Chapter Three

“What do you think the new kid’s like, Ruthie?”

I spent all evening ringing up groceries and listening to housewives chatter about Grady Cunningham, and while I hadn’t learned anything new, the family’s biography changed several times during my shift. By closing time, the older brother had evolved from an unknown Fort Worth man into a rich Montana rancher planning a takeover of the local grain elevator. A few bold shoppers even speculated that he had been in the penitentiary with Clyde Felton.

The question from the stock boy shouldn’t have irritated me, but after working fourteen hours straight between my day job at the school and my night job at the United, I’d had all I could take. I glared at him where I crouched to retrieve a wadded sales page under the counter, my shoulder grinding against the rough edge of the shelving. “Luis, don’t ask. I’m sick of hearing about those people.”

“Well, excuse me for living.” He flipped through a magazine, not looking up.

“Do you suppose you could help me?”

He turned another page. “What do you need?”

“Toss this in the trash and hand me a box of plastic bags.”

He took his time, then leaned against the counter as I spied more trash. The swishing suction of the door signaled an entering shopper, and I looked over my shoulder. A blond teenage boy, head held high, strolled past the greeting-card display. He paused in front of the water fountain and peered back at the door.

Following his gaze, I glimpsed a dark-haired man. Undoubtedly, the blond was Grady Cunningham, JohnScott’s football hopeful, and the man was his mysterious older brother. I jerked back around, but not before unintentionally making eye contact with the brunet.

JohnScott may have exaggerated a teensy bit, but Grady Cunningham was indeed handsome. The older brother, also attractive, looked like something out of the L.L.Bean mail-order catalogs in Aunt Velma’s guest bath, but neither of them struck me as knockout gorgeous. The quality of their clothing, the length of their hair, even their posture, said city folk.

Luis stared at them, trancelike, so I finished the bags on my own, rising as they came through the checkout with a bottle of Gatorade and a Dr Pepper.

I scanned the drinks, ignoring the appealing scent of cologne-over-sweat, and dropped change into the man’s palm. “Have a good day.” Store policy dictated I speak.

Luis’s gaze made a slow sweep across the man’s V-neck shirt and blue jeans, and then my juvenile coworker craned his neck to get a better view of the boy’s fancy athletic shoes. “Y’all must be new in town.”

“I’m Grady Cunningham,” the blond said, “and this is my brother, Dodd.” The boy held his hand toward Luis, who gazed at it blankly before shaking it.

“I’m Luis. This is Ruthie. You play football?”

Now that I had seen him, I understood why JohnScott assumed Grady played. He and his brother moved with the graceful air of athletes.

The teenager gently tossed his bangs out of his eyes. “I played in junior high, but I haven’t decided yet. Do you play?”

“Starting freshman,” Luis boasted.

“What grade are you in?” the man asked. His voice held the authoritative tone of a businessman, and I wondered what he did for a living. Banker, maybe?

I grabbed a bottle of Windex and drenched the spotless counter as the spray bottle honked. Why had the older Cunningham asked Luis what grade he was in? The freshman just mentioned his classification.

I wiped the counter with paper towels, wishing they would leave, but when I looked up, three pairs of eyes waited for my answer.

My nerves hummed like Uncle Ansel’s hot-wire fence. “Oh. I’m out of school.” I dropped the cleaner.

Real smooth, Ruthie.

Dodd smiled apologetically. “Have you worked here long?”

Luis answered. “Naw, about a month. Ruthie’s been here a couple years, though. She’s gotta work two jobs ’cause her dad ran off, and her mom can’t hold down a job.”

I scrubbed a sticky substance on the side of the register, using my thumbnail to scrape the last bit. Actually, I had worked at the United over four years. But still.

“You starting school?” Luis asked.

“Monday morning,” Grady said.

Dodd stepped past Luis and around the counter, and I wondered how a man could look so uppity dressed in Levi’s. Maybe it was the way he moved. I’d never be able to properly describe this guy to JohnScott.

Grady bent down until we were face-to-face. “Good to meet you, Ruthie.” He flashed a smile before following his brother.

Luis pattered after them like a puppy, asking Grady what position he played.

When the door swooshed behind my back, the hot-wire fence cooled, my nerves relaxed, and I embraced a few minutes of sheltered privacy. Lifting my hair off my shoulders, I held it to the top of my head. My neck had been stiff all evening, and when I moved it from side to side, I felt a muted crackle like rice cereal. As soon as Luis came back in, I’d turn off the lights and clock out. JohnScott would be here to pick me up in a few minutes, and I had a lot to tell him.

