“Jesse,” she repeated in her soft voice. “That’s a good name too.”
It took him a minute to realize she was referring to their exchange earlier in the week when they’d discussed her own name.
“Thank you,” he forced himself to say.
She seemed to realize how close they were standing and blushed, climbing in the seat. He watched as she buckled in and straightened her skirt, the box of cake balanced on her lap. When he reached his own door, he hesitated, bracing one hand against the window and the other on the handle. He was messed up in the head over this blue-eyed girl who made him feel strange things, and he wanted to know why. Why his heart beat faster when she was near. Why his thoughts strayed to her with maddening regularity.
It seemed imperative that he know. That he be able to understand her. Because after tonight, he would never see her again.
***
I waited for him to make his way back to the driver’s side, my fingertips tapping the cake box and butterflies fluttering in my stomach. What would I say to him? What would I do if he tried to kiss me? My heart began to pound at the thought. It all seemed so much more real now that we were alone without the noisy buffer of the diner. All the daydreaming, the fantasizing, the words spoken over a tabletop had not prepared me for this.
I let out a breath as he opened the door and slid into the seat next to me, putting the keys in the ignition. The proximity of him and the creak of his vinyl seat so close caused me to swallow hard. I was reminded again that I smelled like stale coffee and fryer grease. I looked down at my uniform. It was wrinkled from all-day wear and had a ketchup stain on the right thigh. No matter how hard I’d scrubbed in the bathroom with a paper towel and faucet water, it’d refused to come out.
“You’re beautiful.” He glanced over at me while starting the car.
“I usually just go home.” Like he didn’t know that.
He stared for a moment and then looked in his rearview before backing up. “What do you do there?”
“At the diner?” I asked and then had to hold back a groan. At the diner? Obviously he knew what I did there. Lord.
His laugh was soft. “What do you do at home?”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat and glanced out the window as we pulled out of Monk’s parking lot and onto the street. “Read mostly. I crochet some. And other stuff.” I thumbed the corner of the cake box, embarrassed by my outdated pastimes. “Do you have hobbies?”
He ignored the question, shifting gears as we left the city limits, the empty country road stretching out before us like a picture in the evening sun. “My sister used to crochet.”
I turned to look at him. Not many people even knew what crochet was, let alone knew how to handle a hook and yarn. I’d taught myself with guide books from the library. “Really?”
“She liked to make socks.”
“Socks.” I turned back. I couldn’t do socks.
“Yes,” he said. “She gave them for every conceivable gift-giving occasion.”
I laughed, imagining. “At least your feet were always warm.”
He laughed too. “They were.”
I gazed out at the swiftly passing scenery, brilliant in its fall glory, the trees a blur of orange and gold outside the window. It was all so beautiful. Peaceful. My nervousness began to ebb.
I looked at him as a thought occurred to me. “You said she used to crochet— she doesn’t anymore?”
His smile faded, and I saw his hand tighten on the steering wheel. “She’s dead.”
I brought my fingertips to my mouth, horrified I’d inadvertently brought up such a tragic subject. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
He glanced at me then, studying my face, until I began to worry about his lack of attention to the road. “No, you wouldn’t. It was a long time ago.”
“Oh.” I was still chagrined. “What was her name?”
He hesitated, but then said, “Nina.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
“It is.”
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and glanced around the car, desperate to change the subject. It was a classic. Black and immaculate. “This is a great car.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Olds 442?” I fingered the sleek door panel.
Glancing at me, he seemed surprised. “You know cars?”
I laughed. “Some. I had a foster dad once who was into cars.”
The man had also been into cheap beer and physical punishment, but I shoved that dark thought aside. Tonight I would make new and better memories.
Jesse nodded, though the mention of his sister had left a shadow around him. “I’m impressed.”
Smiling, I looked out the window and caught sight of a familiar curve up ahead. I seized the opportunity to lighten the mood. “Would you mind slowing down a little?”
Without asking why, he obliged and downshifted. I rolled down the crank window, letting in the rush of crisp, delicious air. Pieces of my hair were torn from my braid, streaming across my face in a windblown mess, but for the moment I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and breathed deep. “Do you smell it? It’s wild witch hazel. It blooms in the fall.”
As we drove past the cluster of bushes and their wispy yellow flowers, I sank back into my seat and explained, “I found them a couple of weeks ago. Smelled them before I even saw them.”
I’d been on my way to Trickle Falls Caves. As often as I could afford, I’d take what little bit of gas money I had and drive there. I’d spend the day hiking the shady paths and marveling at the vast, echoing caves. I loved breathing the clean dampness. It made me feel alive.
When I realized he’d yet to say anything, I glanced over to find him staring at me.
“How do you do that?” I asked with an astonished laugh, trying to temporarily hold my hair out of my eyes.
He turned back to the road. “Do what?”
“Drive without looking?” I eyed the white-knuckle grip he had on the steering wheel and took comfort that maybe he was just as nervous about this as I was.
For a moment he seemed caught off guard by the question, but then smiled. “I’ve been driving a very long time.”
