Rio di Janeiro
I closed the door softly, hoping Penelope would rest.
This afternoon had easily shaved a decade off my life. When Lindsay burst into the department meeting, crying and blubbering, it had taken me a good five minutes to calm her down enough to get the story out of her.
But nothing had prepared me for the sight of Penelope covered in blood, her clothes torn and messy, her shirt not even hers. I’d reacted in a primal way I’d never experienced before…and put us in a shit ton of danger because I couldn’t control my emotions.
Speaking of which, Rachel sat at the dining room table, a Corona in hand while she studied.
“Beer?” she offered.
I walked the short distance to the table and gripped the back of one of the chairs. “I can’t really drink with students.”
“But you can fuck one?” she shot, her eyes devoid of emotion.
Ouch. “Let’s keep the ethical lines I cross to the bare minimum, okay?”
She shook her head. “I knew something was up. The first time—back on her birthday. Shit, if I’d paid attention, probably in class. When did it start? Did you ask her to stay after class?”
Damn, and I thought Penelope was a handful. I in no way envied Landon.
“I don’t owe you anything, Rachel. But I do owe Penelope everything, so I will tell you two things about us. The rest, you’ll have to get from her. First, I met her in Vegas before we ever boarded the ship.”
Her eyes flew wide, and I had to give myself a mental high-five for rendering her speechless.
“Not everything is as clean-cut as you think. Should I be with her? Absolutely not. But she is a force of nature that I can’t…” I dropped my gaze to my hands while I struggled to find words that could do justice to Penelope. There were none. “Look. I won’t ask you to lie for us. I don’t drag other people into my shitstorms. But I will ask that you talk to Penelope first. I cleaned her up, and she’s got fresh bandages. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make some calls and check on Zoe.”
“She’s in surgery,” Rachel said. “Little John sent a message after he got to the hospital. She nicked the artery in her thigh, and they’re repairing it. Broken leg, of course, and a few broken ribs, too, but she’ll be okay.”
My shoulders drooped with the rush of relief. “Good. Penelope is asleep, and she really needs her rest, so tell her to find me when she wakes up, please?”
“So now I’m your messenger?”
“No, you’re her friend, and she’s hurt,” I snapped.
Guilt flashed in her eyes. “Yeah, you’re right.”
I was halfway out the door when she called my name. “Doc?”
“Rachel?”
“You said you’d tell me two things. That was only one.”
I looked at the girl who had the power to destroy everything I’d been working ten years for, and gambled. Penelope trusted her, and I trusted Penelope.
“I love her. It’s not a fling. She’s not just a phase or something to pass the time. I would give everything for her.” I have given everything. “So you can look at me like I’m the enemy, because maybe in some way I am, but I also know that there’s no one in this world who can love her like I do.”
I watched the debate play over her face. It would take one call to the dean and I’d be off the ship. I would never get another teaching job. Elisa would never go to Harvard—she’d eventually die just like our mother.
“You really love her?” she asked softly.
“More than my very life.”
She sucked in a breath. “Gotcha.”
I nodded and walked to the door. As I opened it to leave, Lindsay had her hand poised to knock.
“Cruz! Sorry, you surprised me.” She looked back at the room number. “This is the girls’ room, right? I’m not on the wrong deck?”
“Nope, this is their room,” I said, trying to keep my smile loose. Guess I was about to find out if Rachel was going to out us or not.
“Oh, good. I was just stopping to check on Penna.”
“I was doing the same. Come on in. She’s sleeping, but you can talk to Rachel.” I opened the door, and she came into the suite, glancing at Penna’s closed door before reaching Rachel at the table.
Rachel glanced between us for a moment, and I waited for her deliberation.
“Hey, Dr. Gibson. Beer? Dr. Delgado already turned me down.”
Lindsay laughed. “No, no. Are you sure you should be…?” She gestured to the bottle.
“Well, I’m twenty-one, in my own room, and I’ve had a shit day, so I’m going to go ahead and say yes.”
