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It’s been so long since I’ve been touched by anyone who isn’t my daughter that I’m out of practice accepting the innocent contact from another adult. Even one as harmless as Jem seems to be.
“Sorry about that. I’m a hugger and all around touchy feely person,” Jem says after pulling her arm back and letting it hang at her side.
“No, you’re fine. Sorry. I’m just sore from the crash,” I lie. But Jem doesn’t loop her arm with mine again.
I follow Jem out to the parking lot and after unboxing the new car seat and base, I transfer Audra to the new seat. Jem pops the old car seat in her trunk to dispose of.
“Thank you again.” I might not be comfortable with these people, but I won’t be rude on top of it.
“No problem. Did you want to fasten the base in here and I can drive you to the garage, or would you prefer to ride with Harlan?” she asks.
I glance at Harlan, and desperate for a break from his piercing stare, I say, “I’ll ride with you, if that’s okay?”
Does it make sense that I’ve latched on to this woman and am using her as an escape from the town cop who should be arguably the safest person for me to be around? No. Not one bit. But one, she’s a woman, and two, I feel safer with her.
“Yep. Har, can you install this base? I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“I can do it,” I offer, but Harlan’s nudging me out of the way.
“I got it. Jem, get in here and watch this. It’ll be good practice for when you and Boone have kiddos.” He teases her.
She barks out a laugh, the sound smooth and loud, but full of joy. “Haha, that’s not happening for a few years,” she says and winks at her husband.
He grins back at her. “It’s cute you think you’ll last a few years, Buttercup.”
Awareness prickles between his words, and I fight the urge to look away. The sexual tension between the two of them is enough to make me blush.
Harlan rolls his eyes at them and then leans into the backseat of Jem’s car with her looking over his shoulder while he expertly installs the base to the car seat. Once he backs out of the car, I climb in and double-check it. Not because I don’t think he knows what he’s doing, but placing my trust in someone else when it comes to me and my daughter is not happening.
After securing Audra in the back of the car, I walk over to the passenger side of the vehicle and wait for Jem to say goodbye to Harlan and Boone.
“We’ll follow you,” Harlan says to Jem while pinning me in place with his stare. The statement is a promise and a threat rolled into one.
It’s like he can see right through me. Like he knows all of the mess that’s going on inside my head, and that’s the most dangerous position for me to be in.
Chapter 6
Maisie
Everette is what a postcard picture of a small town should look like. Jem chatters at me while we drive through the square — which has an honest-to-god gazebo — and I answer some of her questions by rote.
The deeper questions, like where I’m from or why I’m traveling get vague responses. By the time we pull up to the garage, which is right off the square, I’m mostly comfortable. Audra fell asleep in her car seat about ten seconds into the ride, which is understandable considering the time of evening and the last few days.
Jem parks the car, and we both climb out. Harlan’s truck pulls up behind us, and he and Boone step out of the cab.
God, he’s tall. So tall that I barely come up to his chest. His broad shoulders strain the confines of his uniform shirt, and while I can appreciate the view from a purely female standpoint, his size doesn’t win him any favor with me. Neither does his choice in career.
I’ve been made to feel small, I’ve had my own smaller stature used against me, and no matter how attractive I find the sheriff of Everette, I won’t ever put myself in the same situation I ran from again.
“Here. Follow me,” Harlan says to me grabbing Audra’s car seat handle before I can. Jem and Boone hang back, and I’m thankful for it once I see my camper sitting in the vehicle bay.
Jesus Christ. We survived that.
The front end of the camper is bashed in, the driver’s side of it worse than the passenger. Crumpled metal and broken bits of bumper hang from the hood. The sidewall where my kitchen sat is dented and carved inward where it hit the embankment. There’s still dirt and dried grass stuck to the side of it. The window that was over the sink area is completely gone, shattered, the pieces probably still littering the side of the ditch.
While the camper is level now that it’s upright and parked at the garage, the back end tips downward and I note that I not only popped both tires, but from the looks of them, the rough terrain of the highway and then off-road shredded them.
Jedd thinks he can fix this? There’s no way. My camper is totaled, and I don’t have the money to replace it right now.
