“Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me, whatever it is. Here.” He held out a dark blue ball cap similar to the one he’d been wearing when she’d first seen him. “It’s brand-new. No grease or anything on it, honest. Tuck your hair underneath, pull down the brim to shade your face, and your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.”
“That’s the truth,” Marie replied, accepting the cap and doing as he’d suggested. “The color almost matches my jacket.”
“I suppose I should say I did that on purpose, but to be perfectly honest it was accidental.”
As Patty crawled into the booster seat, Marie held her side of the seat belt while Seth pulled the opposite end into place.
When their hands brushed, she jerked away. His fingers had felt a bit calloused, yet warm and gentle at the same time. The mystery was, why had she noticed? After all, she had sworn off men for good, thanks to Roy, and nothing had happened since then to make her change her mind. Perhaps someday she’d feel free to seek happiness other than in her role as Patty’s mother, but right now she had plenty of problems without inviting more.
She took her place beside the little girl, drew her own belt over her shoulder and snapped it shut. It would pay her to remember that this trip to the pizza parlor was not her idea. She had been coerced into going, and she was not, repeat not, going to enjoy herself.
Glancing sidelong at Seth, she was able to observe him without being too obvious. He looked awfully pleased, didn’t he? That was off-putting. Distressing. When he had first insisted on this trip, she had assumed he was simply playing a macho role. Now that she’d had a chance to judge his reactions more closely, however, she was beginning to wonder if there was a deeper reason behind his behavior.
Of course, he might just be a nice, friendly guy who felt sorry for a stranded mother and daughter, Marie thought.
She huffed quietly. Yeah, right. And Roy Jenkins was just a misunderstood bad boy who had accidentally gone afoul of the law. If she had learned anything from her lonely childhood and disastrous time with Roy, it was that men could not be trusted or relied upon. Especially not good-looking, seemingly nice ones.
Seth drove toward Gumption on back roads, careful to avoid what little late evening traffic there was on a week night. His adult passenger had scooted down in her seat and was hiding her face with her raised hand. Therefore, as he pulled up to the pizza parlor, he chose a parking place as far away from the rest of the cars as possible.
“Here we are. How’s this?” he asked, taking care to keep his tone light and easygoing.
“Fine. It doesn’t look crowded at all.”
“That’s because this is early in the week. Friday and Saturday nights are much busier. Some places around here don’t even stay open in the evenings except on those two days.”
“Wow. That’s amazing. Back home the restaurants are busy all the time.”
Seth circled the truck to open her door for her. “And where would that be?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Alaska,” Marie quipped. “Fairbanks.”
Patty’s eyes widened. “Mama…”
She smiled. “I know, I know, honey. It’s not true. It was just a joke, okay?”
Seth didn’t think the child looked convinced, but he let the moment pass. Sooner or later, one of them would slip and reveal the truth. Until that happened, he couldn’t let down his guard for an instant. His heart told him that Marie and her little girl were innocent of any wrongdoing, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He’d been careless in the past, and it had cost him dearly. This time, he was determined to root out the truth before he permitted “Mrs. Smith” to leave Serenity.
Marie had decided that it would be best to remain inside the restaurant to eat, rather than take their meal to the city park, as Seth had suggested earlier. She was hungry and the pizza smelled delicious, but she was so nervous that she could hardly choke it down.
Worse, Seth and Patty were chatting away and seemed to be becoming fast friends. The child’s trusting nature was very worrisome, especially where that enigmatic man was concerned. On the surface, he seemed perfectly normal, yet there was something about him that made Marie’s nerves tingle with unexplained warning.
She had tried repeatedly to pray for the Lord’s guidance and had found it impossible to keep her mind from wandering with unanswered questions and baffling suspicions. Had she been so traumatized that she was unable to trust even the most casual acquaintance? Or was God warning her to stay alert despite a seemingly innocent situation?
Either alternative was possible, she finally decided. And until her car was repaired and she was free to continue her flight, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it except cope as best she knew how.
“You’re not eating much,” Seth remarked with a smile.
“I’m not all that hungry, I guess.”
“Well, Patty and I are,” he replied. “We’re saving our crusts for Babe. See?”
“I’m sure she’ll enjoy them,” Marie said, glancing at her daughter with a wistful smile. “We probably should be getting back to the motel. Patty’s up way past her usual bedtime.”
Seth stifled a yawn. “Yeah. So am I. But then, I get up at dawn and work hard all day, so I need my beauty sleep.”
“Where do you live?” Marie asked. “In Serenity?”
“Sort of. I have a place out in the country, near Heart. It used to be a bustling town, even after Serenity was named the county seat back in the 1800s. Later, as people got cars and began to move around more easily, the heart of Heart kind of withered and died.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Times change. Places change. It’s just the way things are.” He paused and Marie noticed how seriously he was looking at her before he added, “Take you and Patty, for instance. I get the idea that you’re not going back to wherever you came from.”
“Really? Why would you think that?”
“Mainly because you have so much stuff crammed into your car. It looks more like you’re making a permanent move than taking a simple vacation.”
“Maybe.” She stared at her half-eaten slice of pizza rather than look at him and take the chance he could read her thoughts. “I haven’t decided.”
“What made you head this way?” Seth asked quietly.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed sensible.”
“Yes. Especially if you’re running away from someone or something down south.”
Her head snapped up, her gaze locking with his. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? Well, if it’s not that, then why are you so afraid of being seen? And why did you practically beg me to hide your car while it’s in the garage?”
“I did
