Bingo. “Just because you think something in your head, doesn’t mean you have to say it aloud. I didn’t call you an ass—aloud—even though you seem like an ass.”
“You don’tseemlike you’re tiny. Youaretiny. Compared to me, anyway. Now if you go back to the Middle Ages, when the average woman was five feet or shorter, then?—"
“Hey, Fox!” somebody calls out from across the street. “Those brackets Heathcliff wanted came in. Don’t forget to stop in and pick them up.”
“Will do, Rena.” He turns back to me and for some reason, I’m still standing right next to him. “So, how long does the bike trip to Heaven take?”
“About forty-five minutes.”
“Unless you’re into self-torture, I could give you a quick ride back to Heaven.” He points two fingers at an old beat-up pickup truck with an Operation Desert Storm combat veteran sticker on the back. “If you want to take the risk of hopping into a car with a devastatingly handsome stranger.”
When I was growing up, my big sis, Cat, tried to put the fear of God in me to never get into a car with strangers or I would die… or worse. Not that I knew what “or worse” meant back then. She never explained the “or worse.” But now I know. Yes, the stranger could be a serial killer. Or a rapist. Or a groper. Or one of those guys who tries to make an awkward pass at you when you get out of the car, and you have to avoid them like leprosy after that for the rest of your life. Or—in this scenarioright here and now—he could ma’am me to death. Or call me “little lady,” because he thinks it’s a compliment. Or he could ask me questions about myself. And then I’d have to either keep my mouth shut or lie through my teeth about where I’m from, why I’m visiting Paradise Springs, or what fun things I’ve been doing on my “vacation.” Because those are the typical things one chats about when they’re “on vacation.” Either way, it would be a very awkward ride back.
“It’s okay,” he says, shaking me out of my reverie. “Just say ‘no, thank you.’ You don’t have to overthink the offer. I don’t blame you for not wanting to get in a rusty old pickup with me for a ride through Billie’s Marsh. You don’t know me. But since it’s a short trip if your mode of transportation has an engineandbecause I don’t have a stick up my ass, I was trying to be neighborly. That’s all.”
“No, thank you.”
He tips his hat.Finally.As he walks away, I watch him. He checked out my legs, so I might as well check out his backside. And for the record, it’s true—hedoesnothave a stick up his ass.
He turns, and I glance down at my bike basket and fiddle with the cooler, my expression blasé even though I’m blushing internally. He really does have a nice backside.
“Maybe I’ll see you around again?” he calls out.
I look up. “It seems inevitable in such a small town.”
“Inevitable. Huh. I like those odds.” He winks.
3
HONEY
A familyof sand hill cranes pecks at the ground in an open, marshy field that runs along the road. That’s another advantage to not whizzing around in an air-conditioned car, besides not having to talk to cocky strangers. I can see and hear things up close and personal that I would have missed if I were driving.
I slowly and quietly walk my bike off the road and prop it against a tree, pull out my sketchbook and pencil, and begin a rough sketch of the downy-feathered baby sand hill crane shadowing his parents as they peck at the ground looking for food. I follow the family as they shift farther into the field. I weave through thick-trunked strangler figs before stepping through their stalwart line and practically stumbling into a small, crystal-clear pond glistening in the sun. It’s hugged by beach daisies, overgrown ferns, and thick patches of beach grass. A rickety dock juts out into the pond. A stone path, long neglected, winds back to a charming, old Florida cracker house, with a wide, listing veranda. The whole property, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, seems as if it’s been forgotten by everyone.
I return to my bike, making note of the location of the path, so I can find it again, hoping that it isn’t, somehow, a figmentof my imagination. I bike back down the path, through the strangler figs, and there it is. As enchanting and peaceful as before.
I prop my bike against the veranda and rummage in my satchel for the flip phone I was provided by the safe house. I check the time. I have ten minutes before I can call Cat.
I always call Cat at the same time—when she’s driving to or from work. Usually, I time it so that I can make the call sitting under the shade of the giant magnolia tree, now ripe with large, white flowering buds, that signifies the turnoff to Heaven. But this little haven, with its ribbon of privacy formed by the strangler figs, is the perfect place to call her.
The dock has some split and warped boards, so I carefully make my way to the edge. When I plop my satchel onto the dock, tug off my shoes and socks, and sit on the edge of the dock, slipping my feet into the water, it’s wonderfully cool. A spring bubbles in the middle—the source of the water and why it’s such a clean, clear blue green.
A hawk cries overhead as if to say, “I’ll share today. Welcome. Enjoy.” It lands effortlessly in a branch of one of the thick, tall oak trees, watching me.
It’s just me and the hawk, so I tug my shirt and shorts off and slide into the cool water. It washes over my hot, tired body like a balm. I lay back in the water and float. I don’t usually cry when I’m sad. But when something feels this good and my body is being offered comfort like this right now, that’s when the tears come. As if feeling right is wrong now. As if happiness is now so confusing that my body doesn’t know how to respond appropriately. When the tears roll down my cheeks, I dunk my head in the water to wash them away.
I float for too long, losing track of time before I realize it’s past time to call Cat. Scrambling back on the dock, I dry my hands with my coffee-stained T-shirt before automaticallypoking out her old number—not the one I’m supposed to be using but the one my fingers remember because they’ve typed it out millions of times. I stop just before I hit send. Cursing, I retype the correct numbers to Cat’s flip phone in her glovebox. Cat’s my one contact. My one support and tie to my old life, and sometimes it seems like my sole tie to sanity. Cat and I take the flip phones seriously, even if they feel a little silly. Because Trey has too much money to throw away, he is undoubtedly paying someone to watch, track, and listen to everyone I know, for the sole purpose of finding me and bringing me back “home.”
Cat would have never gotten mixed up with a man like Trey. She would have recognized him for who he was the second she saw him. Then, she would have given him the finger. With both hands.
Not that Trey would have been looking. He’s intolerant of people who don’t fall in love with him at first sight—a frighteningly small number, due to his ability to charm the socks off most people. Because Cat and I are different from each other in a multitude of ways, Trey didn’t understand our relationship. That isn’t surprising to me now that I see he’s incapable of loving other people deeply and unselfishly. One time, when Cat and I had a disagreement over something so minor that I don’t even remember, Trey asked me why Cat was still in my life. “She’s a bitch,” he said, shrugging. “You two have nothing in common and she drags you down. You should ditch her. Families ditch families all the time.”
“You got her all wrong,” I told him. This was before I found out that I should never tell him he was wrong or I would pay for it.
“No, Honey,” he said. “You’vegotherall wrong.”
I had reeled at that. “So,you’resaying that the woman I’ve known since birth, and the woman who raised me because my parents were rarely around, is not who I think she is?”
