Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,38

. . . he, uh, he thinks you’d be happier this year in sixth grade.”

Colie dropped her arm. “What?”

“You missed quite a bit of school at the end of the year last spring.”

Colie actually looked her straight in the eye. “Yeah, my mom was sick.”

It was as if she’d hurled a piercing arrow toward Jen. One that turned around in midair and pointed straight back at the girl. Because, oh, the torment she saw in Colie’s eyes. The mix of anger and dismay.

“I’m sorry, Colie. I’m so—”

Colie shoved herself out the passenger door. Jen cut the engine and hurried out after her. “Colie, please—”

The girl whirled around on the sidewalk. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not staying here long. We’ll leave eventually.”

Where exactly did she think they’d go? “I know this is hard. But please . . . let’s try to talk this out. In the car. School’s going to let out soon and this parking lot will be a zoo.”

“Whatever.” Colie budged past her, moving once again in the direction of the car.

“Colie—”

“I said, whatever.” She slammed the door and sank into her seat.

Leaving Jen to round the car, heart sinking.

8

The beads of hot water soaking his hair and pummeling his skin might slick away the grime of this day, but they couldn’t come close to warding off Lucas’s exhaustion.

He stood in the shower, eyes closed, forcing himself not to lean against a tiled wall lest he nod off right here and now. It wasn’t just the work, the hours spent hacking up that tree and hauling logs and limbs in the wheelbarrow. It was last night’s less-than-restful sleep due to the hard floor—he must’ve gone soft from months on that comfortable mattress at the B&B.

It was concern over the fact that he never had been able to find Noah today, and he was legit beginning to wonder if he’d ever get his truck back.

It was that conversation with Sam. He couldn’t decide which rankled him most. Sam having picked up on his plans to leave and his lies about Mexico.

Or his friend’s complete lack of faith in him.

He turned off the water and shoved the shower curtain aside, reaching for a towel. Humidity thickened the air in the cottage’s small bathroom and clouded the medicine cabinet mirror. Towel wrapped around his waist, he scrubbed a circle into the mirror and spared himself a brief glance. Should he take the time to shave?

His focus roamed lower—to the pinched skin of his arms. The burn marks started on his wrists and climbed all the way past both elbows, darker and more mottled in some spots than others, but an eyesore all the same.

Wasn’t so much the sight of them that bothered him. He wasn’t vain, and anyway it was easy enough to cover them.

It was the memories they induced. The sensations they still managed to resurrect even all these years later. The smell of burning flesh—not all his own. The weight of the body he’d carried through the village. The anguished cries of the child’s mother . . .

His own yells when he’d awakened from the darkness later. The searing pain.

Stop.

He whirled away from the mirror, bent to swipe his discarded clothing from the floor, then ducked his head out the bathroom door. One of Noah’s shirts was slung over the old couch in the middle of the living room and from here he could see the guy’s duffel through an open bedroom door.

Noah might not have returned to the cottage, but he hadn’t left entirely. That, at least, was something. But just how long was he supposed to hang around waiting for Noah to return? And why—why?—had Flagg thought this was a good idea?

On a whim, he snatched his cell phone from the kitchenette counter as he padded to the back bedroom, leaving wet prints on the wood planks underfoot. A voice answered on the second ring.

But not the voice he expected. “Hey, Danby.”

“Uh, hey, Court. Why’re you answering Doug’s phone?”

“Doug’s dealing with a burnt pizza situation. We’re all at his place. Pizza. Football. You know the drill.”

Right, because when the Bridgewell Elite team was stateside, Mondays were training days at the gym. Which meant during the NFL season, no one ever got home in time for whatever game was airing that night. They’d made a habit of gathering on Tuesday evenings and watching a recorded game.

He could picture them now in Doug’s apartment—as sparse as the rest of the group’s. Courtney with her cropped hair, usually in track