He turned to me, incredulous.
“I think I’ve got the hang of the landing now. We can jump together.”
He answered slowly. “Yeah. I’d like that, sunshine.”
Chapter Ten
Niagara is a Native American word for “Thundering water”.
A woman stood in front of a wide porch. She was obviously pregnant, her belly rounded beneath the loose pink sundress and her hands supporting her back. A young boy rode a tricycle in circles on the gravel driveway. There were no other houses in sight, just a line of trees and then open grassy land.
The peacefulness of the scene took my breath away. It was like a living portrait, something I’d only imagined but never experienced. My heart began to pound as we pulled up close. What did it mean? What would he do?
My mind spun all kinds of horrible scenarios. Robbery and hostage situations. I silently vowed not to let him hurt the woman or her child, though I had no idea how I could accomplish that.
She didn’t seem concerned that an eighteen-wheeler was pulling off the road onto the grassy area in front of her fence. Run, I thought. Get yourself and your kid inside and lock the door. But she stood there, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. Then she waved. Actually waved her hand in greeting though she still didn’t move from her spot.
Then another idea came to me. Was she possibly…his wife? Or girlfriend? Was that his child? And as messed up as everything had been, it somehow offended me worst of all, the idea that he would bring some random girl home to his family.
Anger bubbled up inside me, warring with the helplessness. “Who are these people?” I asked.
He finished shutting off the engine. “Friends.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not your kid?”
His eyes widened. “I don’t have any kids. I wouldn’t be driving around the country if I had a son waiting somewhere.”
“Oh right, because you’re a pillar of morality.”
The words slipped out with a dry humor before I’d thought them through. He stared at me for a moment, clearly as shocked as I was. My heart beat a worried tattoo. What had I done?
He threw back his head and laughed. “Jesus. You’re a troublemaker, you know that?”
“I’m really not,” I said sadly.
If I had been rebellious, I never would have stayed holed up at home for so long. And I would have fought harder against him all this time. What did it say about me that I hadn’t? Clearly I was too weak to stand up for myself.
Or I secretly thought I deserved it, but that was even more disturbing.
“Come on,” he said. “You’ll like them.”
He opened his door and started to climb down from the cab.
“Wait.”
He turned back.
“You aren’t going to hurt them, are you?”
Something flickered in his eyes. “No. I understand you have no reason to believe me when I say that, but I’d die before I hurt my friends.”
I believed him. The words settled into place inside me like a jigsaw piece. Sometimes it felt like that, like he was a puzzle and I had to search for every piece to put him back together again. He wouldn’t hurt them because they were his friends—I trusted that. What would it take for me to become his friend?
Strange thought.
But I dutifully stepped down from the cab and followed him up the driveway. When we’d gotten halfway there, the little boy jumped off his trike and ran over. He hit Hunter like a rocket, right in the stomach, and Hunter stumbled back, laughing. I gaped a little, staring at the open, happy smile on his face that I’d sure as heck never seen before. They wrestled right there, while I stood off to the side, feeling oddly bereft, as if I were missing something and only just realized it.
The woman walked over to me, smiling. “Good to meet you.”