“Point taken. Penna’s sleeping?”
God bless Rachel, she didn’t bat an eye or look at me.
“Yep. She’s okay. Cleaned up, bandaged, and resting like the doc ordered.”
Lindsay nodded. “I wanted to tell her that I’m sorry. I was in charge—”
“No you weren’t,” Rachel said, leaning back in her chair. “You may have been in the advisor seat, but you weren’t in charge. In that moment, Zoe was in charge of herself. Renegades tend to do what they want, when they want, and any illusion of control you have is just that. Landon, Pax”—she glanced at me—“even Penna. They all do stuff they’re not supposed to do. That’s how they made a name for themselves. So don’t feel guilty. You had zero chance of stopping her.”
She looked up at me.
“None of us had a chance of stopping her.”
…
“She’s fucking insane,” Nick said as he parked next to me.
“Yeah,” I agreed, sitting back on the picnic table. “Not sure why I thought she’d rest up for a week or so.”
“I wasn’t sure she’d get back out here.”
I watched Penelope talk to Landon, already balanced on her full-size Elizabeth, nodding her head as Paxton joined in.
“I was. This is who she is.”
He shot me a puzzled look, and I shrugged. Stop fucking up all over the place, please. At this rate I may as well walk into the dean’s office and tender my resignation.
But there was Elisa to consider.
“How the hell did you guys get this set up, by the way? These ramps don’t exactly look easy to move.”
“They’re not.” Nick laughed. “I called in some favors from the guys who own this park and the ones who owned the last one. Add to that the money Pax was willing to drop from the Renegade budget to get Rebel back on that bike, and here we are.”
“What kind of favor?”
“The Renegade Open in Cuba. Usually you’d have to qualify to get in. I gave them each one guy from their organizations who could enter without qualifying.” His eyes narrowed toward Penelope and the others. “What the hell are they telling her?” he mumbled and took off to join the conversation.
Rachel took a seat next to me on the table, and I inwardly cringed. It had only been twenty-four hours, but the girl felt like Robespierre, and I was at the guillotine.
“Heads up, these first few runs are going to be the hardest to watch,” she said.
“There’s a giant foam pit.”
“Which doesn’t protect her if the bike comes down on top of her. This isn’t a mini. That’s two hundred and twenty pounds of angry motorcycle. She’ll be fine, it’s nothing she hasn’t gone through already, but unless you’ve sat through something like this before, it’s kind of brutal.”
“But she’ll be okay?”
She studied my face for a moment before facing forward again. “As okay as she’s ever going to be. You didn’t exactly choose a tame one.”
A quick glance told me the cameras were all busy capturing every aspect of Penelope, or what they could see of her under all that gear.
“She talked to you?” I asked quietly.
“If by talk you mean told me that it was none of my damn business. Oh, she also added that I’m sworn to secrecy because she kept my relationship with Landon a secret for so long. Excellent play of the guilt card by Miss Carstairs.”
“You kept your relationship a secret, too?” What I wouldn’t give to be out in the open with Penelope. A few more weeks, that was all we needed.
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, I was dating Wilder at the time, so…I guess you’re not the only one to cross ethical lines around here.”
“Jesus. You, Wilder, Landon, Brooke, and Nick—it’s like an incestuous CW drama around here.”
“Pretty much. Point is that I’ll keep your secret, and not because you love her, but because she loves you, and I think you are the one responsible for bringing her back to the land of the living.”
My relief was short-lived as Penelope started her bike and rode down to the end of the track. Knowing what would come next, my heart rate skyrocketed.
That goddamned ramp still had Zoe’s blood on it.
“She just needed someone to listen.”
“I would have listened,” she mumbled.
I weighed my options and made a choice.
“Do you have siblings?”
“No. I’m an only child.”
“Pax and Landon?”
“Landon is an only child, but Pax has an older brother.”
“Then he might be the only one who can understand what she’s going through. I have a sister whom I love so much that I’m willing to give up almost anything for her. Penelope is the same—and I think perhaps a few of you have forgotten that in the last few months.”