“A very long time, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said with a wink that made me blush.
“So where are we going?” I stuck my hand out the window and let the wind buffet my fingers. We’d just passed over Pepper Creek Bridge, its water nothing but a thin trickle this late in the year, the gravel bottom now clogged with fallen leaves from the many trees that lined its banks. The green sign indicating we were leaving Watson County loomed up ahead.
“Not far. I know a place where we can watch the sunset.”
I began to smile, but it faltered when I unintentionally picked up on the subtle change in his emotions. There was a thread of tension just below the surface. A whisper of some inner turmoil. I looked away, focusing on the passing scenery before I could learn any specifics. There were supposed to be secrets, mysteries, and things left unsaid on first dates. And second dates. And sixth. Just this once, I was determined to smother my suspicions. To be normal. And normal meant not digging. It meant leaving some things to chance.
7
Tattoos & Whippoorwills
Jesse tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel as they drove, indecision grinding him down. He was grasping. Questioning everything. He knew what he had to do. It was what he’d always done. But somehow this time was different. Why? He’d done his homework. He knew her file front to back. Knew her history. He’d dealt with telepaths in the past. More than once. He knew what to expect from them. And what not to. Yet, there was something about this one that made him hesitate.
“I’ve never been down this road,” she said.
“Well, then.” He turned to her. “It’ll be even more of a surprise.”
She smiled. “Do you come here a lot?”
Unable to keep his mouth in the hard line it so favored, he turned back to the road. He knew she was bl
ushing without having to look. “Are you asking me if I bring all my dates here?”
“Do you?”
A genuine laugh escaped him. “No. You’re the only one.”
“The only one.” She sounded amused. Skeptical.
“It’s true.” And it was. He thought about where he took all his other “dates” and swallowed to keep the bile down. The sensation made him frown. He’d never given it a second thought before today. It’d never seemed to matter. Why did it now?
He tried to keep his voice light. “We’re here.”
Up ahead, a break in the heavy pines lining either side of the narrow, curvy road revealed their destination. Her face took on a look of wonder as she stared through the windshield. “It’s so beautiful.”
A feeling of satisfaction swept through him and, against his will, he smiled. It faded, however, when he remembered what he’d come here to do. He could feel the weight of the sedative in his pocket. A dull throb took up residence in his temples.
As he pulled to a stop just in front of the guardrail, he gazed out over the desolate beauty of the valley, listening as she unbuckled her seatbelt. It would be best to do it now. While she was distracted, her attention on the scenery that seemed to delight her as he’d innately known it would.
She glanced over, hand on the door lever. “Are you coming?”
He turned the car off. A soft breeze sighed through the open windows, toying with loose strands of her hair as she looked at him in question. As the engine cooled, it ticked in the silence. He studied her face and let his hand drop away from the keys, leaving them dangling in the ignition. It occurred to him then that he’d made his decision long before they got here.
***
“It’s breathtaking,” I said, elbows resting on the old wooden railing as I gazed out over the brilliantly colored hillside. We’d parked in the gravel turnaround of the dead-end road. The lookout surveyed a deep, stretching, tree-filled valley that seemed to go on for miles and miles, untouched by human influence. It was a stunning portrait of blazing fall colors. The slowly setting sun cast a winking golden light through the treetops. It was ethereal. Serene.
“Yes.” Jesse stared out across the expanse. He stood beside me, one hip leaned against the railing, arms crossed over his chest.
“I never knew this was here,” I said. Of course, I’d only lived in Floyd a few months and working at the diner didn’t leave much time or energy for exploration. This was one of those times I wished I could afford a camera. I sighed.
“Not many people do,” Jesse said, pausing to listen as a coyote yipped somewhere over the ridge. He glanced at me. “That’s why it’s so special.”
I gave him a shy smile before turning back to the view. It was clear he was right. This lovely place had somehow been forgotten. Its overgrown state of affairs spoke volumes. Weeds grew up the dilapidated wooden fence. The gravel road was riddled with potholes. Even the No Trespassing sign attached to a nearby tree hung lopsided, its letters faded by the sun.
“So how did you find it?” I asked, closing my eyes as the breeze touched my face.
I could feel his gaze on me as he spoke. “I grew up about a day’s drive from here. My family would travel to Floyd in the summers to visit my mother’s parents. They lived just down the road.” He laughed softly. “When we were boys, my brother and I would come here and pretend we were kings of the world keeping watch over our vast realm.”
I laughed too and opened my eyes, imagining two little boys with sheets tied around their necks for robes and makeshift wooden swords. Then, remembering his dead sister, I asked, “Is your brother . . . around?”
“Yes,” he said, his expression dimming. “Felix.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger by three years.”
I brushed a strand of hair from my eyes. “So how old are you?”
His mouth quirked. “Isn’t it taboo to ask someone’s age?”
I smiled. “That only applies to women.”
Laughing, he gazed down at me. “How old do you think I am?”
“Hmm . . .” I tapped on my chin and tilted my head, eying him. “You don’t look a day over twenty-seven.”
“Very good,” he said. “I’m twenty-nine.”
