Unforgotten by Kristen Heitzmann Page A

made his Harley look like a luxury cruiser.
    Rese’s jaw dropped. “What’s that?”
    “Rico’s chopper.”
    “I thought he had a van, the one he drove to Sonoma with all the gear.”
    Lance brushed the dust from the seat. “He borrows that when he’s got a gig. These are his wheels.”
    She looked again at the bike, barely making out the word Vulcan on the dented metal. The thing looked as though it had been through reentry. Lance rested it on its stand, leaned back into the enclosure, and brought out a helmet, nowhere near as sleek and nice as the black one he’d bought for her.
    “Rico has a helmet?” She would have thought he, like Lance, didn’t bother.
    “It’s an old one of Tony’s. We’ll cinch it up on you.”
    “Lance, I’m not—” But when he raised the helmet to her head, she noticed his hands shaking. She’d seen him upset, but not shaking. He needed this. She pulled the helmet down and adjusted the chin strap, but cringed when he started the bike. The exhaust pipe choked up gray spume before the engine settled into an asthmatic growl.
    He hollered, “Jump on.”
    “Lance …” She had barely come to trust him with the Harley on quiet Sonoma highways.
    “Come on.” He jerked his chin toward the spot behind him as the idle choked and wheezed.
    She knew what he wanted, but she could not get on that thing. It was an accident waiting to happen. Didn’t he hear it? What was it with him and two-wheeled death vehicles?
    He looked up and caught her expression. His shoulders slumped. “It’s okay. You don’t have to.” He dug for his house keys and held them out. With his other hand, he brought the engine back from death with a rev.
    He would go without her, and wouldn’t she rather he did? Not if he was upset enough to shake. “Lance … don’t …” Oh, what was the use? She closed her eyes and straddled the bike, clamping onto his waist. It was a closer fit than the Harley, the seat configuration leaning her down against him. As he accelerated through the alley and into the street, her arms tightened. Rico’s bike didn’t have the rich roar of the Harley. It needed muffler work to quiet the racket the helmet didn’t buffer and surely had other issues that begged a mechanic.
    As they maneuvered through the city, it took everything in her not to yell for Lance to take her back—if it would even register. His agitated starts and stops, his impatience with the congestion and lights showed just how wound up he was. She knew what he wanted, open road, speed. She recalled with shocking clarity that first ride in which he had intentionally scared her speechless.
    Now as he hit the highway heading north into Connecticut, she sensed not rage in him but a similar ferocity. Wind buffeted her face and drowned her breath. She hated being at the mercy of his reflexes, his decisions, especially when she was not convinced he was making any. Lance in this mood was pure emotion, pure reaction.
    She had given up control. It wouldn’t be as bad if she thought one of them had it, but she knew he was flying blind. She squeezed his sides and hollered, “Slow down!”
    Instead, he leaned them out around the vehicle he’d run up on, into the oncoming lane, then back before a minivan whooshed by the other way. She ducked her head behind his shoulder. She could die … or worse.
    What was a coma like; paralysis? How badly would it hurt to have every bone in her body broken? How would it feel to break every bone in Lance’s? But, having caused his grandmother’s relapse, he was probably trying to break them all himself. No one could blame himself like Lance Michelli.
    Squinting down at the road flying by underneath, she tried not to imagine being launched with him and having those awful seconds to anticipate macadam imbedding in soft tissue, muscles wrenched and screaming before the mercifully swift snap of her neck. And now she was mad. “Lance, stop it!”
    But he didn’t. Miles of interstate flew by,