His eyes never left his cone as Fawn Blaylock’s Mustang pulled into the side entrance of the car wash. She eased through a washing bay, then sped out the front entrance after she glanced at us. Gravel showered the change machine, killing my hopes for a peaceful evening with my cousin.
JohnScott stuck out his bottom lip. “Too bad she couldn’t stick around.”
I contemplated her tinted windows as she stopped at the intersection. “You think Tyler’s in there with her?”
“Without a doubt.” JohnScott cocked his head as the Mustang turned the corner. “How do they decide which awesome vehicle to drive?”
“Maybe they flip a coin.”
The corners of his mouth dropped. “When I taught your history class, Fawn bragged about her car so much I thought I’d scream.” He repositioned his ball cap. “But I confess, I’m jealous of Tyler’s truck.”
“Why’s Fawn taking the year off from school?”
“I heard she’s expecting a marriage proposal from Tyler now that he graduated.”
“Is she working?”
He snickered. “Why would she? Her daddy has more money than God.”
JohnScott didn’t often insult people, even in jest, and the light acid in his voice revealed his bitterness toward anyone who didn’t work to support themselves. I enjoyed the momentary meeting of the minds, but then he chuckled. “Well, looky there. Miss Blaylock may change her mind and come back now.”
Any warm fuzzies I felt toward JohnScott vanished when Dodd’s El Camino stopped at the red light. The preacher was quickly becoming JohnScott’s idol, and I recalled my bitter envy back in first grade when Fawn got mad at me and spent an entire recess playing with Wendy Bly. Hurt and fury had overcome me at being so easily replaced.
This was worse.
JohnScott lifted his cone in greeting as Dodd and Grady pulled into the parking lot, but then he leaned toward me with his face directly in front of mine. “Can you be nice?”
“Polite, yet distant. That’s the best I can do.”
“I’ll take it.”
Dodd eased to a stop next to JohnScott’s step-side pickup and called through the open window. “So this is the Trapp high life? Ice cream in a gravel parking lot?”
“Don’t knock it.” JohnScott rose to lean against the side of his truck as Dodd killed his engine. “You should see it in the dead of winter.”
“It couldn’t be worse than this.” Grady stepped out of the car. “Where is everybody?”
“Home watching CSI probably, but all the cool people are down at the car wash.”
Dodd’s eye caught mine as he slowly shut his car door. He sucked a straw in a Dairy Queen cup, and from the gentle curve of his cheeks, I guessed he had a milkshake. I looked away.
“Ruthie-the-checker-girl.” Grady dropped to the tailgate next to me. “Can I call you that? Because Miss-Turner-the-checker-lady doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
Why did they have to come? The night had been so normal up until then. “I’m not a teacher, so I don’t see how it matters.”
Dodd lowered the tailgate of the El Camino and sat sideways, leaning against the inside of the bed with one knee bent. “Do you have a degree, Miss Turner?”
Good grief. “No, Mr. Cunningham, but I’ll be going to college next fall.”
He looked perplexed. “I thought you were older.”
“Did you now?”
A vehicle with an amplified muffler approached, drowning out my acidic remark, but it was probably for the best. JohnScott would be all over me if I kept this up. I glanced toward the street, and anxiety prickled across my skin like poison ivy. Clyde Felton’s beat-up sedan crawled toward the red light, then accelerated without stopping. His engine, growling like an angry hound, could be heard long after the car sped away.
JohnScott whistled low, but Grady, of course, smiled.
“That’s Clyde Felton. He lives across the street from us. I guess you know him?”
My cousin shook his head. “I know of his family, but Clyde only just got out of prison.”
“No way.” Grady’s smile tapered. “What did he do?”
JohnScott glanced at me, then lowered his voice. “Served twenty years for rape.”
Dodd’s elbow slipped off its perch on the edge of the El Camino, and Grady’s mouth fell open.
Scooting back in the truck, I hugged my thighs to my chest, and my skinned knee protested as my jeans tightened across the scab.
“So, Dodd …” JohnScott moved to stand behind me at the side of the truck. “How did your first week at the high school go?”
Dodd nodded slightly, acknowledging the change in topic. “Blessedly uneventful.” He took a draw from his milkshake and watched the two of us. “Not a single drug bust.”
JohnScott whooped. “Drug bust? Was that normal in Fort Worth?”
“Not every day, but a couple times a semester.”
My pulse still raced faster than a jackrabbit, but I figured I would relax more quickly if I forgot about the convict and joined the conversation. “Did you preach in Fort Worth, too?”
“Yes, Miss Turner, but I only filled in at my home congregation and a few other churches in the area. I’ve never preached full-time.”
“Did you have to go to Bible college or something?” I hoped I didn’t sound too interested, but I wanted to figure this guy out.
“No, I just started giving little sermon talks when I was in high school, and it snowballed into summer internships and random speaking gigs.”
“What’s your degree in?” JohnScott asked.
“Mathematics.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “But I changed my mind a million times. Couldn’t decide what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
“So, Coach Pickett,” Grady interrupted. “How’d you land the head coaching job at your age? You can’t be much older than Dodd.”
