Sorrow Road (Bell Elkins #5) - Julia Keller Page 0,72

Terrace. You could just tell. She’d watch their suffering and she’d just shake her head.” He shook his own. “Marcy had some problems, though. Like a worthless granddaughter who’d show up every few weeks, begging for money. I hated to see that. Drove Marcy crazy. She deserved better. But she had a real blind spot when it came to that girl. She’d do anything to help her.” He nodded, agreeing with his own point. “Damned shame about what happened to that sweet old lady.”

“Yeah.” Carla shuddered.

He let a moment pass. “Getting late. I better go.” He looked out the windshield, not at her. “So you’re okay to drive home?”

“Fine.” She liked his profile. It was reassuring somehow, the set of his chin, the long straight nose. The fact that he was older. He’d been through things, too—and survived. “So I’ll see you Monday,” she added. “At the Terrace. When I come to do my interviews. It might take me a few days to finish, so I’m sure we’ll run into each other.”

“Probably,” he said. He tried to stretch out his legs. They had been jammed up under the glove box. There was not much room to stretch, but he did his best. “Except,” he added.

“Except what?”

“You’ll be going back to D.C. any day now, right? To make amends for the damage you did in that store?”

His voice was casual, but still she felt ambushed. Okay, so in the end, he was just like everybody else: trying to tell her what to do.

“Maybe,” she said. She rubbed a thumb against the steering wheel. It was cold. Hell, everything was cold tonight. Cold and pointless.

“Your choice,” he said. “Just a thought.”

So he was not going to push her, after all. He was not going to give her a lecture. He had redeemed himself. She felt a peace returning, even a fragile optimism. “Look, Travis, I’m glad you were here tonight. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t—”

“You would have been fine. You’re a strong woman, Carla. You can take care of yourself. Saw that right away.”

When he said her name, her stomach did a funny little flip.

“I wish I could repay you somehow,” she said. “For taking the time. For listening.”

“Not necessary.”

“I mean it, though.” Carla needed to make him understand. “It’s like—even though I just met you, I can tell you know what I mean. You’ve been through it, too. You’ve seen things. You’ve been through something terrible, something that changed you forever. And the memories—they just keep coming at you, right? And so you have to do things that you wouldn’t—things that you’d never believe you could…” She gave up. She had to hope he would get what she was trying to say. Even if he didn’t, though, it would be enough that he tried.

She had never had this feeling before, with anyone: Like he understood her, without her having to explain everything. His calmness was rubbing off on her.

He shifted his feet. He was getting ready to leave. She reached out and patted his arm, as a way of saying good-bye. It felt funny not to have even touched him, after the intimacy of their conversation. Not so much as a handshake.

Mistake. He flinched and pulled his arm away from her, as if she’d hurt him.

Carla felt a sudden sinking dread. She instantly factored it all in: the skinniness, the pale complexion, the flinch.

Shit, she thought. IV drug user. His arm was probably tender and sore from all the needles. No wonder he had been suspicious of her motives, the moment she’d asked him to sit in her car and talk. When that was your world, it was all you thought about, all you saw. You assumed it was all anybody else thought about, too.

Disappointment turned her voice into a monotone. “See you around,” she said.

He opened the car door. Cold air knifed its way in.

“Yeah,” he said. “See you around.”

* * *

Damn, Bell thought, as the ring tone she had assigned to Sam Elkins cut through her contentment. Damn, damn, damn.

Having to take a call from your ex-husband when you were snuggling in bed with your lover, both of you languid and wet and warm and loose-limbed after a mutually satisfying episode of lovemaking, struck her as absolute proof that the universe had a wicked sense of humor.

She reached across Clay’s body to retrieve her cell from the bedside table. As she did, her nipples brushed his chest, and the moment was electric; his