Page 29 of Runaway Road (Runaway 1)

“Really? Okay.” That was disappointing. Expected, since he’d promised three or four days, but disappointing. As a show of faith, I hadn’t asked Brooks about my car. Or maybe I hadn’t asked because I was content for the moment.

Brooks swallowed the last bite of his sandwich. How he could eat all that and maintain a flat stomach was borderline unfair. I’d only made it through a third of mine and was stuffed. I wrapped it in the paper and set it aside.

“You’ll be back on the road tomorrow.”

Did I hear a hint of disappointment in his voice? Or was I projecting my own? “That’s fantastic.”

Liar. Maybe I could stay longer? I didn’t have a schedule. This trip was all about me and going at my own pace. Tempting, but every night spent on this rock with Brooks would only make me hold out for the next.

I could stay, but I wouldn’t. The time had come to move along to the next stop on this adventure. Once Karson had the Cadillac and I’d satisfied my curiosity about his life, I would be free to wander and go at my own pace.

“Brooks?” A woman’s voice carried across the yard behind us. We both twisted, looking past a tree trunk.

“Damn it,” Brooks grumbled, pushing up to his feet. “Be back.”

“Okay.”

He jogged across the yard, once again in bare feet, and met the woman as she came down from his porch. She wore black sunglasses that hid most of her face. Her brown hair was pulled up into a purposefully messy knot on the top of her head. The summer dress she wore wrapped around her body, tying tight underneath her generous breasts.

She was beautiful, and clearly upset with my dinner companion. She planted her hands on her waist and screwed up her mouth in a tight line as Brooks spoke. When it was her turn to talk, she cast a scowl my way.

Shit. She’d caught me staring. Should I hide? Who was she?

I hadn’t asked if Brooks had a girlfriend. Considering we sat outside his house, I was certain he wasn’t married. I’d made the assumption that he was the kind of man who wouldn’t be sharing dinner with a woman if he were otherwise entangled.

Maybe that was stupid on my part. My husband had just cheated on me. But, call it a gut feeling, Brooks didn’t seem to be the straying kind.

He was a man who bought a woman a cell phone because he didn’t like the idea of her on the road without the ability to call for help. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word, putting me first in everything from opening a door to taking the first bite of a meal.

Not wanting to stare as he spoke to the woman, I turned my attention to the lake. I sipped the bottle of water he’d brought me as a speedboat raced through the calm water in the distance. It traveled fast, a white fleck on the water by the time Brooks came back.

“Sorry about that.” He hopped up on the rock.

“That’s okay. Do you need to go?” An engine started in the distance and I glanced over my shoulder as the woman reversed a Honda out of his driveway.

“No. That was my ex-wife, Moira.”

“Ah.” Of course she’d be beautiful. I bet she’d made a beautiful bride in a white gown, walking to a handsome Brooks in a tux, standing at an altar. My mental picture was tinged with green.

When was the last time I’d gotten jealous? Had I been jealous of Secretary? Hurt, yes. Betrayed, absolutely. But jealous? Not really.

Had his house been Moira’s home? Had she shared this rock too?

“Do you ever swim in the lake?” I blurted.

It was an odd question, given the moment, but I didn’t want to talk to Brooks about his ex-wife. I sensed he didn’t either. Especially on our last night.

“Sometimes.” Brooks went along with my change of subject. “When it’s hot.”

“I only learned to swim five years ago.” My parents hadn’t put me in swim lessons, and I’d been busy working my summers away instead of spending them at the community pool. On my honeymoon, I’d stayed safely in a lounge chair.

It wasn’t until Thomas had insisted on scuba diving on a trip to the Caribbean that I’d had to admit I didn’t know how to swim. He’d insisted on lessons.

“I was supposed to take private lessons, but when I got to the pool, there had been a mix-up and they’d put me in the kids’ class. They offered to switch things around, but I stayed. The kids didn’t care that a grown woman couldn’t swim. I wasn’t quite as pathetic.”

“There’s a lot of folks who live around here, around this lake, and don’t swim.” Brooks nudged my shoulder with his. “It’s not pathetic.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”