Her wheel slid on an uneven paving stone and the bike wobbled dangerously. There was a puddle full of muddy rainwater. She was going to land right in it. Almost in slow motion, she could see the wheel skid, her foot come off the pedal, felt herself falling…
Then suddenly she wasn’t.
Gabriel grabbed her handlebar while he cycled one-handed beside her. “Less haste, more speed.” He made sure she was safe before taking his hand away from her handlebar but kept an eye on her to make sure she was steady.
“You’re not bad, even on a girl’s bike.”
“You should see me on a Harley Davidson.”
By then they had passed the Old Mill and the line of cedar trees came into view. They turned off the cobbled lane and onto the path.
“You have a Harley?” she asked once they were into the shelter of the trees and could slow down. Somehow it didn’t fit the Gabriel she knew.
“No, but in my fantasies of myself I have a Harley and a set of mean-looking black leathers.”
She laughed. “And a gun on your hip?”
“That’s the other fantasy. The one that comes with a horse and a Stetson.”
“Do many men have cowboy fantasies?”
“Many men? No,” he answered. “All men.”
“Really?”
“Don’t women have a favourite fantasy?”
She shrugged.
“Are you going to make me guess?”
“I’d like to know what men imagine to be a woman’s fantasies.”
He thought for a bit. “Sleeping Beauty?”
“Which part, the being cursed by wicked fairy or the being in a coma for five hundred years?” They seemed to be playing verbal tennis again.
“I was thinking of the part were a handsome prince cuts down a path through a forbidding forest to kiss her.”
“That sounds like your fantasy, not mine.” But now that he had mentioned kissing, it was going to become her fantasy unless she was very careful. She’d never kissed anyone with a beard, and if anyone had asked her a month ago, even a week ago, she’d have said no. Because she hadn’t thought about how a beard might frame a wide, full mouth.
“Okay, I give up.” His voice interrupted her thoughts. Which was a very good thing. “What’s a typical woman fantasy?”
“Well…” She pretended to think, then took a hand off the bar and put it to her forehead like a swooning girl. “There is this one where a nice man rides to my rescue on a girly bike with a basket full of wildflowers.”
He sped up a little and got just ahead of her. It forced her to watch his back, the motion of his legs as they pumped up and down. He seemed to have improved since yesterday and was cycling in a straight line despite looking to the side as they passed the thick green cedar trees.
“Well?” she asked eventually when he still hadn’t answered her.
Nothing. Just his back and shoulders flexing under the wool of his jumper.
She hated silence. “What are you thinking?”
“Let’s make this more interesting.” His answer came over the sound of their bikes and the muffled sound of rain on the trees. “If I’m going to lose an argument, then I at least need something else to focus on.”
“What argument? I didn’t think—”
“Yes, you did,” he interrupted her in a low voice.
