then paused, a giddy grin on her lips. “Carm?”

  “Yeah?”

  The grin grew. “We’re on vacation.”

  Carmen knew exactly what her friend meant. Freedom away from their jobs, their real lives. Liberty from the expectation that defined them.

  Yes!

  But first, Lucy called the MGM to cancel the room and then phoned her older brother, Jonathan, mentioning where they were and what they intended to do tonight. Jonathan, whom Lucy treated like one of her best friends, laughed and told them to watch themselves. And they would.

  Then they dorked around the well-kempt pool, soaking in the spring sun and reading books—a Queen Elizabeth I biography for Carmen and a werewolf novel for Lucy—because the water hadn’t been sufficiently heated. Then, after downing salads in the dark-paneled coffee shop, they showered and got ready for their evening.

  At one point, Lucy asked what they would do if Eddie and friends ended up ditching them, but Carmen knew he would be calling her cell phone once he checked in. He’d promised, and she recognized the look in a man’s gaze when he meant it.

  Just as she’d recognized Malcolm’s lies when he’d started to avoid eye contact.

  Maybe that’s what had drawn her to Eddie, as unsuitable as he was for her: his openness, his energy and charm. And was he ever charming. Just talking to him had warmed Carmen up inside. Since things had gone downhill with Malcolm—even before she’d caught him sharing his attentions with other women—she’d missed feeling such an instant attraction, such pure awareness of a male.

  But at 7:00 p.m., when her phone hadn’t rung yet, she started to get worried…until Lucy pointed out that Carmen had shut off the device earlier.

  D-oh. Upon turning the phone on, there it was. A message from Eddie.

  “Hope you came,” he said, and she couldn’t help dwelling on the “came” part as he mentioned his room number and a good time to stop by.

  If her bite was as real as her bark, she just might come tonight. She just might celebrate being away from all the pressures Malcolm and her family had saddled her with lately.

  Adrenaline shot through her, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she was giddy or even a little fearful of straying from her old comfort zone…

  Carmen fixed a looped earring to her lobe and wandered to where Lucy was brushing on mascara by the mirror. “T-minus five minutes and counting.”

  She stopped in her tracks at the sight of her friend, who was wearing a wispy beige sheath decorated with maroon flowers and lace. The hues brought out Lucy’s fresh coloring to a startling degree.

  Generally, Lucy had no idea how gorgeous she was. She never had and, in effect, she tended to push her boyfriends into speeding up their relationship, as if she were racing to an engagement before the guy found out he didn’t want to be with her. That had no doubt come from the snowball effect of Lucy’s first high-school breakup, then the next, each escalating her doubts about being attractive or valuable.

  Lucy turned to inspect Carmen, who was decked out in her own party ensemble: go-go boots coupled with a short white skirt and halter. She’d fluffed out her short red hair, too, so it came off a bit witchy and cool.

  “The fabled hot-stuff boots,” Lucy said. “Poor Eddie doesn’t have a chance.”

  “Just what I’m hoping.”

  Carmen linked arms with her pal, and they left the room, heading for number 176.

  The pounding bass from an old AC/DC song led them to an empty section of the motel. Not as if it was all that busy anyway, but it was good to see from the echoing parking lot that they wouldn’t be bugging people with noise.

  The door was open, and they wandered in to find two members of Eddie’s group dancing on a bed to a boom box, beer bottles held aloft. One was a ginger-headed boy candidate for the Nickelodeon Channel and the other was the curly-headed blond girl who’d squealed “par-tay!” at the diner earlier.

  The rest of the group sat at a table, bouncing quarters off its surface.

  Carmen’s heart sank. Where was…?

  A Lindsay Lohan look-alike who was playing Quarters waved to them, causing everyone else to notice that they’d entered.

  “Hey! Eddie’s getting some ice!” she said.

  As if summoned, a voice smoothed over Carmen’s back, just like fingers trailing up her skin.

  “Welcome to our humble establishment,” Eddie said.

  Buzzing, Carmen lost track of Lucy’s reaction, although she knew that her friend must’ve turned around to see him at the same time.

  All she truly realized was that something had gone tight inside her, low and hot, beating and wet with a desire she recognized as the hope she’d felt back when she believed in everlasting, exciting love.

  Just one night with Eddie and everything he makes me remember about being younger and less
brokenhearted, she thought. And no one will ever know.

  ONCE EDDIE HAD COME on the scene to enchant Carmen, Lucy knew it was time to make some new friends.

  It wasn’t long before she found herself sitting at the table with the four other partiers while Carmen and Eddie created their own private, invisible space bubble.

  They stood near the vanity area right now, Eddie towering over Carmen as they laughed with each other, touched each other on the arm, on the shoulder. And when Carmen reacted to what must’ve been a particularly funny comment, she leaned back her head and placed a hand on his chest.

  The master, Lucy thought, wondering if she could ever be just as adept at flirting.

  Images of the cowboy flooded her, washing through her body until she stirred in her seat with achy discomfort.

  “Let’s do this, Lucky!” one of the boys at her table yelled, handing her the quarter she was supposed to ping off the table to land in a plastic beer cup.

  They’d taken to calling her a nickname already, and with a few sips of alchie in her, she didn’t mind.

  Taking aim, she nonetheless missed the cup with the quarter and had to drink from her own bottle.

  “Lu-cky, Lu-cky,” they chanted as she withstood her punishment.

  When she finished, she daintily slammed her bottle to the surface, and they liked that, cheering her.

  Not that she even had a buzz on. Oh, heck no. Lucy had inherited a tolerance for booze from her parents, who liked their nightly martinis after work. It was a cute routine, very fifties like. In fact, Mom and Pop Christie reminded Lucy a lot of a throwback couple. She and Jonathan had kidded on more than one occasion about how their parents must’ve had sex only two times and then slept in separate beds like on the Dick Van Dyke Show.

  Nonetheless, Lucy wished she could find the security of always having someone around who loved her. Her parents had it—she should, too.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eddie lean down to whisper something in Carmen’s ear. When he came up, they stared at each other, smiling.

  Lucy picked at the label on her beer bottle. She wanted her cowboy, just as Carmen had her own adventure for the night.