Chapter1
There was something about the way she ate those pancakesthat bothered Jax. It was the look of reverent bliss she had after she tookeach bite. Sometimes, she would simply stare at the remaining pancakes as ifshe couldn’t believe that they were the cause of such a taste or other momentsshe would simply stare up and out of the diner window at the dreary sky as sheate.
Sitting in his truck, Jax leaned comfortably against thewindow sill of his door as he waited for Herschel to come out of the postoffice. The inverters he ordered through Herschel’s hardware store weresupposed to arrive today. With his backseat filled with various boxes of foodand supplies, Jax looked down the empty street off Gaulding’s main street withimpatience. Gaulding Oregon, with a population of eight hundred, was a sadexcuse for a coastal town. Bleary rays of sunlight struggled to peek out behindthe thick gray clouds, giving the drab sea weathered buildings and itsoccupants' limited tastes of sunlight, but the girl in the diner didn’t seem tomind. Dark eyelashes softly settled downward as she closed her eyes and restedher chin against her fist, occasionally taking a sip from the off-white coffeecup.
The zippers to his coat clinked in the silence of the cab ofhis truck as he stretched out one of his legs, glancing away from themysterious girl. Finally, Jax spotted Herschel walking back across the street.It was about time. Looking at his watch, he stepped out of the truck, andinwardly sneered at the readout. It was already half past noon. Pulling theglass door open to the hardware store, Jax walked through the clangingdisturbance of bells tied to the top of the doorframe. As usual, the store wasempty.
"Okay, Mr. Beranek, let me just fish theseout-of-the-box for you," with his arms elbow-deep in Styrofoam peanuts,Herschel began taking out the inverters.
Jax only gave the eager man a grunt of acknowledgment.
If it wasn't for Herschel's bulk rate discount, Jax wouldhave just ordered the inverters online and had them sent to the post office forhimself, avoiding this wholly unnecessary step.
Dinging noises from the cash register eventually chimed,signaling to Jax he was almost done with this entire process, and he was justthat much closer to getting back on the highway and going home. Unable to stophimself, Jax glanced out the large window and past the stenciled lettering onthe glass towards the diner across the street. Through the window, he could seethe girl paying Camille for the bill before hoisting up a large bag onto herback and walking out the diner. Standing on the outside of the diner door, thegirl looked down at her phone as Jax watched. Average height, dark brown wavyhair thrown into a sloppy bun at the crown of her head, and round catlike eyes.But that was all Jax could see. Despite it being early October, the girl seemedto be layered in overly bulky clothing. Sliding her phone in her pocket, shegrabbed the straps of her backpack and walked away from the diner.
Jax’s eyes narrowed. The town’s only hotel was in theopposite direction. The beach, if she was a tourist, was also in the otherdirection. The sad excuse for a library, the town’s only school, the church,and most of the residential houses were all also in the other direction. Theonly thing in the direction she was going now was the gas station and thehighway.
“Okay, that will be one hundred and seven,” Herschel’s voicecut through his observations to grab his attention.
Jax could practically feel the excitement in Herschel’svoice to get such a large purchase. Turning from the window, Jax opened hiswallet and paid the man.
“Do you think you’ll be needing anything else, next month?”
Everything inside of him recoiled at the man’s veileddesperate plea. And for the first time since entering the shop, Jax let hiseyes meet the man’s behind the counter. As expected, Herschel’s expectant smilefaltered when he caught the hard edge in Jax’s gaze.
“Thanks,” Jax said gruffly and grabbed the paper bag withhis items.
Opening his truck door, Jax peered down the long bleak street.There was no bulky figure walking down the street. She must have turned downone of the side streets. God, just look at him, three years out in the wilds ofOregon all by himself and he turned into one of the nosy ass town peoplealready. Hell, even the locals were better than this. Gaulding wasn’t so faroff the map that they never received tourist or an occasional drifter. Histhoughts, however, wouldn’t accept that solution. The simple fact was: thiswasn’t tourist season and a girl like that certainly shouldn’t be a drifter.
Annoyed with his own intrigue, he hopped into his truck andstarted the engine. As he passed the intersections to the side streets, herefused to allow himself to look down either of them for her walking figure.Pulling over to the gas station, Jax got out and grabbed two of his big gascans in the back of the truck. Filling them up, he strapped them back into thebed of his truck before going inside.
“Hey there, Jax,” Edmund rasped from behind the counter,turning slowly in his chair from his TV to greet him. “You fillin’ up for themonth?”
Jax refrained from wincing, taking note of the impossiblysnowy reception of the old beat-up TV sitting on the counter. He had no ideahow the old bastard could sit there and watch that shit without going blind.
“Yeah, I’m headed back now,” Jax answered as he grabbed twocases of his favorite beer from the freezer.
Edmund stood up slowly with a grimace and Jax could swear heheard the man’s stiff bones pop. Leaning heavily on the counter for support,Edmund slowly started punching in the amounts into the antique cast-ironregister. Mentally, Jax counted down from five and just as he got to one Edmundbegan to shake his head. Holding back a sigh, Jax waited for the customaryspeech he had been getting every other month since he moved here.
“Boy, I tell ya,” Edmund began as he slowly reached forJax’s money. “If I were as young and fit as you, I wouldn’t be living in noGoddang woods like you do.”
Jax had to use all his control not to just reach over thetill and make the change for himself.
"Yep," Jax replied dryly as he eventually receivedthe money. Grabbing the two beer cases, he lifted them easily from the counterand turned to nudge open the glass door with his foot. "Bye, Edmund."
“Take care,” Jax could hear the screech of the old metalstool as the old man sat back down.
Swinging the beers into the passenger seat, Jax felt hisstep get lighter just at the prospect of leaving this town and getting back tothe house. Throwing the truck in gear, he got onto the highway. Lined withthick fir trees on either side of the narrow two-lane highway, Jax had no issuespotting the large mustard colored backpack along with its bulky owner. She waswalking on the opposite side of the road, in the natural ditch the road madebefore meeting up with the tree line.
The hell?! Why was she out here?
Passing her by, Jax looked up to his rearview and watched asthe distance between them widened. Besides her large camper’s backpack andbulky layered clothing, she was now carrying a large two-gallon water bottle.So, she was a hitchhiker, he concluded. Scratching at his thick beard, helooked back at the road in front of him before looking back in his mirror. Shewas young, too young to be hitchhiking in the backwoods of Oregon. Shiftinggears, his truck went down the incline of the highway and he lost sight of her.He was still scowling in thought when he reached the unpaved turn-in for hisroad.
Slowing the truck down, he thumped onto the rough gravelroad until he pulled to a stop warring with his thoughts. Something in himwanted to do something about the girl. She shouldn’t be out here. But who washe to say anything? What was he going to do, drive past her and tell her theobvious?“Don’t you know it’s dangerous for a woman to hitchhike?”Yeah,that sounded useful as fuck. Like she already didn’t know that. She could justas well tell him to go fuck off.
Looking to his right, he didn’t see any sign of her crestingthe hill yet. He should just drive home and mind his own business.
Jax’s hand hovered over his gearshift. She wasn’t hisproblem, he repeated.
