own side.
Once he started it up, his headlights illuminated my front porch.
“I like that, by the way,” he said. “Sounds good.”
My wind chime.
My wind chime that my mom had gotten me when I’d moved out.
“I love listening to it,” I said softly. “I think it drives my neighbors nuts, though. But everyone here has something that bothers someone else. My neighbor, for instance, likes to listen to his television so loud that I can hear every single word said. I don’t even have to turn my own television on to know what’s happening on all the new shows.”
He backed out of his spot with a smile, then casually reached over for my hand once he was on the road.
I swallowed hard, hoping that my hand wouldn’t betray my nervousness.
And, to cover up my nerves, I started to chatter.
“Where are you from, Hayes?” I asked.
It’d been something that I wanted to know for a while, but hadn’t had the courage to ask.
“I’m from Texas,” he answered. “Though, not from around here. Up near the panhandle.”
I looked over at him just as another streak of lightning pierced the sky’s darkness.
I jumped as thunder immediately boomed.
“Jesus,” I breathed, putting my free hand over my heart in surprise. “That scared the crap out of me.”
He grinned over at me but quickly turned his eyes back toward the road.
“Have you ever thought of leaving Kilgore?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. Well, let me take that back. I have thought about it, but immediately think better of it because this is my home. That was why I was so excited when this guidance counselor position became available. Which is why it’s pissing me off so badly that freakin’ Bailey is being such a jerk.” I looked at him more closely. “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” he answered. “It’s something my father has always asked people. And I guess that just kind of sticks when you hear it so often. He likes to say that there’s a whole wide world out there for us to explore and learn. That I waste it when I stay in one place.”
“Your dad travels a lot?” I asked curiously.
He snorted. “My dad lives out of a suitcase, and my step-mother caters to him.” He looked over at me. “Did you meet them when you were dating Ryan?”
I shook my head. “No. I’d spoken to them on the phone, but Ryan was always busy. I’m fairly sure that he always planned on us breaking up, so he didn’t introduce me to anyone. Which, for his sister’s part, I’m not too upset about.”
His grin was swift.
“She’s still in the city lock-up, by the way,” he said as he flipped his blinker on to make a U-turn. “I highly doubt that she’s going to get out of this one. I bet she sees some real jail time.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that.
I lived by the ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it’ policy. It served me well working with school-aged children.
Sensing that he really didn’t want to be on this subject, but he felt that he needed to keep me updated, I changed it back to his dad.
“Was your dad in the military?” I asked curiously.
He shook his head as he accelerated across the intersection into the restaurant’s parking lot.
And, like all men, he overshot his parking spot, and then backed into it so expertly that I envied him.
My dad and my brother could do that, too.
Me? I had to back in, straighten up, then back in one more time.
And that was if I was having a good day.
“Not in the military,” he said once he was in his spot. “My dad is a criminal psychologist. And he pretty much freelances. We go where the crime is. Or we did. Me and him, when I was younger, anyway. When he met my step-mother, I stopped traveling around so much and got to have a normal childhood.”
“That actually sounds like a lot of fun—at least from a kid’s perspective. When you think about it, it’s kind of terrifying from an adult’s. I mean, going where there is major crime enough that you need to call someone in like that?”
He grinned and bailed out of the truck.
Just as I got my door open,