“I know you did.” The hand he placed on her head was brief, but still it comforted her, which annoyed the hell out of Branna. She didn’t want anything from Jake McBride, least of all comfort. “But now that she’s yours, you get to drive her whenever you want to.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Branna said, moving to the passenger seat. “This is a one-time thing, McBride.”
He was in the car so quick she hadn’t even settled herself.
“Always makes me laugh when I hear you talk American, but sound Irish,” he said.
“If you’re going to insult me, I will rescind my offer.”
“Okay, so there’s the brain box with those big words I remember.” Jake was running his hands over the steering wheel and dashboard as if he was stroking the fur of an animal.
“Rescind is not a big word.”
“For a jock like me it is.”
“Thought you were a doctor, Jake?” Mikey said, leaning over the seat between them. “That’s what Georgie told me.”
“He’s just playing dumb, Mikey, but it’s something he does well, as you can see.”
“Nothing you can say will hurt me right now, Rosebud.”
She swallowed her smile as he turned the key in the ignition and then pressed the accelerator and laughed at the throaty roar of the engine. An old memory slipped into her head of one Christmas when her mother had bought her father a remote-controlled airplane. He had looked just as Jake did now. Pushing the disturbing thought aside, she watched Jake’s hands put the Mustang into gear.
“We ready?” he asked, smiling, and this one reached his eyes.
“Yes,” both Branna and Mikey said.
He eased them out of the shed and down the driveway, and once he was on the road, he put his foot down and the car surged forward, pushing Branna back in her seat.
“If I die right now, it would be as a happy man.”
They both knew that was a lie, because whatever demons were driving Jake McBride these days were stopping him from being happy, and it would take more than a drive in a car to change that.
“Why do you call Branna Rosebud?”
“It was his idea of fun in high school, Mikey. Something he used to torment me.”
Jake took his eyes briefly off the road and rested them on her. “Now, that wasn’t the reason at all. It was because you were cute, and when you introduced yourself that first day, you said your name was Branna Rose O’Donnell, and I thought Rosebud suited you better.”
Branna hadn’t expected that. “He tormented me like Molly does to you, Mikey,” she said to cover her confusion.
“Yeah, Molly’s real good at embarrassing people,” Mikey said.
Bitch, Branna thought, realizing that she already felt something for this serious little boy.
“And, for the record, I didn’t torment you. You just took everything I said and twisted it around. Any time I tried to make friends with you, you instantly thought I was being mean or trying to have fun at your expense,” Jake said, shooting her another look.
Branna thought back to those days in school, when every morning she opened her eyes she wondered if she had the strength to get through another day. Everything had just seemed too much effort without her mother. She knew that Jake had tried to be friendly with her a few times, but her attraction to him and her jealousy because he seemed to have everything she wanted—like a family, popularity and plenty of friends—had made her unreceptive.
“You shaped my eraser into a… a,” Branna said, waving her hand about, aware of the fact that they had a ten-year-old listening to their every word.
“One fingered salute?”
“Yes.” Actually, what it had been was a penis, but she wasn’t mentioning that word in front of the boy.
Jake’s laugh was a deep rumble that she felt in the pit of her stomach and refused to acknowledge.
“While we’re on the subject of school, I’m wondering why you’re not there, Mikey?” Jake asked.
