As they switched cars, before she got into the passenger seat of his truck, he tugged her close and pressed a kiss to her hair, near the top of her head. She smelled like lavender—clean, fresh, and understated.
Her lips curled in a smile when he moved to see her face.
“Was that okay?”
“Yes, it was.” Her eyes were wistful; the way she looked at him sent vibrations throughout his body.
Before he lost all control and started kissing her lips right then and there, he helped her climb into his truck and closed her door. They sped away from his house, which was at least a half-mile away from any neighbors on all sides.
Ah. The vast space and quiet of Silver Plum.
She sat frowning at the screen as he drove.
“Don’t judge me.” He gave her the side-eye.
“I’m not judging you. Just trying to get a feel for your system.”
“It’s not my system. It’s exactly how it was done in the sample Mack sent me.”
She tossed him a salty grin and began typing.
It was then that he noticed he was almost out of gas. “We have to make a slight detour.” He patted the dashboard. “Betsy here needs some fuel.”
“Betsy? How come I didn’t know you named your truck Betsy?”
“I didn’t name her. The truck was just inherently Betsy.”
He was in rare form. He’d almost kissed her the night before, finally almost given her the kiss they’d always meant to have, and one he wouldn’t run away after like the idiot he’d been before. And now, maybe, if things felt right, they could kiss for real this time.
She harrumphed but then grew still as they pulled into the gas station on Main Street on the outskirts of town.
“My dad’s filling up too.”
Sure enough, Bryce Butler was there, leaning against his beat-up pickup, wearing coveralls. There was only one double pump, so they had no choice but to pull up right across from him. Without warning, Zane’s alarm bells went off, and without realizing it, he let out a sigh.
“Ease up, Dante.” Mabel said, smiling. But her eyes told a different story.
“No one calls me that anymore.” He’d never particularly liked the nickname given to him in high school when he’d been a hothead on the football field or basketball court. Their grade had been reading Dante’sInfernoin English, so the friends had started calling him that.
“I call you that when you’re about to go off.”
He glanced at her from the side of his eye. “I’m not about to go off. But you know I don’t exactly get on great with Bryce Butler.”
To Zane, he’d never been Mr. Butler, or Mabel’s dad. He’d called him Bryce, even as a teen. He couldn’t bring himself to offer the respect of calling him sir or Mr. Butler on account of his warring feelings about his indifference toward his own daughter.
Zane got out of his truck, walked around to the other side, and inserted his credit card. Only then did Bryce look up from his trained gaze on the ground.
“Hi, Zane.”
“Hi, Bryce.” His beef with Mabel’s dad probably wasn’t the best thing. He should give the guy a break. He’d sort of fallen apart when his wife, Collette, died, becoming withdrawn, working eighty hours a week…it was like Mabel lost both parents the day Collette succumbed to viral pneumonia.
Did he have some compassion for Bryce because of all he’d gone through? Yes, he did. But it was Mabel who had suffered. Mabel and her younger brothers. She’d had to become the mom and the dad, for all intents and purposes, at age fourteen, while grappling with her own grief.
To Zane, there were some things he couldn’t forgive and forget.
Mabel rolled the window down and waved. “Hi, Daddy. Remember how I told you I was working on that watershed project? We just had to gas up.”
Bryce’s gaze moved from Mabel to Zane and then back to Mabel again, and he shifted his feet. “You two be careful and drive responsibly now. And, Mabel, don’t forget about your studying.”
