And keep noticing.
He knew it was the wrong thing to do, but he couldn’t drag his attention away from her as she straightened. The amazing fall of hair bounced over her shoulders. He stood with his shoes cemented to the sidewalk as she reached for her keys with long slim fingers.
The hurt—he could see it in her, because it was so like the pain within him.
Maybe that was why he couldn’t lift his feet and walk away. Why he watched as she blew her lustrous bangs from her eyes with a puff. She slipped her keys into the ignition, but didn’t start the engine.
She leaned across the gearshift instead. “It’s odd, because I have a hole in my tent, too. I decided not to patch because I was trying to make do.”
“On a budget vacation?”
“Let’s just say a very tight budget. So tight, I’ve been praying for no rain, and then you hand me a repair kit out of the blue. It’s as if heaven whispered to you.”
“Could be. You just never know.”
“Thank you. I really mean that.” She started the engine, and blue smoke coughed from the tailpipe.
“How much farther do you think this thing will get?” he had to ask her, gesturing toward her Volkswagen.
“I know Baby doesn’t look like much.” She snapped her seat belt into place. “But she hasn’t let me down yet.”
“As long as you’re sure.”
“Absolutely.”
He watched her head east through town, taking the back way to Bozeman.
He couldn’t say why, but it was as if he’d lost something. And that didn’t make any sense at all. The jangle of his phone reminded him he had better things to do than to stand in the middle of the sidewalk. He had his own problems to solve, debts to pay.
Redemption to find.
Chapter Two
Alexandra glanced at her dashboard and the temperature gauge. The arrow was definitely starting to nudge toward the big H.
Great. A serious breakdown was the last thing she needed. Hadn’t she just told the guy from the hardware store that her car was trustworthy? That Baby wouldn’t let her down?
It looked as though she’d been wrong. She glanced in her rearview mirror and watched a trail of steam erupt from beneath the hood and rise into the air like fog. Yep, Baby was definitely having a problem. She nosed the car toward the gravel shoulder alongside the narrow two-lane country road.
There wasn’t a soul in sight. Now what? She killed the engine and listened to the steam hiss and spit. It looked serious and expensive. Expensive was the one thing she didn’t need right now. She hopped out to take a look.
The relief that rushed through her at the sight of the cracked hose couldn’t be measured. It was a cheap repair she could do herself, and she was grateful for that.
A cow crowded close to the wire fence on the other side of the ditch and mooed at her.
“Hello, there.” Her voice seemed to lift on the restless winds and carry long and wide. A dozen grazing cows in the field swung their big heads to study her.
Great. It was only her and the fields of cows. The green grassy meadows gently rolled for as long as she could see. There was the long ribbon of road behind and ahead of her, but nothing else.
No houses. No businesses. No phones.
It was sort of scary, thinking she was out here all alone, but she’d look on the bright side. If she walked to town and back, she wouldn’t have to dig into her remaining funds to pay for a tow truck.
After locking her car up tight, Alexandra grabbed her purse and started out. Dust rose beneath her sneakers as she crunched through the gravel. It reminded her of when she was little, and she’d hike with her younger brothers down the long dirt road to the corner gas station at the edge of town.
Like today, the sun, hidden by clouds, had been cool on her back and the air had tickled her nose with the scents of growing grass and earth. In that little store she’d traded her hard-earned pennies for ice-cream bars and big balls of bubble gum.
Why was she remembering these things? She’d long put that painful time out of her mind. What was coming over her today? It was being here, in this rural place. She’d been careful for so long to live with the bustle of a city around her. Traffic and people and buildings that cast shadows and cut into the sky.
It was a mistake to head east. In retrospect, maybe she should have headed south, through California. A busy interstate would never have brought these memories to light. But in this place, the fresh serenity of the countryside surrounded her. The whir of the wind in her ears and the rustle of it in the grasses. After fifteen minutes of walking, not one car had passed.
The wind kicked, bringing with it the heavy smell of rain. She tipped her head back to stare up at the sky. Dark clouds were sailing overhead, blotting out the friendlier gray ones. After another ten minutes, she could see the sheets of rain falling on the farther meadows, gray curtains that were moving closer. She’d lived in Washington State all her life, so what was a little rain?
The roar of an engine broke through the murmur of the wind. Glancing over her shoulder, Alexandra saw a big red pickup barreling along the two-lane road between the seemingly endless fields.
She prayed it was a friendly truck. That it would pass by and keep going. The closer the vehicle came, the more vast the fields and the sky seemed. The more alone she felt.
Her heart made a little kick in her chest. Come on, truck, just keep on going. No need to slow down.
She didn’t glance over her shoulder, continuing to walk along the edge of the ditch.
She could hear the rumble of a powerful engine and the rush of tires on the blacktop. The truck was slowing down.
This wasn’t good. Not one bit.
Please, don’t let this be trouble, she prayed, eyeing the width of the ditch and wondering just how fast she could get through that fence.
She could hear the truck downshift as the driver slowed down to match her pace. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the polished chrome and the white lettering on the new-looking tires. The passenger window lowered.
Alexandra went cold. Did she expect the worst? Or was it simply that old country code of neighborliness that was at work here?
As if in answer, a little girl leaned out the open window and tugged off plastic green sunglasses. “Hi, lady. My dad says I gotta ask if you need a ride.”
At the sight of the blond curls and friendly blue eyes, Alexandra released a breath. She hadn’t realized her chest had been so tight.
It just went to show how traumatized she’d been this last year. And that deep down, she expected the worst—of life and of people.
It wasn’t something she could brush off lightly. If this past year had taught her anything, it
