cruised by dry, stubble-filled fields of grass and wildflowers, and Nadine turned onto a county road that wound upward through the hills to the little house by the river. Never before had she been embarrassed of where she lived, but suddenly, with this rich boy in the pickup, she was self-conscious. It was bad enough that he’d had to share the tattered seat of a banged-up twenty-year-old truck with a smelly dog, after riding in the sleek leather interior of a new sports car, but now Hayden would see the sagging front porch, rusted gutters and weed-choked yard.
She pulled up to the carport and said, “I’ll just be a minute....” Then, remembering her manners, she added, “Would you like to come in and meet my mom?”
He hesitated, but his polite upbringing got the better of him. “Sure.”
As Bonanza streaked across the dry grass, startling robins in the bushes, Nadine led Hayden up the steps to the back porch and through the screen door. “Mom?” she called, as they entered the kitchen.
A pan of apple crisp was cooling on the stove and the small room was filled with the scents of tart apples and cinnamon. Hayden took off his sunglasses, and Nadine was witness to intense blue eyes the shade of the sky just before dusk. Her heart nearly skipped a beat and her voice sounded a little weak and breathless when she pulled her gaze away and again called for her mother. “Are you home?”
“Be right down,” Donna shouted from the top of the stairs. Quick footsteps sounded on the bare boards. “What took you so long? Ben’s got the car and I’ve got groceries to buy and—” Donna, with a basket of laundry balanced on her hip, not a trace of her usual makeup and her hair tied back in a careless ponytail, rounded the corner and stopped short at the sight of her daughter and the boy.
Nadine said quickly, “I’ll pick up whatever you need at the market. I have to go into town anyway. I promised Hayden.” She motioned toward him. “This is—”
“Hayden Monroe?” her mother guessed, extending her free hand while still managing to hold on to the laundry. She forced a smile that seemed as plastic as the basket she was carrying.
“That’s right.” He shook her hand firmly.
“This is my mom, Donna Powell.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said, and her mother’s lips tightened at the corners as she drew back her hand.
“You, too.”
Nadine was mortified. Her mother was usually warm and happy to meet any of her friends, but despite her smile, Donna Powell exuded a frostiness she usually reserved for her husband.
“You should offer your friend something to drink,” she said, her suddenly cold gaze moving to her daughter. “And, yes, you can get the groceries. The list is on the bulletin board and there’s a twenty in my purse....” She glanced back at Hayden again, opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. “Don’t be long, though. I need the eggs for the meat loaf.” She set the laundry on the table and tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear before walking crisply to the kitchen closet where she kept her handbag. From within the folds of her wallet, she pulled out some money and handed the bill to her daughter.
“I’ll come right back!” Nadine was grateful to be leaving. She grabbed a couple of cans of Coke from the refrigerator, then snagged the grocery list as they headed outside. Hayden said goodbye to her mother and paused in the yard to scratch Bonanza behind the ears before he yanked open the passenger side of the pickup and settled into the seat.
Nadine was so nervous, she could barely start the engine. “You’ll have to excuse my mom. Usually she’s a lot friendlier...but, we, uh, surprised her and—”
“She was fine,” he said. Again his blue eyes stared at her, and this time, without the sunglasses, they seemed to pierce right to her soul. She wondered what he thought of their tiny house by the river. Was he laughing at a cottage that must appear to him a symbol of abject poverty? He seemed comfortable enough in the truck, and yet she suspected he was used to riding in BMWs, Ferraris and limousines.
“Hold on to these,” she said as she handed him the cans of soda, then backed the truck around, heading into town. She knew she should keep the question to herself, but she’d always been quick with her tongue. Her brother Ben had often accused her of talking before she thought.
“What did you mean about a price you weren’t willing to pay—for the Mercedes?”
He flipped open both cans of cola and handed one to her. His gaze was fastened to the view through the windshield—dry, windswept fields. Propping an elbow on the open window, he said, “My father wants to buy my freedom.”
“How?”
His lips twisted into a cold smile and he slipped his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Many ways,” he said before taking a long swallow of his drink. Nadine waited, but Hayden didn’t elaborate, didn’t explain his cryptic remark as he gazed through the windshield. She noticed his fingers drumming on his knee impatiently. It was as if she didn’t exist. She was just providing transportation. She could as well have been a gray-haired man of eighty for all he cared. Disgusted at the thought, she juggled her can of soda, steering wheel and gearshift, driving along the familiar roads of the town where she’d grown up.
“Where do you want me to take you?” she asked as they reached the dip in the road spanned by the railroad trestle. They were in the outskirts of Gold Creek now, and houses, all seeming to have been built from the same three or four floor plans in the late forties, lined the main road.
“Where?” he repeated, as if lost in thought. “How about Anchorage?”
“Alaska?”
“Or Mexico City.”
She laughed, thinking he was making a joke, but he didn’t even smile. “Don’t have that much gas,” she quipped.
“I’d buy it.” He said the words as if he meant every one of them. But he wasn’t serious—he couldn’t be. He rubbed a hand across the pickup’s old dash with the rattling heater. “How far do you think this truck would get us?”
“Us?” she said, trying to sound casual.
“Mmm.”
“Maybe as far as San Jose. Monterey, if we were lucky,” she said nervously. He was joking, wasn’t he? He had to be.
“Not far enough.”
He glanced at her, and through the mirrored glasses, their gazes locked for a second, before he snaked a hand out, grabbed the wheel and helped her stay on the road. “I guess if we wanted to go any farther, we should have just taken the damned Mercedes!”
She grabbed the wheel more tightly in her shaking hands. He was talking like a crazy man, but she was thrilled. She found his rebellious streak fascinating, his irreverence endearing.
Flopping back against the seat, he shoved his dark hair off his face. They drove past the park and hit a red light.
The truck idled, and Nadine slid a glance at her passenger. “Since we don’t have the Mercedes and since the truck won’t make it past the city limits, I guess you’re going to have to tell me where you want to go.”
“Where I want to go,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Just drop me off at
