His eyebrows peaked over his glasses. “Well … have a nice day.”
“You …”Pant, pant, gasp. “… too.”
He leaned over the handlebars and pedaled like he was cutting through a slab of butter with his foot. He was the type of person Karl von Drais had pictured when he built one of the first workable bicycles. Fit. Attractive. Encouragingly pushy. He had all the qualities of a spin instructor with none of the pay.
She tracked his progress up, up, up, around … and gone.
Shuddering to a stop, she panted like a hound dog lying on the front porch in the middle of summer. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a seat on the porch right about now. One she could fall onto, let her arms flop to the side, and let her “brilliant” idea die a perfectly honorable death. Instead of porches, she was surrounded by fields. Fields had snakes. Death by snake was the least preferable way to go. Even less than dying by bike.
There was no way she was going to make it to the library on this contraption. With a sigh, she penguin-walked in a circle, pointing the bike down the hill. She glanced at her blouse, the one she’d carefully chosen for work today, and found it soaked in perspiration. She was going to be late for work.
“Me and my stupid ideas,” she muttered as she kicked off and began coasting down the hill toward home. The breeze cooled her off and her breathing slowed. However, the embarrassment over her encounter with Bike-Man grew with every passing minute. Hopefully he was a tourist and she’d never have to see him again. One could only hope.
Chapter Two
Owen Mattox hung his bike from the hook in the garage. The thing only weighed 7.2 pounds, and hanging it up was like lifting an overnight bag into the overhead compartment. He lightly touched the back tires of his other two bikes as he passed. One was a racing bike and the other a mountain bike … like what that woman was riding today.
He’d almost said something about her wide tires, just a tease and a little flirting. He’d checked her left finger before she even knew he was close. Then again, he’d come upon her so quickly that she didn’t have much warning. Better him than one of the trucks they used to haul grapes from the winery to the processing plant on the other side of town.
Maybe he should have stayed with her longer—to keep her safe. He frowned. He certainly wouldn’t stick around for the less-than-stimulating conversation.
He entered the house and headed straight for the kitchen to pound some protein and carbs. The twenty-mile ride was a cakewalk, and the curving hills made for beautiful country. They’d sucked him in on his first visit and he’d vowed that when he signed his contract with the Texas Titans, he’d buy a home in hill country.
His dream was finally a reality. The spacious 4500-square-foot home had everything he could ever want, including but not limited to an infinity pool, a home theater room, a game room that needed a billiards table, a large but cozy kitchen, a hot tub, a library, an office, several guest rooms, a master suite, and a music room that he never used because he didn’t play an instrument. He could learn if he wanted to, because now he had a room for it. For a kid from a suburban life that grew up wearing hand-me-downs and skipping haircuts to save money, this home was a declaration to himself and the world that he’d made it.
“‘Sup?” Kyle came in, his hair sticking up and pillow marks on his face. His eyes were puffy, like he’d stayed up too late again last night.
“How’s the cyber world?” Kyle was working on a computer program that was going to revolutionize stat tracking for football, with applications for other sports rolling out in one to three years after the launch of this initial program. Or so he said. All Owen could make of the lines and lines of text on the screen was that Kyle was typing something. Computers weren’t his thing. That’s why he had to pay his childhood best friend to do his social media promotions.
“Progressing. In fact …”
Owen’s brain fuzzed out as Kyle discussed the option of an app that would report stats in real time to fans that would correspond with his program.
Without any prompting, Owen’s thoughts went back to the girl on the bike. She wasn’t big, probably too small for the bike she’d borrowed, or inherited, or bought at a garage sale. People still had garage sales, didn’t they?
She had a small frame, small enough that she could have rolled into a ball and been smaller than the front wheel. Thinner, too. One stiff breeze and she would have toppled over.
He really should have stayed with her to make sure she was safe.
“… and that’s why I think your new mascot should be a unicorn.”
“Wh-what?” Owen came back to the conversation. “Unicorn?”
Kyle laughed, batting his hand through the air. “I was just messing with you to see how much you were paying attention.”
“Sorry.” Owen awkwardly cleared his throat. “There was a woman on a bike this morning.” A picture of her flushed cheeks and the determined set to her mouth invaded his head. She had a nice mouth, not injection big and not pencil thin. Just nice. With two bumps on her top lip and a bow curve to the bottom one.
“And …” Kyle prompted as he poured himself a bowl of cereal. He liked the sugary stuff with cartoon characters on the box. Owen had lost his taste for things like that when he started training hard and eating to feed his workouts. Having them in the cupboard was comforting, though, like keeping a piece of the good old days.
Owen shook his head. “And what?”
“And did she fall down, give you her number, mace you? What?”
“Nothing like that. She was just …” He searched for the right word. “… cute. Her face was bright red and she was struggling to get up the hill, but she was still going. Ya know?”
Kyle tipped his face down as if looking over a pair of glasses at Owen. “So she was all sweaty and hot and cute.”
“Never mind.” Owen trashed his snack wrappers. He couldn’t explain to himself why he’d stopped to talk to her. He should have ridden right past and not looked back, but there was something … just something that urged him to pull the brake.