When I'm With You. Donna Hill

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.

       Chapter 9

      Avery couldn’t seem to shake Rafe’s cryptic comment when they last spoke. If there was one thing that she’d learned about him in the time they’d been together, it was that Rafe Lawson was never vague. He said exactly what he meant, and the world be damned. It was one of the many qualities that she loved about him. His honesty and exactness made her feel secure, knowing that whatever he said, whatever commitment he made, it was for real. This was the first time she didn’t feel that way.

      She stuck her feet in her flip-flop slippers. Kerry was on duty, doing a double. She had the house to herself until at least nine, and the emptiness of the two-bedroom condo echoed the sentiments of her stomach as she walked down the hallway to the kitchen. She passed the rows of framed black-and-white photos that hung singularly and in groups, telling the story of Kerry’s growing-up years with her two older brothers and sister, the vacations, holiday gatherings, her handsome exes. She stopped in front of one photo that captured the image of Kerry at her college graduation, flanked by her parents, who gazed at their daughter with unabashed love and pride.