That Runaway Summer. Darlene Gardner

morning sun highlighted a streak of dust on the handlebars he must have missed when he wiped down the bike. He’d regularly hit the trails back in Ohio. Here in Indigo Springs he’d waited so long to take his inaugural ride he’d had to dig the bike out from a pile of stuff in his garage.

      Funny how life worked. If Penelope Pollock hadn’t mentioned mountain biking when he ran into her before she left for her second honeymoon, he might not have gotten the notion to take up riding again.

      It had all started when Dan made an offhand remark about seeing Jill lunching with Chad Armstrong. Penelope emphatically maintained the two were not dating, a piece of information that fit. Somebody as honest and upfront as Jill wouldn’t have fed him a line about her resolve not to get involved with anyone.

      Penelope was sketchy on the details but did know the lunch had somehow involved cycling. Chad didn’t ride, but Jill did. In fact, on Sunday mornings when she wasn’t on the water Jill biked the very trail Dan was about to take.

      Dan had parked his Jeep in a small lot near the entrance to the trail, which happened to be among the most popular in the region. A sensible choice for a cyclist aiming to get back into the sport.

      He swatted at the pesky gnats again, which only seemed to make more of them appear. The sun beat down, getting warmer by the minute. A bead of sweat trickled down his face.

      He really should get moving.

      When he didn’t budge, he finally had to admit to himself he’d been hoping Jill’s ride would coincide with his. Although, come to think of it, the woman was a bartender. His chances of being in the same place at the same time she was would have been infinitely better at the Blue Haven.

      Brother, was he out of practice when it came to male-female relations.

      He blew out a breath, then sucked in a bigger one, along with what must have been a half dozen gnats. He coughed, trying to clear his throat. He doubled over to spit out the insects, peripherally aware of a soft crunching noise.

      He straightened in time to see the back of a mountain bike entering the trail. Jill’s black curly hair stuck out from under her bike helmet, while her strong, lithe legs pumped at the pedals.

      “Damn,” Dan said aloud.

      The trail entrance was a few miles from the town center, most of the route uphill, all of it on a narrow, twisting road. It hadn’t occurred to him to bike to the trail entrance.

      He swung one leg over the crossbar before remembering bike safety and disembarking. Snatching his helmet from the bed of the pickup, he shoved it on his head. Jill had been traveling at a pretty good clip. With her head start, it was possible he wouldn’t catch up to her.

      The trail appeared to follow a wide loop to the right before bending back around. To his left was a forest consisting mostly of tall oaks interspersed with evergreens.

      He took off for the forest, steering his bike between an uneven row of spindly tree trunks. The bike’s thick tires flattened the underbrush. Branches and twigs slapped at him. He shielded his face with one hand, navigating the shortcut with relative ease.

      The path soon came into view, and he gave himself a mental high five. The going was bumpy, but he and the bike had held up beautifully. They were both made of sturdy stuff, able to withstand a rugged ride.

      The thick, low-lying branch came out of nowhere. Dan jerked the handlebars to the left. The wheels stopped spinning, propelling his body weight forward. He squeezed the hand brakes, desperately trying to keep his balance as the bike skidded through the leaves and the dirt.

      Then, just shy of the path, it came to a jarring stop.

      His heart hammered faster than the beak of a woodpecker against a tree. It seemed incredible that he was upright and in one piece. The bike, though, had taken a hit. Lodged in the spokes of the back wheel was a stick of wood. The chain had come loose.

      Sighing, he got off and dislodged the stick. To better assess the damage, he needed to move the bike out of the brush. Before he reached the trail, Jill Jacobi came into view, dressed in black mountain bike shorts, a purple sleeveless shirt and a black helmet decorated with red lightning bolts. She slowed, then stopped, planting her feet on either side of her bike.

      “Dan!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing over there?”

      Not exactly the scenario he’d envisioned when he’d taken off through the woods to catch up to her.

      He slowly wheeled his bike onto the path. “I was about to put the chain back on.”

      “But how did you…” Her voice trailed off and she tilted her head. Her pretty face scrunched up. “Did you just ride through the woods?”

      “Isn’t that what we’re both doing?”

      “I’m on a path,” she pointed out.

      “I, um, took a shortcut.”

      “Why?”

      Great question.

      “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said.

      Her gaze dropped to the dislodged chain. “Not your best move. You haven’t done much mountain biking, have you?”

      “Can’t imagine why you’d think that,” he deadpanned. Her laugh was a pleasant rumble. “Believe it or not, I used to ride all the time in Ohio. Looks like we have something in common.”

      “Don’t tell Penelope,” she said in a teasing voice.

      “Actually, I ran into her a few days ago and your name came up,” he said.

      “Did you mention me or did she?”

      “I did,” he admitted. “I said I’d run into you at lunch with the pharmacist and she assured me you weren’t dating.”

      “That explains why she was trying to reach me before she and Johnny left on their trip.” She didn’t contradict her friend about Chad Armstrong. “Her message said it was a matter of my dating life or death. I’m telling you, you have to watch what you say around her.”

      “We could give in and become friends.”

      That was what he wanted. A friendship that could slowly build into something deeper and richer. Maggie had hurt him badly by keeping secrets behind his back. Jill was the perfect counterpart: open, honest, uncomplicated.

      He was finally ready to move on.

      “Penelope would never accept there was only friendship between us. No. Better to play it safe.” She kept smiling at him, her cheerful expression at odds with her firm rejection. She nodded to his bicycle. “You need any help with that?”

      He hadn’t required assistance in putting on a bicycle chain in probably twenty years. “If I said yes, you might figure out it was a ploy to keep you around.”

      “If I didn’t know better,” she countered, “I’d think you were flirting with me.”

      “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

      She stayed perfectly still, her expression frozen somewhere between shock and an emotion he couldn’t identify. A squirrel scampered up a nearby tree, chattering as it went. A bird chirped. The gnats found him again. None of those things could pull his attention from Jill.

      A sliver of sunlight was shining on her through a break in the trees, but her light seemed to come from within. Why hadn’t he realized until this moment how truly lovely she was?

      The moment lengthened until he thought he could hear her breathing. Or maybe those shallow breaths were his own.

      “I should get going,” she said, shattering the silence.

      She balanced one foot on the ground and stepped on a pedal with the other, propelling the bike forward. She shot past him faster than a competitor in the Tour de France.

      Now that he’d decided to