“Are you for real?” Louisa scoffed. “Even your dog’s smarter than that.”
Sure, his dog was, but that didn’t mean Louisa was. Not that he had any intention of pointingthatout, since she currently had possession of both his dog and his truck. “Youkeep any Windex in this car?”
A girly cackle was his only answer. Figured she thought she was above cleaning her own car now too. Wasn’t like she had to pay for the thing herself.
That had him rubbed wrong, but he couldn’t finger why that was. Russ had offered Jackson a car and free ride to college when he graduated high school. Just because Jackson wouldn’t get within sniffing distance of their stepfather’s money didn’t mean Louisa had to join him on the high road. She’d been too young to understand back then, and nobody talked about it now.
Not her fault.
He strapped himself in and gave the seatbelt a tug for good measure. Then he cranked the engine. “Need to make a stop, but then I’m heading up. See you in a couple hours.”
And a lot more often after that, but he wasn’t ready to tell her his road trip was about something more permanent.
Not when he was wondering what Miss Late Yankee would be doing about the time he rolled into town for good. She might be going to Kaci’s school, but the physics and chemistry departments didn’t mingle. Or so he’d heard her say. Probably a good thing.
A familiar chuckle he hadn’t heard in too many years echoed between his ears, and he could almost hear his daddy’s voice again too.Have your fun while you can, son. One day it’s gonna have you.He looked around, but other than a couple women walking to their cars, there weren’t any people in the parking lot. He rolled his shoulders back. The leaves on the old oaks fluttered, but the wind couldn’t have made that sound. Nothing could’ve made that sound, and he would’ve given his right arm to go back to the last time he heard it.
But Daddy had been gone sixteen years now, and Jackson had learned to let the memories be enough. He still had Momma, and he still had Louisa. It was time to get on with getting on. He shifted the Jetta into gear and settled in for the long road home.
CHAPTER FOUR
Failure was not a shortcoming she suffered lightly, but as she’d had little practice getting back on the horse, she suddenly found she didn’t even know where the horse was.
—The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels
Anna should’ve taken the date with the exterminator.
She sat in a corner of the Jimmy Beans Coffee Shop a block off campus, rubbing at the uneven tiles in the mosaic tabletop as if she could force them into symmetrical lines. The instrumental music coming out of the ceiling was probably supposed to be soothing, but it reminded her of funeral hymns. Not even the aroma of fresh roasted beans could make this better.
She should’ve gone home to study, but she still shuddered at calling her new, affordable-on-a-single-income apartmenthome. So instead, she’d walked into Jimmy Beans to grab a latte. Wasn’t as if her fish would notice if she were five minutes late. A line of kids who hardly looked old enough to vote had filed in after her, and instead of pushing back through them, she’d used the human wall as an excuse to claim a table in the back corner and feel sorry for herself.
The coeds were apparently part of some campus group, andnotthe officers’ ex-wives club that she’d seen advertisedon the bulletin board outside her thermo classroom. If she were being honest with herself, she would’ve admitted she’d come here looking to make a friend or two who might tell her life would go on.
But it was easier to scowl at the table and pretend she hadn’t been rejected by a group of bitter divorcees who couldn’t be bothered to show up for their own meeting. The kids gathered at the front of the room took papers from skewed stacks that made Anna’s fingers itch. They gradually filtered out into the night. The door’s bells jingled, and warm air wafted over Anna’s skin. A blonde stayed behind by herself, her back to Anna, but she called out in a Dolly Parton–ish drawl, asking the barista for another espresso.
Anna’s finger burned from the friction it was creating on the tiles, so she switched hands. Stupid South. Stupid Neil. Stupid, arrogant James Robert College professors.
“Sugar, it’s too early in the term to be letting the classes get to you.”
Anna blinked up. The blonde peered down at her. She’d seen the girl shopping in the bookstore yesterday. Her perky attitude and infectious grin had made her stand out.
But it was the massive rock on her left hand that Anna remembered more. If love were measured in carats, she must’ve gotten the ring from God.
Also definitely not the ex-wives crowd.
Without waiting for an invitation, the blonde plunked her petite frame into the wire-backed chair across the table. “I’m Kaci. You got a name?”
Anna blew out a slow breath. She fisted her hands and put them in her lap. Sure, she had a name. It started with anFand ended in an -ailure. But since Minnesotans prided themselves on their “nice” the way Southerners prided themselves on their manners, she nodded. “Anna Mar—somebody.”
One hour. She wanted to get through one hour without that damn burning behind her eyes.
Kaci gave her a smile laced with sympathy and encouragement. “How long’s it been since you took classes?”
Great. Now Anna was anoldfailure. She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “A few years.”
“It’ll come on back soon enough.” Kaci leaned back in the chair and gave her hair a fluff. “What’re you studying?”
“Chemical engineering.”How to Make Your Life Implodewasn’t formally offered at James Robert.