“Small-town politics.” JohnScott grinned. “I guess you could say I know the right people. All of them.”
“Not to mention he was Trapp’s star kicker, went to Tech on a full-ride, and”—I paused for dramatic effect—“only missed five field goals.”
Grady ducked his head, clearly not impressed but wishing he could be. “Five field goals in four years?”
“No,” I said. “Five field goals in ten years. College, high school, middle school, only five misses.”
I lobbed the remainder of my forgotten cone into a trash barrel three yards away as a honk drew our attention to a black Jeep stopped at the traffic light. Luis Vega leaned his head out the window and yelled, “Party at the elevator, Grady!” Then he squealed his tires and sped away.
Grady pointed after the Jeep, deep in thought, before snapping his fingers. “Luis Vega. Freshman tackle. Works at the United with Ruthie-the-checker-girl. Lives two doors down from the elementary school.” He grinned. “Did he say something about an elevator?”
“The grain elevator on the south edge of town,” JohnScott explained. “It’s where college kids go to drink. Apparently Luis is crashing the party.” He stood and walked to the curb, reminiscing aloud. “I haven’t been down there in years.”
Grady jerked his head and peered at his older brother.
“No.” Dodd said firmly, finishing his milkshake with a slurping rattle.
“But, Dodd, it would be a great place to rub elbows with the community.”
“Grady, the church would never approve of their minister socializing at the town watering trough.”
I stifled a laugh as I pictured holier-than-thou Dodd Cunningham drinking beer with the locals, but my cousin still focused on the blinking-red traffic light, where Luis had called to us. He lifted his ball cap and ran his fingers through his curls. “Maybe it’s time I went down there again.”
“Really?” Grady bounced to his feet. “Can I go with you, Coach?”
“Settle,” Dodd said.
“He’s not going to the elevator,” I insisted. “JohnScott, tell the kid you’re joking. He’s about to bust a gut.”
JohnScott’s expression softened, but his puppy-dog eyes trained on me, not Grady. “Ruthie, Luis is down there, and as his coach, I’ve either got to go keep an eye on him or call his parents.”
A weighted breath caught in my lungs as I realized Luis Vega’s parents wouldn’t care what their son did. “Fine,” I said, “but there’s no way I’m going with you. I’ll walk home.”
“Not with Clyde Felton on the move, you won’t.”
My throat tightened, convincing me to stay put.
“Can I go with you?” Grady repeated in a stage whisper.
JohnScott looked at the preacher and shrugged a shoulder. “What do you say?”
“You’re just getting Luis, then coming straight back?”
“I don’t want to stay down there any longer than I have to.”
Dodd sighed. “All right, Grady, but be good.”
The teenager bounded to the passenger side of the truck, as irritation slapped my patience. Just when JohnScott and I were managing the elephant in the room, our evening was yanked away from us. Luis was obviously responsible, but my dander ruffled against the Cunninghams.
JohnScott motioned for me to get up before he slammed the tailgate. “I’ll be right back, Ruthie.”
Surely he was kidding. “Wait—take me home first.”
He stopped with one leg in the cab. “Ruthie, I need to get on down there. I’ll only be gone a second.” He looked at Dodd. “Can she stay here with you for ten minutes?”
“Of course.”
My throat constricted into a solid mass of petrified wood. “No!”
“Ten minutes, Ruthie, that’s all.”
Before I could protest again, my moronic cousin pulled the door closed and drove away, leaving me alone in the middle of town, short of breath and steaming from disbelief.
With the preacher by my side.
Chapter Eleven
I could have boxed JohnScott on the ear.
Whenever he switched into coach-of-the-year mode, all he thought about were his players. And if they needed him, he would bend over backward to help. I respected him for that, but it rubbed.
Leaning a hip against the side front of the El Camino, I wrinkled my nose at Dodd’s back. He still sat on the tailgate, gazing down the street as if a parade might stroll past any minute. If I had this man figured out, he’d start talking up a storm any minute.
He looked over his shoulder and smiled in a way that made me think he was laughing at me. When I frowned, he turned back around with a shrug.
Okay, so maybe I was being rude. And if I thought about it, maybe I’d been rude all week. “Thanks for staying with me.” As soon as I said it, I realized how inaccurate the statement was. He wasn’t staying with me. He was staying away from the elevator.
“No problem.” He didn’t turn around again, and I got the feeling he was suggesting I sit with him on the tailgate, which, of course, would’ve been the normal thing to do. But this was not a normal situation. Surely he recognized that.
The El Camino was still warm, and I laid my palms flat on the hood. I was lucky things were somewhat quiet in town. Probably everyone who typically would have been cruising up and down Main Street was down at the elevator getting bombed. Hopefully JohnScott and Grady would get back before anyone else drove by. The four of us sitting at the car wash wouldn’t be worthy of gossip. Dodd and I alone? That would make the front page of the Trapp Times.
He cleared his throat. “Did JohnScott tell you Grady decided to play football after watching last night’s game?”
“At least ten times. Runner, right?”
