Page 9 of Hearts at War

“It doesn’t?”

I glanced at him. “It doesn’t,” I replied, deadpan.

“Well, if there’s any woman you do want to get stuck staring at, I wouldn’t recommend her.”

That little seed of curiosity flamed to life again. “Why not? Who is she?”

He chuckled, turning on the long road toward the ranch. “Aha. You are interested.”

“What are we? Teenagers? Come on. I am intrigued. How could I not be when she came on so strong like that? Something’s sure up her ass to be that bitchy.”

“Heather James.”

“And she’s from around here?” I can’t see how. I moved here three years ago and more or less met most of the townsfolk soon enough. If I met that woman before, I wouldn’t have forgotten her. I doubted many men could, even with her sassy attitude.

“Yeah, born and raised, actually.”

“Huh. First time I saw her.”

“She hasn’t been around lately. Her family grew up here, I think. She’s an only child, and both her parents died just after she graduated high school.”

“Damn. That sounds tragic.”

“They won some trip from a raffle or something. Their plane crashed over the ocean.”

Very tragic.

“Not that anyone would miss them in Burton.”

Now, this was getting juicy.

“Her dad was a drunk asshole. He was a trucker. Her mom worked at the school, as a janitor, and she had such a crappy personality. Mean. Petty. Quick to accuse others of making her life hell...” He shrugged. “I never spoke with them.”

“Not even Heather?” It seemed like his wisdom and knowledge fit only in the “heard of her” category. He seemed to be around her age, though, so it was plausible to assume they were acquaintances in a town as small as Burton.

“No. She was younger, just a freshman when I was a senior. She kept to herself a lot, all through grade school and stuff. Not really social.”

Gee, don’t color me surprised.

“And lots of people talked shit about her parents. She was often the butt of jokes.”

“Ah. Good, ol’ small-town drama,” I teased.

“Anyway, Heather never made it a secret that she wanted to get the hell out of town.”

I scoffed. “Well if everyone teased her and she didn’t fit in, I guess no one could blame her.”

“No. That’s true. It seemed inevitable that she’d want to get out of town. It’s not like she’s the only one.” He turned again onto another dark road and yawned. “Lots of classmates want to move away. Better jobs—for those who aren’t planning on staying for Grand River. Better opportunities and all. Heather was definitely one of them. It was like she made her desire to get out of here her whole identity.”

“That obsessed with it, huh?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “And she had the means to get out. Honors student, debate team, extracurriculars for scholarships. I think something happened with her parents lying about something on a form though, that made her miss out on a scholarship, but she stayed in town long enough to get an associate’s degree or something. She worked a lot and never went out.”

I guess that explains why I never saw her before. When I moved in, I was set in my ways of having fun and moving on from my divorce. I, too, worked a lot. It wasn’t so far of a reach that our paths never crossed.

“Then she moved to Chicago.”

“That’s a distance.” It wasn’t as much of a distance as the one I wanted from Texas, when I moved here, but it was still a significant distance.