night?”
And there was the other shoe dropping. Sigh. Did he expect favors? He didn’t seem the type. No, she didn’t have a place, but she definitely wasn’t staying with him.
He lifted his marshmallows from the fire and blew on them. “That didn’t come out how I meant it to, Chelly. I wasn’t hitting on you. Just so you know. Honest.”
“I’m good.”
His eyebrow shot up. “You said your friend was out of town.”
“Yep. But I’m good,” she repeated. She had no idea what she was doing for shelter and she didn’t have much cash. Her plan was to head back out to one of the truck stops and sleep there. “I like camping and there are plenty of good places around here.”
“All right. You should know, though, that there are several guest rooms in my parents’ house. Or there’s the apartment over the garage. But none of those rooms have been touched in more than a year. And the apartment is filled with furnishings. There’s the pool house, but it’s basically a bed, desk and shower. I could give you some money for a hotel? A cash advance against what you make with my mom’s furniture? Might be more comfortable for both of us, and there are some decent hotels close by.”
He didn’t even want her staying with him. For some reason that struck her as being funny and she started laughing. Why would he? She was a mess. And he was a guy who liked order. He wasn’t kidding about that. From the way he’d organized their dinner on the blanket, to his need to clean up afterward before they moved on to dessert. “I appreciate the kindness, but I promise, I have it covered.”
She’d noticed showers attached to the campgrounds down the coast. Maybe she’d just hole up there for a bit.
The look he gave her was full of disbelief, but he didn’t say anything else. They ate their marshmallows in silence.
An hour later they were back at his parents’ place. She backed her truck out of the garage, sort of sad to end the day.
In fact, part of her was worried that if she left, he’d change his mind when she returned tomorrow morning.
Her phone rang; it was the ex. She looked away. With her first bit of cash she was going to switch accounts and get a different number. The jerk had given her the phone for her birthday. It had been nice at the time. Now, not so much.
Then it dawned on her. What if he could track her GPS? Is that how he’d found out where she was all the time? He’d shown up at the grocery store, the nail salon, the...
“Shoot.” She turned the phone off.
“What’s wrong?”
She jumped. Matt was standing at her truck window, but he backed off when he saw she was scared.
Her hand went to her chest. “Sorry. It’s dawned on me that my ex could be tracking my phone. He just called. I don’t suppose you have a tub of water or a very deep pool you could throw this phone in? You mentioned a pool house. I’m praying he hasn’t tracked me down yet.”
“Follow me,” he said. And then he held his hand out for the phone.
“Wait.” She turned the phone back on and sent a text.
I’m really gone. You need to stop calling. Truck broke, so I’m taking a bus to Mexico. Phone won’t work there. Adios forever.
She hit Send, and as soon as it showed he’d read it, she clicked off the phone again and handed it to Matt.
“This way.” She trailed after him through the garage and out to the most glorious backyard she’d ever seen. It was a Garden of Eden with a huge pool and a large patio that had a mix of teak and black iron lawn furniture. Along the fence line there were magnolia trees and freesias mixed with jasmine. The smell alone was magical, but there were twinkling lights, as well. When she was a kid, she couldn’t have imagined a better land for fairies. Oh, who was she kidding? She couldn’t imagine a better place now.
Except for New Zealand. Oh, how she missed that country.
“Did your parents entertain a lot?” she asked, before she realized that that might be another painful memory.
“All the time. Any excuse for a party. Holidays were my mom’s favorite, but they had friends over a lot.”
“I can imagine. This place is terrific. I’d never want to leave.”
“I used to complain about it when I was kid because I was always on pool-cleaning duty, and I was also the official toilet scrubber.”
She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. “Yeah, I bet that would get old very fast.”
He sighed dramatically, but then gave her a wide, warm smile. “You have no idea. I also had to dust a lot of my mom’s collectables. That was the worst. I never broke anything. Still, she wouldn’t have cared if I did. She was easygoing. But my dad on the other hand would have grounded my butt for a month if I’d broken something of hers.”
Even though he complained, he didn’t sound like it really bothered him. These were fond memories.
She didn’t have many of those with her parents. Maybe, when she was younger, but that was a long time ago.
“So do you want to do the honors?”
He held out the phone and she took it. “That hot tub looks like a good start,” she said. And then she bent down and dropped it in. It was freeing—losing this last bit of her old life. Sure, she might need some of those numbers again, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it—namely when she was able to get a new phone.
Shoot. She forgot about Lila’s number. Now she had no way of getting in touch with her. Wasn’t meant to be? What kind of friend invited you to come live with her and then didn’t give you the address or leave you a key when she went off to get married?
She had to work on meeting better people.
After leaving her cell in the water for several minutes, she walked across to the pool and dropped the phone on the first step. “Do you have a water hose?”
He chuckled. “Behind the gardenias, over there in the corner.” She followed his directions and saw the faucet and hose attached. She only took a few seconds to drown the cell, not wanting to waste too much water.
“Are you sure you don’t want to hit it with a sledgehammer?”
She considered it. “No, too messy. Though I might run over it with the truck a few times just to make sure.”
“We have some tanks at the base,” he joked.
“Ha, that’s good. Thank you for everything. This turned out to be a great day.”
“Yeah, for me, too. Can I show you one more thing before you go?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Sure.”
He led her around the lawn to the pool house. It was cute, with the same kind of antebellum architecture that was on the front of the main house. It even had black shutters. She’d expected it to be bare, except