“She misses Brooke,” Rachel whispered, like it had never dawned on her.
“With the force of a thousand nuclear weapons.”
“Oh God. We’re so blind.”
Penelope came barreling down the track, and I started rocking back and forth. She hit the ramp and flew impossibly high, pulling the bike into one turn, then a second— “Shit.”
Midway through the second turn, she lost the bike and came crashing back to the earth. She landed in one end of the foam pit while her bike hit the other, and I heard her swearing from over here.
“She’s fine,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, glad she is. I was less nervous on house-to-house raids in Afghanistan.”
“It’s one thing to risk your life. Handing your heart to someone else and watching them toss it around in the air for fun? That’s a whole different ball game.”
I sighed and settled back on the table, trying to brace myself for about thirty upcoming heart attacks.
“What wouldn’t you give up?” Rachel asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said you’d give up almost anything for your sister. What wouldn’t you give up? Is there a measurement there?”
Penelope climbed out of the foam pit as her bike was lifted by the giant crane Little John piloted, and I grinned at how pissed she looked. I’d take pissed over crying any day.
“Yeah, there is. I’d give my own life for Elisa, but I wouldn’t give up Penelope. She’s the measurement of everything in my life.”
Rachel nodded. “Good answer. I might just like you after all this.”
I laughed, but it was short-lived.
Penelope ran that ramp again and again until she landed the bike in the pit. Landed, meaning she came down on the bike…just not necessarily with her wheels under her.
By lunch, I was ready to demolish the damn bike.
Penelope unsnapped her helmet, ripped off her pink bandana, and cursed fluently as she pulled her hair up high on her head.
“You’ve also got about a hundred pounds on me, Pax,” she snapped, and I got the fuck out of her way as she walked by.
But she subtly brushed my hand, which sent bolts of lightning through me.
“How is your side?” I asked as she put her helmet on the table.
“Fine.”
“Penelope?” I lowered my voice to a growl, noting that we had about twenty feet on the camera team.
“It fucking hurts, and that’s not going to change.”
Rachel’s eyebrows shot up and she mouthed, “good luck,” to me before hopping off the table.
“Oh no. You take her back to that little tent they set up and change her bandages,” I ordered Rachel.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re one day post-accident and acting like nothing happened, so why don’t we both cut the bullshit and agree that you’re anything but fine, shall we?”
She turned to me, crossing her arms over her chest and leveling me with a glare. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, this should be good,” Landon said, flanking Pax as they walked over to the table.
Paxton waved off the camera, and they backed away. Probably got more than enough footage yesterday.
“I said, go change your bandages.” I picked up the kit Little John had put together and offered it to her.
“And I said I’m fine.”
I handed the kit to Rachel. “Go with her, and get your damn bandages changed, Penelope!”
“Or what?” she snapped.
I stalked forward until we were about twelve inches apart—barely outside the lines of propriety. “Or I cancel your practice for the rest of the day.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Renegades tend to do what they want, when they want, and any illusion of control you have is just that. Rachel’s words from yesterday ran through my head.
“After what happened yesterday, I most certainly would. Now you can be stubborn and fight with me right here for the rest of the afternoon, or you can go with Rachel, get your bandages changed, and go back to trying to kill yourself up there. It’s absolutely your choice.”
We stood there for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for the other to back down. I would win—I was far more patient, and she had more to lose.
“Who needs TV? This is awesome,” Landon said.
At least six heads turned to glare at him, but Penna and I stood locked in a battle of control, concern, and compromise. She had to learn to give an inch, to trust me just a little, or we had zero shot at this thing once we were off the boat. I wasn’t some pushover she could tread on, and while I’d never hold her back, I’d put my damn foot down when she was doing more harm than good.
“Ugh! Fine!” She stomped off, and Rachel followed.
“Damn,” Pax said, slapping me on the back. “Glad we chose you, because she would have flipped us the bird and told us to fuck off.”