“I was close.”
His gaze grew pensive. “You’re different from the others, you know.”
Warmth spread into my cheeks, and I averted my eyes. The others. I could only imagine the number of women he’d dated. Coming from him it’d somehow sounded like a compliment. “So I’ve been told.”
I felt his gaze linger on me before he too turned away. For several minutes we stood in silence, staring out over the valley, now dusky in the waning light. A whippoorwill took up its call in the distance.
“I think,” he said, “I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you.”
My eyes widened, and I looked up at him, at a loss for words. There was another of those bold, blunt compliments that caught me completely off guard.
“Never?” I asked, my tone both skeptical and shy.
He glanced down at me, studying my face. “Never.”
It wasn’t a romantic declaration. He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that I just blinked up at him. “Oh.”
“So,” he said, as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb. “Shall we do it?”
My mouth opened but nothing came out, a flare of panic making me speechless.
“The cake,” he clarified.
Closing my mouth, I knew I couldn’t get any redder. “Oh. Sure,” I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear as I hurried to the car. I knew he was watching me, and the embarrassment was astounding. Reaching in the open window, I grabbed the box, pausing to close my eyes and blow out a breath. Why had I thought he meant it? As in . . . sex? I’d managed to take things from pleasant to awkward in zero to sixty.
He was grinning at me when I finally stood and turned around. “I didn’t think you were that kind of girl,” he noted.
My face burned, but I couldn’t help laughing. It occurred to me then that I enjoyed flirting. With him. Mortification notwithstanding.
“I’m not,” I said, tilting my chin up. “You’re just presumptuous.”
“Am I?” He disengaged from the railing and walked over to me. He held his hand out for the box, and I gave it to him.
“You are.”
He slid it onto the hood and then held his hand out again.
I hesitated a moment and then put my hand in his. His fingers were warm and strong. I realized this was the first time we’d touched intentionally, and a rush of excitement nearly took my breath away. I didn’t dare look him in the eye lest he see how moved I was.
“I don’t want to dent it,” I said, using his hand for balance as I hopped up and sat on the hood.
“You won’t.” He pulled away as soon as I was situated, and my hand dropped into my lap, feeling oddly empty. I began smoothing my skirt to occupy myself as he leaned against the bumper and reached for the box.
“We don’t have any plates. Or forks,” I noted.
He looked up with a smile. “We have hands.”
The idea of eating messy icing and crumbling cake with my bare hands made me feel like a kid, and I laughed. “I guess we do.”
“I like hearing you laugh,” he said, removing a thick, precut slice and handing it to me.
I took the towering portion with both hands, trying to keep it upright. “I like to see you smile,” I replied, taking a big bite of the sweet, moist cake. As crumbs fell through my fingers and onto my lap, I laughed at the mess I was already making.
He took a piece of cake for himself but didn’t look at me. “Do you?”
Nodding, I swiped a dab of icing from the corner of my mouth with my pinky. “I do.”
He was quiet while he closed the lid on the box. After sliding it across the hood, he leaned back and shoved his free hand into his pocket. “Nina used to say that,” he said, gazing out over the valley.
I sucked icing from my pinky. “Then I have something else in common with her.”
Silence stretched between us, and I started to worry I’d offended him with the comparison, but then he nodded, taking a bite of his cake. “Yes,” he said. “I think you’re like her in a lot of ways. She would’ve been fond of you.”
I smiled at the idea and looked upward, noticing the first twinkles of stars in the deepening evening sky. The realization that I would soon be alone with him in the dark was a heady thing. I stifled my nerves and took another bite of cake. He seemed unaffected, and it only made me feel more juvenile for my thoughts.
He made an appreciative noise beside me. “This is good.”
I closed my eyes and savored the creamy, vanilla flavor. I hadn’t eaten anything all day. My fingers started to tremble as the sugar absorbed into my bloodstream. “I know,” I said through a mouthful. “Lou makes the day’s pastries every morning by hand. They’re the best.”
“Tell me about you,” he said, licking icing from his lip.
I looked at him. “I’ve told you about me all week.”
“Tell me more.”
“Not much to tell.” I crossed my legs on the hood, its black paint gleaming in the moonlight.
He paused with cake hovering at his lips. “Do you have family? Brothers and sisters?”
“No,” I said, gazing at the tree line, which was now a shadow in the distance. “It’s just me.”
“Why did you come here? This,” he gestured toward the valley with his half-eaten cake, “is the only good thing in this town.”
I thought about all the other nondescript small towns I’d lived in and shrugged. They all looked the same after a while. Nothing ever happened in them, and nothing and no one stood out. Which was exactly what I wanted. I’d leave here too eventually. No matter how hard I tried to be invisible, sooner or later people always began to sense there was something different about me. Something off. And even if that didn’t happen, Tom would come. He always came. Pushing thoughts of the man who’d once been my foster father out of my head was like forcing the zipper on a suitcase with too much in it. It made your muscles strain and left you exhausted afterward. But it was better than letting your clothes fall out in a chaotic mess.
First Fruits Page 6