Pivoting to lean against the counter, I froze.

Dodd Cunningham stood ten feet away, watching me curiously as though I were on display behind a Plexiglas wall at the zoo.

I dropped my hair protectively around my shoulders. “Can I help you?”

“I didn’t mean to startle you, ma’am.”

Ma’am?

He took a step toward me and rubbed a palm across the back of his neck. “I only came back in to say it was nice to meet you.” He exhaled but didn’t turn away.

What happened to Mister Executive? I picked up the damp paper towel. “So you’re from Fort Worth.”

“You’ve heard about us?” He stepped to the empty register adjacent to mine and placed an elbow on the check-writing ledge.

“I’d say by now everybody in town’s heard about you.”

“Is that typical?”

I frowned, leaning my hips against the counter. “Everybody knowing everything you do? Yes, I’d say that’s overwhelmingly typical. Welcome to Trapp.”

He sighed, then twisted the cap off his Dr Pepper. As he took a drink, I inspected a curl nestled behind his ear.

“How do you stand it?” he asked.

My mind whirled.

“People talking about you, I mean.”

“Oh, that. No choice but to stand it.” I shrugged. “That’s just how things are.”

He scrutinized the store, focusing on the cash register, the fluorescent lights overhead, the signs hanging from chains above each aisle. Then his gaze returned to me, and the corners of his mouth lifted. “I’d better get used to it, then.”

“You might as well.”

A car horn honked, and Dodd glanced toward the parking lot. “That’s Grady.” He took a step but turned back, the executive tone returning to his voice. “It was good to meet you.”

“You, too.”

When he got to the door, he looked back yet again.

I had never been a fan of flirting, but suddenly it seemed like an opportunity I shouldn’t pass up. I smiled and tilted my head.

He reached for the door handle but missed. Chuckling, he glanced at me one last time before sheepishly putting a shoulder against the glass and walking effortlessly through the doorway.

Warmth slid from my scalp to my shoulders, as though chocolate pudding were being spooned onto the top of my head.

I crept to the window to spy on Dodd from behind the Coke machine, absentmindedly wiping fingerprints off the selection buttons with the towel still clenched in my hand.

Grady stood at the passenger side of the ugliest car I had ever seen—an old navy El Camino that wanted to be a truck but couldn’t quite make it out of the car category. Luis had his foot on the hood, leaning an elbow on his knee. It might have been a suave position for him if the hood hadn’t been so high.

Dodd, on the other hand, walked to the driver’s side as he gulped his Dr Pepper with fluid movements, reminding me of a graceful buck JohnScott and I had admired from a deer blind the fall before. The animal poised so close, we could see muscles rippling in his shoulders, until I frightened him away with an explosive sneeze.

Luis and both of the Cunninghams turned as Fawn Blaylock’s Mustang sped into the otherwise-empty parking lot and pulled into the space next to the truck wannabe, right in front of my hiding place.

I groaned. Fawn hadn’t truly spoken to me in thirteen years. Not since Momma and I left the church. Even though the church members still ignored me whenever they’d see me in town, I had enjoyed a two-year respite from Fawn while she was away at college. Her untimely arrival sucked the joy from whatever daydreams I might have entertained about Dodd Cunningham.

She flounced her blonde curls and perched on the hood of the El Camino, leaning toward Dodd as he spoke. I couldn’t make out their words because of the hum of the Coke machine, but I heard the lilt of their voices.

Why was Fawn flirting? She had a boyfriend.

Dodd capped his empty bottle and tossed it in the back of the car. He smiled at Fawn but glanced up the street while she chattered. Grady took a few sips of his Gatorade and nodded. Luis seemed to be the only one playing up to her. She paused, then bubbled laughter as though she were telling a joke, and just as she came to the punch line, the Coke machine shut off, and I was able to hear her last word. Tramp. She flicked her hand toward the store, and all three males looked through the window. Directly at me.

