Enough of that. The conversation was getting heavier than he preferred, and he definitely did not want her looking at him with sympathy.
Staring through the windshield at the stretch of rocky farmland, he searched for a subject change. Not much to pick from, just rows of wheat beside bare fields of rock, grain towers, a couple of barns and endless telephone poles.
He'd have to go with the rocks. "What's up with those piles of stones?"
"Sodbusters pile them up as they plow the fields." Her pretty brown eyes went dreamy. "I used to spend weeks following my dad and brother out in the fields after school and in the summer."
"A hard life?"
Dreaminess fled. "A wholesome one I didn't appreciate near enough."
"Sure would be nice if we could learn those life lessons the easy way, but some of us have to be kicked in the head."
She smiled, a helluva lot better than sympathy.
A tousled blond strand caught on her damp lip. Paige finally gave up restraining her hair and reached behind her head to untie the small bandanna. She shook her blond hair free in a satiny curtain.
Blood slugged through his veins. His grip tightened on the wheel in sync with a tightening farther south. Pure lust pumped through him. No dodging or denying.
He inhaled three deep breaths of barley-laden air.
She leaned against the door, hair streaming forward unfettered. "I'm sorry about Kirstie's fit back at the base. You didn't sign on for puke-and-tantrum duties with the tour guide gig"
Think about hurling kids. That would help. Right? "No big thing. Like I said before, I've seen worse fits. Hell, I've pitched worse. And I've definitely hurled on a friend's shoes back in my misspent youth."
Her low laugh whispered over him in the fresh countryside air. "Like you're ancient now?"
So she was evaluating his age. Interesting. "Not any more 'ancient' than you."
"Think again." Her laugh turned to a snort. "I'm certain I have a good six or seven years on you. Besides, in here," she tapped her chest, "I'm over a hundred in life experiences."
Ditto, lady. A great big ditto.
Memories of the crash, capture, later discovering people from his own country had sold him out palled the humor if not the desire right out of him. "Then we're running even."
She glanced at his scarred hands holding the wheel. Still she didn't ask. Respectful of boundaries? Or just afraid he'd take it as an invitation to cross hers?
Her eyes skated away, fixing on the nothing-filled horizon that she undoubtedly couldn't see, anyway, without her glasses. "Kirstie's a smart kid, already reads at a third-grade level. She's been checking out library books on illnesses. She knows how Kurt died—the basics anyway. But she tells everyone he died of this or that disease. I'm taking her to the school psychologist, who insists that other than an occasional case of the bubonic plague and self-denial, she's a perfectly normal kid."
"You're both handling some heavy crap."
She folded her hands in her lap, scarf bunched in her fists. "Please don't take this the wrong way. I appreciate that you're being nice in checking up on us. And I understand you probably have some 'heavy crap' of your own to deal with after what...my husband
—" two hitched breaths later she continued "—did to you. I wish I could reassure you, but honest to God I'm barely keeping my sanity here, and having you around is not helping."
"It's easier for you to run from me, then?"
"You're mighty judgmental for a man who hasn't walked in my shoes."
He plowed ahead with the conversation as well as the miles. "I'm going to be here for at least a couple of weeks with the broken plane."
Her eyes went wide, big pools of wary brown. "Bo—"
"I'd like to spend time with you and learn more about the treads life put on those shoes of yours."
"Because you're worried about Kirstie losing a parent?"
"Maybe I'm just attracted to you." Where had that come from? What a dumb-ass thing to say guaranteed to spook her. At least she couldn't jump out of the truck, since he had her kid in the back seat.