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“Well, be careful, man. Some things are always off limits.”
“Don’t I know.”
Cruz walked over to Mack’s bike to check it out, and when he heard “Who was that?” he turned to see Eden’s smiling face.
“Mack.”
“Truck,” she said. He laughed.
“Does she belong to him?” Eden said as she pointed to the woman who was standing near two guys who had just pulled up, each riding single.
“Yeah. Jessie.”
“James,” she said. “And those two?”
“Nomads,” he told her. “I’ll introduce you later. We were supposed to meet up with them at Baton Rouge, but I guess they couldn’t wait.”
“I overheard you talking to Mack.”
“OK.” He didn’t think he’d said anything that would concern her, until she said:
“What makes you think I’m married?”
“Um…” Cruz didn’t know what to say. She would know he’d been eavesdropping if he told her. He didn’t want her to think he was sneaky, but why wasn’t she willing to tell him she was married anyway?
“Oh, I know,” she said. “You were listening to my conversation back at the room.” He nodded. What else could he do?
“I wasn’t listening intentionally, but I did hear what you were saying,” he said.
She didn’t say anything, so he decided to ask her outright. “So, you have a son, Nate, and a husband, Tomas?”
She was grinning at him now, and he wondered what that was about.
“I have a nephew Nate, and his father, my brother-in-law, is staying with him at my place while I am getting out and about in the big wide world…finally.”
“Fuck, that’s great.” It slipped out before he realized what he was saying. He raised his eyebrows and held a closed-mouth smile while he waited for what she was going to say next.
She didn’t. Instead, she mirrored his look with a stunned expression on her face. She was speechless.Is he into me?
“I mean…I think it’s great that you’re letting your brother-in-law and nephew stay at your place while you’re away. I think it's great too that you're taking the time out to go for a ride.”Especially with me.And then he remembered how she’d recollected Kimber’s name. “You said you knew about Kimber guns from your husband.”
“Ex,” she said.
He didn’t want to smile, but he couldn’t help himself when he heard that. And then he remembered the words he saw from the song, and he said, “Sorry.”
“It’s OK. Sometimes people don’t turn out to be who you think they are…even after years.” She was quiet for a while and then added, “He was in love with the woman I used to be.”
Cruz didn’t want to ask her how the women standing in front of him, with the sad look on her face, was different from the one her ex had left.
Cruz hardly knew Eden, but he couldn’t imagine leaving someone like her in a hurry. He was sure this road trip would reveal a lot more of her previous journey.
* * *
“Are they leaving?”Eden was looking down the road at the two nomads driving away from the park.
“They’ll be back soon. Just getting pizza. We’re all starved.”
She rolled her eyes. It was almost lunchtime…she didn’t know how long it would take to get to Lake Charles, but she would have hit the road already.