I ducked behind the machine as anger struck like a rattlesnake. It was one thing for Fawn to treat me like pond scum when it was just her and me, but she had no business talking about me to strangers. Reaching behind the Coke machine, I slammed light switches one after another while two images flashed across my mind. Dodd Cunningham leaning against the counter smiling at me. And Dodd Cunningham standing by his El Camino peering at me doubtfully. I could have ripped every blonde strand from Fawn’s arrogant head right then, but as I walked to the back of the store, I realized my anger wouldn’t change her one bit. Fawn was a Blaylock, and that was that.

By the time the store surrendered to darkness and I slumped into the break room, my anger once again lay coiled in hibernation.

“Those guys are great,” Luis said as he shuffled into the room smelling like a third grader after recess. “I told Grady he can hang out with me and my friends on Monday.”

The thought of Grady Cunningham and Luis Vega hanging out together should have evoked an automatic eye roll, but his statement barely registered with me. “Did you see JohnScott out there?” I asked.

“Parking lot’s deserted.” He pulled his shoulders back. “Fawn and I shot the breeze for a while after the Cunninghams took off.”

It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but I didn’t mention that to Luis. Instead, I grilled him for information. “So, Grady’s brother? He’s in college or something?”

Luis sighed dramatically. “Dodd’s twenty-six, Ruthie.”

JohnScott’s age.

I weighed the possibility of the man living with his parents, but the image didn’t fit. More likely he came to help the family move in, with the intention of returning to his job as CEO in a Fort Worth high-rise.

But maybe he was staying in Trapp.

I chewed a hangnail. What if he came in the store every evening, leaned against the register, and smiled at me?

As the ice machine dumped its load with a clatter, I reached for my purse. “So Fawn just met them?”

“Yeah, but she already heard about them from her dad and the church.”

The muscles in my neck tightened. “What do you mean?”

“Duh, Ruthie.” He slapped his hand against his forehead. “Dodd’s the new preacher.”

I turned away as my skin prickled, starting at my elbows and pulsing all the way down to the soles of my feet. Probably it was goose bumps, but it felt more like hives, or pox, or tangible dread. How could that man be the new preacher? It was impossible. I stared at the bulletin board, pretending to study next week’s work schedule and willing my voice not to quiver. “You mean their dad’s the new preacher.”

“No, Ruthie, the dad kicked off a year ago. It’s them and their mom.” He reached past me to hang his box cutter on a hook.

The image of Dodd Cunningham behind a pulpit didn’t compute, and instead, I pictured him leaning on the check-writing ledge. He had seemed so sincere when he asked, “How do you stand it?”

Suddenly my brain connected the dots.

Dodd was the preacher, so of course he had heard about my history with the church. All about Daddy and Momma’s scandal. All about how everybody down at the church shunned us. He knew. That’s what he meant.

I felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach. The goose bumps tickling across my skin melted into a heated tension that made me short-winded. I didn’t know whether to be irritated or furious, but I was definitely suspicious.

Lapsing into reflex mode, I moved through darkened aisles to the front of the store as Luis went in search of the manager to ask what needed to be done out back. My mind clouded in a dust storm of anger and humiliation, but I relaxed when I saw JohnScott outside the entrance. My cousin leaned out the window of his truck, studying a playbook under the purring glow of the store lights. I pushed through the doorway as though pushing through a wall of quicksand.

“You see him?” JohnScott queried while I locked up.

For a split second I wondered if he somehow heard I made a bumbling idiot of myself in front of Dodd Cunningham, but then I realized he was only fishing for information about our town’s recently returned rapist.

“Clyde Felton? No, but all the women say he’s huge and scary.” I picked up two stray cash-register receipts and a sticky soft-drink can from the sidewalk and tossed them in the trash barrel before opening the truck door.

“So they’ve seen him?”

“I doubt it.” I slid onto the seat next to him. “You can’t believe everything you hear at the United.”

He studied me. “There’s something wrong. What’s up?”

I could never hide my feelings from JohnScott and seldom had reason to try. Resting my head against the back window, I let the tension drain from my body. “Grady Cunningham’s brother is the new preacher at the church.”

JohnScott’s nose wrinkled as if he smelled a stinkbug, but the expression slipped away so quickly, I wondered if I’d imagined it. “You sure?”

“They were talking to Fawn Blaylock.” I rubbed my thumb against the worn vinyl of the seat, snagging my nail on a spot of exposed stuffing.

JohnScott studied his fist where it rested on the stick shift. He stayed that way for several seconds before shoving the truck into gear with a thud. “Well, little cousin, I guess this means your wedding’s off.”