Chapter Eleven

I could have boxed JohnScott on the ear.

Whenever he switched into coach-of-the-year mode, all he thought about were his players. And if they needed him, he would bend over backward to help. I respected him for that, but it rubbed.

Leaning a hip against the side front of the El Camino, I wrinkled my nose at Dodd’s back. He still sat on the tailgate, gazing down the street as if a parade might stroll past any minute. If I had this man figured out, he’d start talking up a storm any minute.

He looked over his shoulder and smiled in a way that made me think he was laughing at me. When I frowned, he turned back around with a shrug.

Okay, so maybe I was being rude. And if I thought about it, maybe I’d been rude all week. “Thanks for staying with me.” As soon as I said it, I realized how inaccurate the statement was. He wasn’t staying with me. He was staying away from the elevator.

“No problem.” He didn’t turn around again, and I got the feeling he was suggesting I sit with him on the tailgate, which, of course, would’ve been the normal thing to do. But this was not a normal situation. Surely he recognized that.

The El Camino was still warm, and I laid my palms flat on the hood. I was lucky things were somewhat quiet in town. Probably everyone who typically would have been cruising up and down Main Street was down at the elevator getting bombed. Hopefully JohnScott and Grady would get back before anyone else drove by. The four of us sitting at the car wash wouldn’t be worthy of gossip. Dodd and I alone? That would make the front page of the Trapp Times.

He cleared his throat. “Did JohnScott tell you Grady decided to play football after watching last night’s game?”

“At least ten times. Runner, right?”

“We like to call him a receiver.” He looked at me again, and this time he shifted sideways without breaking eye contact. “And JohnScott convinced me to help with the coaching.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Do you know football?”

“Know it but don’t love it.” He gazed down the street.

“Well, if you’re helping with football, you’ll have fewer discipline problems in your classes. From the boys, at least. They think coaches are the best thing since sliced bread.”

Dodd’s shoulders jiggled silently.

“Why is that funny?”

He shook his head but continued laughing. “You’re right, and I couldn’t agree more. But it was the sliced-bread comment. You sound like my grandmother. In fact, most people here talk like her.”

“Like hicks?”

He was silent for a second, and I realized he smiled as much as Grady. Only quieter. “No, just old-fashioned.”

Another car approached the stoplight, its engine running rough with a familiar sputter that sprayed panic from my eardrums to the depths of my soul. I dropped to my knees at the front bumper of the El Camino before Momma’s hatchback made it to the light. She could not see me with this man. Her mental health couldn’t take a hit like that.

“Hey, isn’t that your—”

Evidently Dodd noticed my disappearance. The car shifted as he rose from the tailgate, stepped to the side of the car, and rested his hand on the hood, where mine had been only moments before. He would be able to see me out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t look my way. Instead, his head swept slowly from left to right as he watched Momma drive past.

I stared at the change machine, wondering how to explain my actions.

When the hatchback rattled down the street, Dodd stooped down and tilted his head to study me. “Everything all right over here?” When I didn’t answer, he added, “Miss Turner?”

The panic that had thoroughly soaked my heart, now solidified with the speed of quick-set cement, leaving a hard outer shell of unbearable annoyance.

“For goodness’ sake, it’s Ruthie.”

He leaned his elbow on the front bumper. “I don’t suppose we could stand up now, could we?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I spoke slowly, my words cracking the concrete one syllable at a time. “She was headed to the Dairy Queen for a cheeseburger. She’ll be back by any minute.” I decided to change the subject. “What’s up with Grady?”

“What do you mean?”

“A week sitting next to him in Information Systems is the equivalent of three months with a person of average linguistic skills. Is he seriously that talkative, or is he trying to prove something?”

“Average linguistic skills?” Dodd lifted his eyebrows as he sat lightly on the hood. “You don’t always talk like my grandmother.”

My breathing felt deliberate, as if I would suffocate if I didn’t make a conscious effort to keep inhaling, so I calmed my lungs until my chest rose and fell at appropriate, staggered intervals, and I could almost forget I had to try. “So I’m not a hick after all?”

He shook his head slowly. “No, you’re still a hick.”

Before I could catch myself, I slapped his shin. As much as I hated to admit it, the preacher reminded me of JohnScott. But just a little.

A car stopped at the curb ten yards from us, and I tensed, not having heard it approach.

When Dodd glanced in that direction, I thought he flinched ever so slightly before stepping toward the street.

I cocked my head. Who could put the preacher on edge like that?

A low hum told me an automatic window was being lowered.

Dodd cleared his throat. “Hello, Brother Goodnight, what brings you out this late?”

Lee Roy Goodnight. Probably the oldest fuddy-duddy at the church. He and his wife weren’t bad people, just set in their ways. And their ways would never allow their young preacher to be seen with someone who practically had a scarlet letter tattooed on her chest.

“Just driving in from Lubbock.” Lee Roy paused before adding, “You?”

“Waiting for Grady. Coach Pickett took him to see something, but I expect they’ll be back any minute.”

Another pause. “Well, okay, son. I’ll see you on Sunday.”

“Yes, sir. Sunday.”

The window hummed to its original position before the car eased away from the curb. A few seconds later, Dodd appeared next to me. He clasped both hands behind his neck and sighed.

When he looked down, I lifted my eyebrows in an I-told-you-so challenge and gestured to the ground next to me.

He slid all the way down till his backside met the gravel. “I’m sorry. I was so concerned about not going to the elevator, I didn’t stop to think how it would look for me to be here with a single woman. I’m not sure the church would approve of that, either.”

“I understand.” Perfectly.

A rock dug into my thigh through my jeans, and I shifted to relieve the discomfort as I considered the irony of the situation. Because of the church, I was avoiding being seen by Momma, hiding with the preacher who was avoiding being seen by anyone in town … because of the church.