“We like to call him a receiver.” He looked at me again, and this time he shifted sideways without breaking eye contact. “And JohnScott convinced me to help with the coaching.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you know football?”
“Know it but don’t love it.” He gazed down the street.
“Well, if you’re helping with football, you’ll have fewer discipline problems in your classes. From the boys, at least. They think coaches are the best thing since sliced bread.”
Dodd’s shoulders jiggled silently.
“Why is that funny?”
He shook his head but continued laughing. “You’re right, and I couldn’t agree more. But it was the sliced-bread comment. You sound like my grandmother. In fact, most people here talk like her.”
“Like hicks?”
He was silent for a second, and I realized he smiled as much as Grady. Only quieter. “No, just old-fashioned.”
Another car approached the stoplight, its engine running rough with a familiar sputter that sprayed panic from my eardrums to the depths of my soul. I dropped to my knees at the front bumper of the El Camino before Momma’s hatchback made it to the light. She could not see me with this man. Her mental health couldn’t take a hit like that.
“Hey, isn’t that your—”
Evidently Dodd noticed my disappearance. The car shifted as he rose from the tailgate, stepped to the side of the car, and rested his hand on the hood, where mine had been only moments before. He would be able to see me out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t look my way. Instead, his head swept slowly from left to right as he watched Momma drive past.
I stared at the change machine, wondering how to explain my actions.
When the hatchback rattled down the street, Dodd stooped down and tilted his head to study me. “Everything all right over here?” When I didn’t answer, he added, “Miss Turner?”
The panic that had thoroughly soaked my heart, now solidified with the speed of quick-set cement, leaving a hard outer shell of unbearable annoyance.
“For goodness’ sake, it’s Ruthie.”
He leaned his elbow on the front bumper. “I don’t suppose we could stand up now, could we?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I spoke slowly, my words cracking the concrete one syllable at a time. “She was headed to the Dairy Queen for a cheeseburger. She’ll be back by any minute.” I decided to change the subject. “What’s up with Grady?”
“What do you mean?”
“A week sitting next to him in Information Systems is the equivalent of three months with a person of average linguistic skills. Is he seriously that talkative, or is he trying to prove something?”
“Average linguistic skills?” Dodd lifted his eyebrows as he sat lightly on the hood. “You don’t always talk like my grandmother.”
My breathing felt deliberate, as if I would suffocate if I didn’t make a conscious effort to keep inhaling, so I calmed my lungs until my chest rose and fell at appropriate, staggered intervals, and I could almost forget I had to try. “So I’m not a hick after all?”
He shook his head slowly. “No, you’re still a hick.”
Before I could catch myself, I slapped his shin. As much as I hated to admit it, the preacher reminded me of JohnScott. But just a little.
A car stopped at the curb ten yards from us, and I tensed, not having heard it approach.
When Dodd glanced in that direction, I thought he flinched ever so slightly before stepping toward the street.
I cocked my head. Who could put the preacher on edge like that?
A low hum told me an automatic window was being lowered.
Dodd cleared his throat. “Hello, Brother Goodnight, what brings you out this late?”
Lee Roy Goodnight. Probably the oldest fuddy-duddy at the church. He and his wife weren’t bad people, just set in their ways. And their ways would never allow their young preacher to be seen with someone who practically had a scarlet letter tattooed on her chest.
“Just drivi
ng in from Lubbock.” Lee Roy paused before adding, “You?”
“Waiting for Grady. Coach Pickett took him to see something, but I expect they’ll be back any minute.”
Another pause. “Well, okay, son. I’ll see you on Sunday.”
“Yes, sir. Sunday.”
The window hummed to its original position before the car eased away from the curb. A few seconds later, Dodd appeared next to me. He clasped both hands behind his neck and sighed.
When he looked down, I lifted my eyebrows in an I-told-you-so challenge and gestured to the ground next to me.
He slid all the way down till his backside met the gravel. “I’m sorry. I was so concerned about not going to the elevator, I didn’t stop to think how it would look for me to be here with a single woman. I’m not sure the church would approve of that, either.”
“I understand.” Perfectly.
A rock dug into my thigh through my jeans, and I shifted to relieve the discomfort as I considered the irony of the situation. Because of the church, I was avoiding being seen by Momma, hiding with the preacher who was avoiding being seen by anyone in town … because of the church.
I was going to kill my cousin.
Momma’s hatchback sputtered past us again, and Dodd lifted his head, listening. He peered at me with a question in his eyes, but he seemed to let it go in lieu of a safer one. “So, you don’t drink?”
I bounced a pebble from palm to palm. “No, I don’t. My daddy drank when I was small, and I don’t see any use for it.”
“Does your dad live around here?”
I slung the pebble against the metal siding of the washing bay, but it only made a light ping. “Weren’t we talking about Grady?”
He lifted both palms. “Should I just take you home? I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me sooner.”
“Absolutely not.” I answered too quickly, but heaven forbid I should pull up to my house in the preacher’s car. I tried to soften my reaction. “Thanks, though.” I picked up another pebble. “JohnScott’s been gone longer than ten minutes.”
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