Shep had met Lisa a year after he and my mom had divorced. He was on the road, hauling a trailer from Kansas City to Wilmington, North Carolina. The way he tells it, somewhere around the Virginia-North Carolina line, he pulled off at a gas station in a little town called Falls Creek and found a woman standing in the parking lot trying to change her tire.
He showed her how to change it, then spent thirty minutes drinking shitty midnight coffee, eating stale donuts, and talking to her.
She went on her way, and Shep finished his route with her number stored safely in his phone.
When he got home, he called me and told me that he had fallen in love. Instead of spending his three weeks off the road resting, he hopped in his pick-up truck and went right back to see her.
At the time, Lisa worked as an emergency room nurse in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After months of Shep driving and flying to see her during his off weeks, she packed up and moved to Kansas.
I thought she was crazy.
Shep spent weeks begging for me to come back to Kansas to meet her. Finally, I saw why they crossed the country for each other.
The way Shep and Lisa looked at each other was undeniable, and I found myself chasing the same magic. I wanted someone to look at me the way they looked at each other.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “Except for Shep . . .”
“You should come by the house,” Lisa said abruptly. There was an urgency in her voice. “There are some things you might like to look through.”
I reared back. “You’re not getting rid of his stuff, are you?”
Lisa’s brows furrowed. “What? No. Heavens no. There’s just . . .” I could tell she was biting her tongue, but I didn’t know if it was because she couldn’t handle the grief or something else. Her eyes locked on mine. “He kept a lot of stuff from when you were little.” The corners of her mouth tightened. “I’ll keep it all, but I think you might want the memories.”
I didn’t know if I could handle going through Shep’s things, but I didn’t want to hurt Lisa. Ryan would go with me if I asked him.
I nearly stumbled backward at the thought. After the last couple of weeks, it was such a natural reaction to trust him to be there for me.
Lisa cocked her head. “Are you having a stroke?”
I pressed my clammy hands to my cheeks and let out a sharp breath. “I think so.”
She glanced at the time, then back out the window at Ryan as he rinsed off the car. “I need to get going. My folks are flying in today. I should probably be there when they land.”
“I can go pick them up,” I offered. “You shouldn’t be running errands and playing taxi. Let us help you.”
“As much as I appreciate that, I can handle an airport pick-up. You need to go see your family.”
I hated the sound of that.
Lisa squeezed my arm. “Come by the house. I’ll set everything aside for you. Bring your hunky man. He’s nice to look at, and you wouldn’t dare deprive a grieving widow of a moment of joy, would you?”
“You play dirty.”
She patted my shoulder as the door opened and closed. Ryan, barefoot and sweat-soaked, padded in with his shirt draped over one shoulder.
“Ryan, it was very nice to meet you. I hope we get to spend a little more time getting to know each other before you two head to wherever you’re going next,” Lisa said.
His answering smile was kind. “I wish it were under better circumstances, but I’m glad I got to meet you.” Although he was nearly dripping wet, Ryan rested his hand on the small of my back, his fingers working gentle circles against my skin.
Lisa’s eyes ping-ponged between the two of us before yanking open the door. “Right. Make good choices, kids,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked out to her car.
Ryan chuckled. “What was that about?”
“Lisa being Lisa.”
He moved into the kitchen and started rummaging around the groceries he brought in. “Teasing you about us?”
“Something like that,” I said as I picked up my phone. It had been vibrating off and on while Lisa was here, but I didn’t want to appear distracted.