“Yeah, well, she’s just waiting for you to walk away before she does what she wants. Prove that you won’t walk away, and she’ll budge. It might be the slightest inch, but she’ll give.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “How would you—”
“Pax, I need to talk to you about the Cuba expo. We need the finalized list of riders who qualified,” Little John called out.
“Yeah, okay,” Pax said, but he still shot me a look that told me I’d said way too much.
I wandered toward the food truck, only to get yanked to the side by a very small, very pissed girl. “Oh, you’re not sending me into the lion’s den. You created that beast, you soothe it,” Rachel said, pulling me toward the tent.
Once she saw that no one was around to witness, she shoved me through the canvas flaps and then stood guard, her feet visible at the bottom of the box-shaped tent.
“Seriously?” Penelope barked. She sat on the small table they’d put in here, already stripped down to her protective jacket.
I walked up to her without pause and caged her in my arms. “I love you. That means that while I’ll watch you pull idiotic shit, I’m not going to stand by and watch your wounds get infected. Got it?”
“You can’t just act like you own me out there.” She pointed in the direction of the ramp.
“And you can’t act like you don’t own me,” I threw back. “Like I don’t have a right to be concerned, to worry, to have a fucking opinion. You are the strongest woman I have ever met, but if you want this to work between us, you are going to have to let me care for you—care about you. I’ve watched you flinch and readjust that thing all day, and I would bet my life that you’ve ripped open a few scabs, which means you’re sweating right into the wound. Has to sting like hell.”
“A little,” she acquiesced quietly.
I took her zipper between my fingers and arched an eyebrow at her.
“Yes,” she said with a flirty smile.
Eyes locked, I unzipped her protective jacket, leaving her in nothing but a pink, zip-front sports bra that I desperately wanted to undo.
“Fuck. Is ‘I told you so’ appropriate?” I asked, pointing to where several splotches of blood showed through her bandages.
“Maybe. But you only get so many with me, so I wouldn’t waste one on something this small. I’m bound to be far more stubborn down the line.”
“I’m counting on it,” I told her. Taking off her bandages, I hissed at the damage she’d done today. “You couldn’t just let it heal?”
“Nope. No time for that.”
“You don’t think it affects your performance?”
“There’s so much adrenaline in my system once I start toward the ramp that I’m sure I could lose a toe and not realize it.”
I cleaned and dressed her side, hating how angry and red it was. But we’d be at sea for the next five days as we headed up the Brazilian coast. As long as she didn’t tear herself all to hell, she could heal up before the next port.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I’m not used to someone watching so carefully.”
“I will always watch you this carefully,” I promised.
She grasped a handful of my T-shirt and pulled me toward her until I stood between her outstretched thighs. “Did you know that you cross your arms when you think a student is wrong in class but don’t want them to stop talking?”
“What?”
“You sit back, fold your arms, and wait for them to finish. Then you ask questions until they explain themselves or realize they’re wrong. When they’re right, you flash your dimples once, then nod slowly. You only grade papers in blue pen, you can’t stand ketchup, and you push yourself a tenth of a mile an hour faster on every run for about ten minutes.”
I blinked at her, and she grinned up at me.
“I watch you just as carefully.”
Uncaring that our only shield was a thin piece of green canvas, I leaned in and kissed her until she gripped my biceps like a vise. I changed the angle, taking it deeper, until I heard her whimper, felt her arch against me.
“I’m all sweaty,” she said between kisses.
“You’re all mine,” I answered, then proceeded to kiss her until Rachel cleared her throat loudly outside the tent.
Penelope hopped off the table, zipped up her pads, and tugged her jersey over her head. “I’ll head out first. You should probably wait to clear up that situation.” She pointedly stared at my very hard dick. “Tell him to wait a few hours and I’ll make sure my bike isn’t the only thing I’m riding today. Now if you’ll excuse me, my love, I have to get back to not killing myself.”
I shook my head as she walked out, head high, 100 percent stubborn and beautiful and mine.
