The Bitterroots (Cassie Dewell #4) - C.J. Box Page 0,45

doors to come outside. That she seemed to be searching for him made his legs even weaker.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, making eye contact with Erin and leaping up as planned.

“Ben, you need to try to get along with Isabel.”

“Mom, I’ve got to go. I’m in school.”

He said it as he approached Erin and rolled his eyes for her benefit.

“We’ll talk tonight. In the meanwhile, I’ll try to talk to your grandmother—”

He disconnected the call and slid his phone in his shirt pocket.

“Was that your mom?”

He tried for a dismissive tone. “Yeah. She’s always checking up on me.”

“That’s nice.”

“Not always.”

“Believe me,” Erin said with a flip of her strawberry blonde hair, “it’s better than not caring at all.”

Which made him realize he knew nothing at all about her family. Their conversations had been solely about school, other students, movies, music, and things like that. Ben made a mental note to ask her about her situation when the time was right. He’d heard that girls liked it when boys showed a genuine interest in their lives.

He was so new to this, he thought. This girl thing.

Erin smiled at him and gestured up the street in the direction of the Kum & Go. She said, “Ice cream for breakfast sounds awesome to me.”

“Ice cream it is,” he said, taking her backpack and throwing it over his shoulder. She was a few inches taller than him but he was stronger. She’d told him she really liked how polite he was. She’d called him a “true gentleman.”

Ben casually reached into his pocket to make sure he had money. He knew at this rate he’d burn through all the cash his mother had given him in a couple of days. And he didn’t care.

*

Ben listened as Erin told him about her English teacher from second period, how they’d gotten into an argument about The Iliad. They were side by side down the sidewalk and twice she grasped his hand for emphasis as she made a point. Her touch made his mouth go dry.

“I told him the poem would be much more interesting if it was told from Helen’s point of view,” she said. “As it is it’s no better than a cheap sword-and-sandals B movie. He disagreed.”

He loved the way she talked. It was lyrical and sophisticated and nothing ever seemed to bother her. And she had courage taking on a teacher like that.

Ben couldn’t stop staring at her naked ankles as she walked. The hem of her pants was short and he didn’t know if it was because her family couldn’t afford clothes that fit her or if it was her style. He came down firmly on her style.

As she told him about the flaws she found in the narrative of the epic poem, how she thought it was a “cheap trick” to have Zeus suddenly appear and solve the problems of the Greeks versus the Trojans, Ben realized that it was getting harder to hear her because of escalating street noise. A low rumbling filled the air.

Her spell over him temporarily broken, he looked up with annoyance.

It was a clear shot to the parking lot of the Kum & Go and the street ahead was empty. Then he turned around to see the grille of a huge tractor-trailer rumbling up the street behind them. It was black and dirty and massive, and he couldn’t see the driver because the windows were tinted.

Ben couldn’t believe it when the semi crossed the center line of the street into the other lane. It kept coming until the front tires were on the sidewalk right behind them.

Then it sped up.

He grasped Erin’s arm and pulled her into an alleyway between the corner and the convenience store. As he did so her backpack slipped off of her shoulder and fell to the pavement. He felt a wave of hot exhaust on his back.

They both watched as the Peterbilt rolled over the top of the backpack. Two sets of front wheels and two more sets of dual tires under the trailer.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

*

Once the truck was gone, accelerating loudly as it passed in front of the Kum & Go and turned at the corner, they looked at each other as if to confirm what had just happened.

“That idiot almost ran us over!” she said. “What do you think he was doing?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “He wasn’t looking where he was going. Maybe he was texting or something. I hear they do that when they drive.”

“He could have squashed