The Good, The Bad And The Wild. Heidi Rice

thirty years too soon.

      What had possessed her to agree to do this? What if she passed out from sensory overload and fell off the bike? Then got flattened by a cable car and ended up horribly mangled in the middle of a San Francisco street?

      ‘Put your arms round my waist.’ The rough command sliced neatly through her panic attack and she obeyed him instinctively. Circling him, she pressed her cheek against the silky smooth cashmere sweater and linked her fingers, trying desperately to ignore the tensile strength of his abdomen beneath her palms.

      She squeezed her eyes shut as the bike jerked forward off its stand. He revved the engine, signalling another sensory overload as the shudder of leashed power made her pulse jump.

      ‘Relax.’ One large palm covered the back of her hands, still locked round his waist. ‘You’re safe. I swear.’ She felt the rumble of his chuckle through her cheek and tried to loosen her death grip.

      ‘My name’s Nick, by the way,’ he said, his warm palm letting go of her hands to steer the bike off the pavement and into the road with a jolt. ‘Nick Delisantro. What’s yours?’

      ‘Eva,’ she said, the renewed stab of guilt going some way to calming her rioting nervous system. ‘Eva Redmond,’ she added, then tensed at the realisation that he might well recognise her name and call a halt to the whole fiasco.

      She frowned. The fact that she would be desperately disappointed if he did, despite the mix of terror and anticipation making her stomach churn, had to be yet more evidence that she was probably having some sort of weird emotional meltdown.

      ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said, clearly oblivious to her deception.

      She breathed a ragged sigh. But as her cheek brushed the velvet steel of his back she made herself a solemn promise. She would definitely tell him who she was once their wild ride was over. No more evasions.

      Assuming she survived her wild ride.

      Her heartbeat slammed into her throat as the bike leapt forward like a savage beast, and reared away from the kerb. Eva’s legs squeezed his backside while her arms tightened around his waist, her fingers clasped so tight she was in danger of dislocating a knuckle.

      ‘Welcome to San Fransisco, Eva the anthropologist,’ he shouted back at her.

      More like Eva the Fraud.

      The quick burst of shame did nothing to dim the heady kick of adrenaline as the bike tilted into a turn and then accelerated up the steep hill into the night.

      Eva clung on tight and for the first time in her life allowed herself to rejoice in the thrill of doing something reckless. And unwise. And inappropriate.

      And completely and utterly intoxicating.

      Terror gave way to fascination as the scent of roasted duck and Szechuan spices made Eva’s stomach rumble. She swivelled her head back and forth trying to take in the kaleidoscope of people as the bike wound through the traffic choked thoroughfare. The oriental faces and exotic hieroglyphics on the signs and posters marked the area out as Chinatown. But almost as soon as she had registered the fact, they took a sharp turn and left the crowded street behind. A cable car trundled past on the cross street in front of them, like something out of a bygone era, but for the tourists in shorts and T-shirts with cameras round their necks sandwiched onto the bench seats. Shuddering over the cable-car tracks, the bike climbed and dipped through hills of ornate Victorian town houses, stopping and starting on every corner. Eva’s heart thumped against her chest wall, the emotion swelling in her throat at the overwhelming beauty of the city gilded by the dying sun.

      She threw her head back, let the evening air brush a few escaped tendrils of hair against her cheeks.

      Her eyes stung with tears. How could she have spent the first twenty-four years of her life never having done anything remotely spontaneous or daring?

      Her parents had been in their fifties when they’d had her. Both of them brilliant academics dedicated to their chosen fields. When she’d been conceived by accident, they hadn’t had a clue how to factor a child into their busy lives. So she’d adapted instead. Which had meant being cautious and responsible and respecting the boundaries they set, even when she was a teenager and every other person she knew was busy tearing them down.

      No wonder she was such a coward.

      But maybe adventure didn’t always have to be bad. Or contained within the pages of the romance novels her parents had always insisted were ‘a foolish indulgence’.

      She blinked furiously and clung tighter as they edged down another steep incline. The man in front of her felt so solid, his broad back sheltering her from the lengthening shadows. Then the bike hit a major road. Suddenly they were leaving the picture-postcard houses, the steep slopes and stepped pavements behind. Trees and parklands sped past and then Eva gasped, her eyes widening in wonder as the Golden Gate Bridge reared up before them, a huge geometric monolith of rusty red steel lit by the dying sun.

      The bike thundered through the fingers of fog drifting over the road, the rush of air and noise both cold and thrilling as they zipped past the occasional car, and a monstrous shiny yellow eighteen-wheeler. Squeezing her eyes shut, Eva hugged the only still thing in her universe and felt them both take flight through the traffic, hurtling across the water. The ball of emotion broke lose. Firing up her torso, it burst out of her mouth and she let out a gleeful yell that whipped away on the wind.

      She’d been walking through a fog her entire life but now the cloying veil of conformity was being ripped away—making every colour more vivid, every scent more acute, every sense more vibrant.

      To think she had lived her whole life and never experienced anything as thrilling as a sunset ride across San Francisco Bay?

      Adrenaline and affection blossomed as she clung to Nick Delisantro. How could she ever thank him enough, for giving her this?

      CHAPTER THREE

      AS the bike wound through the nature reserve on the Marin headlands, taking the climb towards Hawk Hill, Nick glanced at the fingers knotted round his waist and smiled.

      He’d hazard a guess that Eva the gorgeous anthropologist had never ridden pillion before, given the way she was attached to him like a limpet. Not that he was complaining. Once she’d got the hang of leaning into the turns, the feel of her clinging to him had been very nice indeed. Her shocked little gasp when they’d hit the Bridge on 101, and her spontaneous shout as they’d raced across it had only added to the heat. Seemed the prim and proper Miss Eva had a wild side. When you factored in the familiar adrenaline kick of being on the bike and the awe-inspiring view as they topped the rise and drifted to a stop at the overlook…

      No, he definitely didn’t have a single complaint about his split-second decision to invite her along. It had been far too long since he’d enjoyed the city like this—or the feel of a woman’s soft, pliant body plastered against his.

      He felt her expel another sharp breath as he cut off the bike’s engine.

      ‘Wow.’ Her hushed murmur sent a delicious tingle through the short hairs at his nape. ‘It’s so beautiful.’

      He tilted the bike onto its stand, flattened his feet onto the ground. ‘Yeah. This is the best view of the bridge.’

      They sat for a while in silence, admiring the majestic span of the Golden Gate, blazing a trail across the bay in the sunset, the fog sitting like a carpet of mist over the water and the lights of the city laid out behind.

      Reluctantly, he placed a hand over hers, glanced round at wind-stung cheeks and wide violet eyes. ‘It’s safe to let go now.’

      Pulling her hands out from under his, she sprang back. ‘I’m so sorry. Was I holding on too tight?’

      Her cheeks flushed a becoming shade of pink, and, despite the camouflage of his leather jacket, he caught a tantalising glimpse of her cleavage.

      With a figure like that she couldn’t