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It was a good thing he couldn’t read her mind or he’d probably decide it was safer to walk the rest of Route 66 than be trapped in the car with her. “Neither of us had any say in it. We’re all innocent pawns in Kathleen’s game.” Thinking about Kathleen triggered another niggle of anxiety. “Maybe you’re right, and we should turn round. She put on a brave face yesterday, but she didn’t sleep last night. Did you see those shadows under her eyes?”
“She’s eighty. And we had a busy day yesterday.”
Somehow he always managed to reassure her. And it was true that they’d had a busy day. They’d driven from Winslow to Flagstaff, stopping at the Meteor Crater.
“And you did fill her head with scientific facts, which probably exhausted her.” But Martha knew the real cause of Kathleen’s fatigue went deeper than that. She was anxious about meeting Ruth. “I have a feeling that now she has made the decision, she wants to get it done. Be serious for a moment—do you think we should have stayed and distracted her?”
“No. She wanted us to do this.” Josh rubbed his hand over his jaw. “I’ve been given strict instructions to show you a good time, which will be a challenge given my lack of affection for water sports.”
Martha adjusted her grip on the wheel. “You’re supposed to show me a good time? What exactly does that mean?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
She was pretty sure that any time spent with Josh would be a good time. “What if I don’t? What if your idea of a good time isn’t my idea of a good time?”
“Then you’ll have to lie. To keep her happy.”
Martha studied the road ahead. “I won’t lie. So you’d better make sure I have a good time, Josh Ryder. No moaning about water. No sarcasm. No blinding me with facts about how old the rocks are or when the Grand Canyon was formed.”
“Would you like to know how many hapless tourists drown rafting on the Colorado River every year?”
“No.”
“The temperature of the water?”
“Definitely not.”
“This is like being with Red.”
She glanced at him and was relieved to see a smile on his face. “He had curly, badly behaved hair, an oversize rear end and skin with a tendency to burn in the sun?”
“Mmm.” He gestured to the side of the road. “Pull over.”
“Now? Why?”
“I can state with confidence that your curly hair is as cute as your freckles, but I might need to take a closer look at your rear end before I can give a definitive answer on relative sizes.”
“Josh Ryder! I am not pulling over so that you can stare at my butt.”
“My loss.” But he was grinning and so was she.
And maybe that should have surprised her as they’d been talking about his brother, but she’d learned after her grandmother had died that sadness and laughter could coexist.
“So how is this like being with Red?”
“You mean apart from the laughter? Like you, he was never interested in any of this stuff and I tried to make him interested. I often tried to persuade him to change his life, and do something more serious and adult, but all he wanted to do was chase waves and have a good time. Interestingly, he never tried to change me, even though my life choices seemed as crazy to him as his did to me.”
“But despite all that you were close.” She could hear it in the way he talked about his brother.
“Yes. Whenever we were both in we’d get together and share a few beers—more than a few.”
“I’m surprised your evil boss gave you the time off. You should have taken yourself to an employment tribunal or something. Cruelty to workers.”
“I like to think I was fair with everyone else.” He glanced at the roadside. “Make a right. If you’re determined to do this, this is our turning.”
She turned and found the parking lot. “From here we go on a bus to the bottom of the canyon. I’m excited, are you?”
“Not remotely.” But he was good-natured as the bus bumped its way down the road and was still almost smiling as they settled themselves into the boat.
