Listening for the sound of the front door opening, I ask, “What time?”
“Two thirty?”
“If I can, I’ll be there,” I say, knowing I’ll find a way to go, no matter what. There’s no possibility I’ll pass up this chance to be with him.
The front door slams. Ty and I smile at each other, then look away as Mom rounds the corner.
Mom decides not to go into town after all. She says she’s tired and just wants to take a nap. I’m worried about her, but not so much that I don’t rush out the door the second I hear her snoring. I push my four-wheeler to the road so I won’t wake her when I start it.
For the first time since I was twelve and got into trouble for not wearing a helmet, I forget to put one on. Wind tugs wisps of hair from my ponytail and whips them about my head as I speed along the road. I’m not sure if it’s the cool air or the thought of seeing Ty that raises goose bumps on my skin. It’s not even two o’clock, and I told him to meet me at two thirty. I think I’ll get to the springhouse before him and surprise him, but instead he surprises me. His car is already parked behind it when I arrive. I pull up next to it and cut my engine, then walk the narrow rocky pathway that crosses beneath a small waterfall.
When I reach the clearing, I see Ty throwing rocks across the creek, his back to me. I pause in the shelter of the trees to watch him. It’s as if he’s trying to torture the opposite bank, pummeling it with stones in rapid succession, bruising the sodden carpet of moss, the fallen leaves.
After a few seconds, he stops chunking rocks and sits down on a boulder at the creek’s edge, his forearms crossing his knees. He’s not wearing the bandanna now, and as he stares into the trickling water, his hair falls over his forehead, gleaming in the sun. He seems so lost in thought that I almost don’t want to disturb him. But the wind does it for me. A gust rushes past me, clattering the tree limbs above.
Ty turns as if startled by the sound, and when he spots me his face lights up and he grins. “Hey!” He pushes to his feet. “You’re early.”
Starting toward him, I say, “So are you.”
He reaches out a hand and helps me across the uneven jumble of rocks in the gulley and over to the edge of the burbling creek. “I was afraid you might not come.”
“Mom decided to take a nap instead of going into town so I was able to sneak out.” I realize that I’m still gripping his hand, and drop it, although I don’t want to. “You have any trouble finding this place?”
“Not at all. It’s an amazing spot. Isolated.” His eyes meet mine.
“Not always. The bears like it.” I point out the green plants flanking both sides of the slender stream and poking up between low-lying, slick gray boulders. “This is a raspberry patch. By mid-August it’ll be thick with fruit. More than enough for the bears and us, too.”
“I doubt the bears would be happy to share,” Ty says with a laugh.
“You just have to hold your ground. Stare them down.”
He squints at me, his amused expression doing crazy things to my insides. “You’ve done that?” he asks, tilting his head to one side.
“Yeah. A black bear came up on me here a couple of years ago. I figured she could run faster over rocks than I could, so I just stayed put and glared at her with my mouth stuffed with raspberries.”
“What happened?”
“She eventually took off, and I threw up.”
He leans his head back and laughs.
I laugh, too, then go quiet. “I guess you must think it’s ridiculous that I have to sneak off to meet up with you.”
“Not ridiculous.” Ty crouches and dips his hand into the stream, letting the water flow through his fingers. “Maybe a little old-fashioned, but that’s cool. It just shows that your mom cares about you.”
“I guess. What about your parents? Are they strict?” I cringe inside. Stupid question. He’s traveling alone. How strict could they be?
“They probably aren’t strict enough,” Ty says, as if reading my thoughts. He picks up a stone and tosses it across the stream, lightly this time,