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“Last week. I was living in Portland for a while, working at a mechanic shop. Got my skills on the job. The city was never going to be my home. Not for me.”
“No.” She frowned. “Why did you come back?”
There was a lost sort of expression on his face. “I don’t know.”
CHAPTER TWO
THISWASN’TTHEconversation they ought to be having in the grocery store. And it was a lie anyway. Because the truth was something he was trying to keep hidden, even from himself. But Penny Case was the one thing he couldn’t quite let go of. The one piece of the past that he just didn’t want to be rid of. Because he would be in jail or dead if it wasn’t for her. That was just the truth. It was hard to explain how her kindness back then had changed everything, made it all different. But it had.
“Do you want to come out and see the place?”
“Oh,” she said, squeezing the peach in her hand. “I... I do. Denver and everybody are expecting me back for dinner.”
“Well. It’s only two o’clock. I won’t keep you.”
“All right. I’m happy to follow you out to the place if you want.”
“Yeah.”
He felt compelled to show her. To show her that he had at least done something with himself. And he wanted to try to explain. Explain the ways in which she had been important to him. He knew it might not make sense to her. But he wanted to try. He hadn’t expected to see her this quickly. But he could no longer lie to himself and tell himself that he had hoped he didn’t. He had been curious about her for a long time, hoping she was doing well. He hadn’t heard anything through the grapevine, so it had seemed like she was probably doing all right.
Sheena Patrick checked in on him every now and again. She had been like the mother hen to so many of the kids over by the mountain. She had worried about them. Cared for them, even as she cared for her own younger siblings. If something bad had happened to Penny, Sheena would’ve told him. As it was, he never asked about her, and Sheena never offered.
But he had always wondered.
“I’ll just... I’ll...” Then she put the peach back. “I don’t have enough to go through checkout.”
“I don’t need the beer.”
They walked through the store and he deposited the beer back on the display case he had grabbed it from when he had come in. They both walked out empty-handed.
When they walked outside, her eyes widened. “That’s not your motorcycle.”
“It is.”
“You have any idea how dangerous those are?” She moved toward the sedate-looking sedan parked a couple of spots away.
“And that’s yours?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said crisply.
Yeah. She had left that life behind. She was safe now. Conventional. He was glad for her. He had done well enough. Well enough for a kid who had been put on the path he had from such a young age.
But Penny had transcended.
She deserved that. She had always deserved the world.
“You should ride on the back of it sometime,” he said.
“No, thank you,” she said.
Then she got into her car, and he watched as she positioned herself inside the vehicle. He got on the back of his bike and put his helmet on. Then he revved it up, making sure that she was following him as he headed out to the main highway. His homestead was out a ways from town, and that was how he liked it. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said Portland had been claustrophobic for him. He couldn’t stand living that close to other people. It reminded him, in many ways, of the trailer park. Of being in the middle of all the drama, no matter whether you wanted to be or not. Hearing the disputes of the neighbors and all of that. Yeah. He could do without.
As the wind whipped over his body, he felt that semblance of peace he had only ever gotten from riding a horse, riding his bike, or being around Penny.
She had always been sweet. And it was an extraordinary thing to meet a sweet person in their circumstances. Their parents had both left them at home alone for extended periods of time. She only had a dad, he only had a mom. In a fashion, he thought they had both tried. He wasn’t as angry at either of them as he maybe should be. But as kids they had been left to their own devices, and there was little but trouble to be had in that environment. He’d started sneaking beers when he was only eight. There was nothing else to do.
She had made him want to do a better job than that. Maybe be a better person. Penny Case didn’t sneak beers. She didn’t get in fights. She wasn’t... She wasn’t angry. Not in the way he had always been. She taught him another way to be. And for that he would always be grateful.