I was going to kill my cousin.

Momma’s hatchback sputtered past us again, and Dodd lifted his head, listening. He peered at me with a question in his eyes, but he seemed to let it go in lieu of a safer one. “So, you don’t drink?”

I bounced a pebble from palm to palm. “No, I don’t. My daddy drank when I was small, and I don’t see any use for it.”

“Does your dad live around here?”

I slung the pebble against the metal siding of the washing bay, but it only made a light ping. “Weren’t we talking about Grady?”

He lifted both palms. “Should I just take you home? I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me sooner.”

“Absolutely not.” I answered too quickly, but heaven forbid I should pull up to my house in the preacher’s car. I tried to soften my reaction. “Thanks, though.” I picked up another pebble. “JohnScott’s been gone longer than ten minutes.”

“More like thirty.” Dodd pulled out his cell phone, swiped the screen, and immediately became enthralled with the contraption.

I rolled the small rock between my palms like a ball of Play-Doh. “Checking the weather? Surfing Facebook? Playing a mindless game?”

His fingers stilled. “Texting JohnScott.”

I let the pebble slip to the ground. “Oh … What did he say?”

“Didn’t reply.” Dodd turned his phone off but didn’t put it away. “You don’t have a handheld device?”

A giggle slipped from my throat, and I shook my head slightly, thinking the preacher sounded like an advertisement for an electronics store. “You mean a cell phone? No, I don’t have one. I’ve got better things to spend my money on.”

“Yeah, Grady doesn’t have one either. When we moved, that’s one of the things we cut from the budget.”

I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye, surprised his teenage brother would give up his cell phone for the good of the family. I wondered what else had been shaved off their expenses.

Dodd punched a button, and the screen lit up again. “I’m addicted to Candy Crush.” He smiled tightly, as though ashamed.

“What’s Candy Crush?”

“A stupid game. What was the adjective you used?” He nodded. “Mindless.”

“It can’t be that bad if you’re addicted to it. Show me.” I leaned toward him but kept a comfortable distance.

He held the phone toward me, swiping here and there as a happy tune played. “You just match the candies and try to get three in a row.”

I was supposed to be watching him play the game, but instead I inspected his square palm. Hardly any calluses. Long fingers. Neatly trimmed nails. And for some reason, his hands seemed … kind.

But that was absurd.

Hands were not kind. Hands had no personality traits whatsoever, and even if they did, I had no reason to trust Dodd Cunningham’s.

I turned my head away. “You’re right. That’s stupid.”

He chuckled. “Grady says I need a twelve-step program.”

“Not a bad idea. I think JohnScott might be addicted to ESPN. He checks scores more often than he eats and drinks.”

“He certainly loves the game of football.” Dodd went to work on his phone again. “Check out this app I found. It shows you the stars.”

“It can’t be better than Candy Crush,” I said flatly.

He wagged a finger back and forth an inch in front of my nose. “Just you wait.”

Dodd Cunningham may have been a jerk, but he had extra­ordinary people skills. Even though I despised him, he somehow kept drawing me out of myself, and only part of me wanted to get away from him. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think JohnScott would feel threatened by it.”

JohnScott wouldn’t feel threatened no matter who I played games with. Not that I had tested that theory lately. Picking up a handful of gravel, I let it sift through my fingers.

“See?” Dodd held the phone above his head, pointing at the screen. “It shows you the stars and constellations that are above you.”

I rested one palm on the ground behind his hip and cautiously leaned in to get a closer look.

“And you can move it around.” He demonstrated. “Whatever direction you choose, it shows you what’s there.”

“Too bad it’s so cloudy tonight. I’d like to see the real stars now that I know what I’m looking for.” I nudged his hand, sweeping the device slowly across the night sky, and then I put my finger and thumb on each side of his wrist, stilling his movements. I tilted my head, squinting to read a caption about a satellite.

I heard a tentative sniff just before Dodd’s breath brushed my ear.

Was he smelling my hair?

I stared blindly at the stars on the screen—his thumb partially obscuring the words—and in a split second, I racked my brain for an appropriate course of action.

None came.

I turned my head slightly, and his eyes studied my lips before traveling upward to meet my gaze.

I held my breath. A dormant longing awakened inside me, and a pleasant shiver rippled across my shoulders. At the same time, the tolerance I’d been nurturing began to curdle into a soured knot of contempt.

“I should go.” I shoved away from him, knocking my elbow against the taillight as I jumped to my feet and stumbled from behind the El Camino.

For crying out loud, I could walk home. I could run home. I could flag down a passing car and get a ride.

“Ruthie, wait.”

Dodd’s voice did nothing except propel me forward in a frantic attempt to distance myself. But just as I made it to the sidewalk, Clyde Felton’s sedan came to a stop at the red light. My movements caught the convict’s attention, and when his eyes locked with mine, I felt the burning urge to release a guttural cry like a trapped animal. God has quite the sense of humor.

Instantly weighing the lesser of two evils, I spun around and slammed into Dodd’s chest, knocking both of us off balance.

He wrapped an arm around my waist to steady me.

The sensation of his embrace startled me, and I couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. Could think of nothing except the heat of his arm on my back, seeping through my T-shirt to warm my skin.

“Watch it!” I convulsed away from him.

“Ruthie, I … I’m sorry.”

“Take me to JohnScott.”

The preacher’s eyes widened. “Miss Turner, you know I can’t go down there.”

I trembled with rage and angst and acute embarrassment. “Oh, that’s right. You can’t be seen at the elevator where there’s alcohol, but you can hide out at the car wash trying to seduce a single woman. That makes perfect sense.”

“That’s not what happened,” he said forcefully.

“Take me to JohnScott,” I demanded. “Now.”