wanted to tell the old woman that she had known all the facts of life by the age of seven, and she really did not need a buddy to share her teenage years with. Besides, her mother lived in Dallas. It wasn’t like she died. She’d just left. Just because she couldn’t stand the sight of Lauren’s dad didn’t mean she didn’t call and talk to Lauren almost every week. Maybe Mom had just gotten tired of the sheriff’s nightly lectures. Lauren had heard every one of Pop’s talks so many times that she had them memorized in alphabetical order.
Her grades put her at the top of the sophomore class, and she saw herself bound for college in less than three years. Lauren had no intention of getting pregnant, or doing drugs, or any of the other fearful situations Mrs. Patterson and her father had hinted might befall her. Her pop didn’t even want her dating until she was sixteen, and, judging from the boys she knew in high school, she’d just as soon go dateless until eighteen. Maybe college would have better pickings. Some of these guys were so dumb she was surprised they got their cowboy hats on straight every morning.
Reid Collins walked out from the gas station first with a can of Coke in each hand. “I bought you one even though you said you didn’t want anything to drink,” he announced as he neared. “Want to lean on me while you clean your shoes?”
Lauren rolled her eyes. Since he’d grown a few inches and started working out, Reid thought he was God’s gift to girls.
“Why?” she asked as she tossed the stick. “I have a brick wall to lean on. And don’t get any ideas we’re on a date, Reid, just because I walked over here with you.”
“I don’t date sophomores,” he snapped. “I’m on first string, you know. I could probably date any senior I want to. Besides, you’re like a little sister, Lauren. We’ve known each other since you were in the first grade.”
She thought of mentioning that playing first string on a football team that only had forty players total, including the coaches and water boy, wasn’t any great accomplishment, but arguing with Reid would rot her brain. He’d been born rich, and he’d thought he knew everything since he cleared the birth canal. She feared his disease was terminal.
“If you’re cold, I’ll let you wear my football jacket.” When she didn’t comment, he bragged, “I had to reorder a bigger size after a month of working out.”
She hated to, but if she didn’t compliment him soon, he’d never stop begging. “You look great in the jacket, Reid. Half the seniors on the team aren’t as big as you.” There was nothing wrong with Reid from the neck down. In a few years he’d be a knockout with the Collins good looks and trademark rusty hair, not quite brown, not quite red. But he still wouldn’t interest her.
“So, when I get my driver’s license next month, do you want to take a ride?”
Lauren laughed. “You’ve been asking that since I was in the third grade and you got your first bike. The answer is still no. We’re friends, Reid. We’ll always be friends, I’m guessing.”
He smiled a smile that looked like he’d been practicing. “I know, Lauren, but I keep wanting to give you a chance now and then. You know, some guys don’t want to date the sheriff’s daughter, and I hate to point it out, babe, but if you don’t fill out some, it’s going to be bad news in college.” He had the nerve to point at her chest.
“I know.” She managed to pull off a sad look. “Having my father is a cross I have to bear. Half the guys in town are afraid of him. Like he might arrest them for talking to me. Which he might.” She had no intention of discussing her lack of curves with Reid.
“No, it’s not fear of him, exactly,” Reid corrected. “I think it’s more the bullet holes they’re afraid of. Every time a guy looks at you, your old man starts patting his service weapon. Nerve-racking habit, if you ask me. From the looks of it, I seem to be the only one he’ll let stand beside you, and that’s just because our dads are friends.”
She grinned. Reid was spoiled and conceited and self-centered, but he was right. They’d probably always be friends. Her dad was the sheriff, and his was the mayor of Crossroads, even though he lived five miles from town on one of the first ranches established near Ransom Canyon.
With her luck, Reid would be the only guy in the state that her father would let her date. Grumpy old Pop had what she called Terminal Cop Disease. Her father thought everyone, except his few friends, was most likely a criminal, anyone under thirty should be stopped and searched, and anyone who’d ever smoked pot could not be trusted.
Tim O’Grady, Reid’s eternal shadow, walked out of the station with a huge frozen drink. The clear cup showed off its red-and-yellow layers of cherry-and-pineapple-flavored sugar.
Where Reid was balanced in his build, Tim was lanky, disjointed. He seemed to be made of mismatched parts. His arms were too long. His feet seemed too big, and his wired smile barely fit in his mouth. When he took a deep draw on his drink, he staggered and held his forehead from the brain freeze.
Lauren laughed as he danced around like a puppet with his strings crossed. Timothy, as the teachers called him, was always good for a laugh. He had the depth of cheap paint but the imagination of a natural-born storyteller.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten an icy drink on such a cold night,” he mumbled between gulps. “If I freeze from the inside out, put me up on Main Street as a statue.”
Lauren giggled.
Lucas Reyes was the last of their small group to come outside. Lucas hadn’t bought anything, but he evidently was avoiding standing outside with her. She’d known Lucas Reyes for a few years, maybe longer, but he never talked to her. Like Reid and Tim, he was a year ahead of her, but since he rarely talked, she usually only noticed him as a background person in her world.
Unlike them, Lucas didn’t have a family name following him around opening doors for a hundred miles.
They all four lived east of Crossroads along the rambling canyon called Ransom Canyon. Lauren and her father lived in one of a cluster of houses near the lake, as did Tim’s parents. Reid’s family ranch was five miles farther out. She had no idea where Lucas’s family lived. Maybe on the Collins ranch. His father worked on the Bar W, which had been in the Collins family for over a hundred years. The area around the headquarters looked like a small village.
Reid repeated the plan. “My brother said he’d drop Sharon off and be back for us. But if they get busy doing their thing it could be an hour. We might as well walk back and sit on the church steps.”
“Great fun,” Tim complained. “Everything’s closed. It’s freezing out here, and I swear this town is so dead somebody should bury it.”
“We could start walking toward home,” Lauren suggested as she pulled a tiny flashlight from her key chain. The canyon lake wasn’t more than a mile. If they walked they wouldn’t be so cold. She could probably be home before Reid’s dumb brother could get his lips off Sharon. If rumors were true, Sharon had very kissable lips, among other body parts.
“Better than standing around here,” Reid said as Tim kicked mud toward the building. “I’d rather be walking than sitting. Plus, if we go back to the church, Mrs. Patterson will probably come out to keep us company.”
Without a vote, they started walking. Lauren didn’t like the idea of stumbling into mud holes now covered up by a dusting of snow along the side of the road, but it sounded better than standing out front of the gas station. Besides, the moon offered enough light,
