“What did you mean about a price you weren’t willing to pay—for the Mercedes?”
He flipped open both cans of cola and handed one to her. His gaze was fastened to the view through the windshield—dry, windswept fields. Propping an elbow on the open window, he said, “My father wants to buy my freedom.”
“How?”
His lips twisted into a cold smile and he slipped his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Many ways,” he said before taking a long swallow of his drink. Nadine waited, but Hayden didn’t elaborate, didn’t explain his cryptic remark as he gazed through the windshield. She noticed his fingers drumming on his knee impatiently. It was as if she didn’t exist. She was just providing transportation. She could as well have been a gray-haired man of eighty for all he cared. Disgusted at the thought, she juggled her can of soda, steering wheel and gearshift, driving along the familiar roads of the town where she’d grown up.
“Where do you want me to take you?” she asked as they reached the dip in the road spanned by the railroad trestle. They were in the outskirts of Gold Creek now, and houses, all seeming to have been built from the same three or four floor plans in the late forties, lined the main road.
“Where?” he repeated, as if lost in thought. “How about Anchorage?”
“Alaska?”
“Or Mexico City.”
She laughed, thinking he was making a joke, but he didn’t even smile. “Don’t have that much gas,” she quipped.
“I’d buy it.” He said the words as if he meant every one of them. But he wasn’t serious—he couldn’t be. He rubbed a hand across the pickup’s old dash with the rattling heater. “How far do you think this truck would get us?”
“Us?” she said, trying to sound casual.
“Mmm.”
“Maybe as far as San Jose. Monterey, if we were lucky,” she said nervously. He was joking, wasn’t he? He had to be.
“Not far enough.”
He glanced at her, and through the mirrored glasses, their gazes locked for a second, before he snaked a hand out, grabbed the wheel and helped her stay on the road. “I guess if we wanted to go any farther, we should have just taken the damned Mercedes!”
She grabbed the wheel more tightly in her shaking hands. He was talking like a crazy man, but she was thrilled. She found his rebellious streak fascinating, his irreverence endearing.
Flopping back against the seat, he shoved his dark hair off his face. They drove past the park and hit a red light.
The truck idled, and Nadine slid a glance at her passenger. “Since we don’t have the Mercedes and since the truck won’t make it past the city limits, I guess you’re going to have to tell me where you want to go.”
“Where I want to go,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Just drop me off at the bus station.”
“The bus station?” She almost laughed. The boy who’d given up the keys to a Mercedes was going to buy a ticket on a Greyhound?
“It’ll get me where I have to go.”
The light turned green and she turned left. “And where’s that?”
“Everywhere and nowhere.” He fell into dark silence again. The bus station loomed ahead and she pulled into the lot, letting the old truck idle. Hayden finished his Coke, left the empty can on the seat and grabbed his jacket. Digging into the pocket, he pulled out his wallet. “I want to pay you for your trouble—”
“It was no trouble,” she said quickly.
“But for your gas and time and—”
“I just gave you a lift. No big deal.” She glanced up at his eyes, but saw only her own reflection in his mirrored lenses.
“I want to.” He pulled out a ten and started to hand it to her. “Buy yourself something.”
“Buy myself something?” she repeated, burning with sudden humiliation. All at once she was aware again of her faded cutoff jeans and gingham shirt and hand-me-down sneakers.
“Yeah. Something nice.”
He pitied her! The bill was thrust under her nose, but she ignored it. “I can’t be bought, either,” she said, shoving the truck into gear. “This was a favor. Nothing more.”
“But I’d like for you—”
“I’d like for you to get out. Now.”
He hesitated, apparently surprised by her change in attitude.
“If you’re sure—”
“I’m positive.”
Scowling, he jammed the bill back into the wallet. “I guess I owe you one.” Lines creased his forehead. “I don’t like being in debt to anyone.”
“Don’t worry about it! You don’t owe me anything,” she assured him, her temper starting to boil. For a minute, with all his talk about driving away from Gold Creek, she’d thought he’d shown an interest in her, but she’d been wrong. Humiliation burned up her cheeks. What a fool she’d been!
“Thanks for the ride.” He opened the door and hopped to the dusty asphalt.
“No problem, prince,” she replied, then stepped on the gas before he had a chance to close the door. She didn’t care. She had to get away from him. The old truck’s tires squealed. Mortified, she reached over and yanked the door shut, then blinked back tears of frustration. What had she been thinking? That a boy like that—a rich boy—would be attracted to her?
“Idiot!” she told her reflection, and hated the tears shining in her eyes and the points of scarlet staining her cheeks. She took a corner too quickly and the truck skidded a little before the balding tires held. “Forget him,” she advised herself but knew deep inside that Hayden Monroe wasn’t the kind of boy who was easily forgotten.
Chapter Two
NADINE’S MOTHER WAS waiting in the kitchen. Running a stained cloth over the scarred cupboard doors, Donna glanced over her shoulder as Nadine opened the door. She straightened and wiped her hands as Nadine set the sack of groceries on the counter. The scent of furniture polish filled the room, making it hard to breathe.
“Running with a pretty rich crowd, aren’t you?”
“I’m not running with any crowd.” Nadine dug into the pocket of her cutoffs, found her mother’s change and set four dollars and thirty-two cents beside the sack.
“So how’d Hayden Monroe end up in our truck?”
“I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Nadine admitted.
“I thought you took your father to the mill.”
“I did.” As she began to unpack the groceries, she gave her mother a sketchy explanation of how she’d met Hayden. Donna didn’t say a word, just listened as she folded her dust rag and hung it inside the cupboard door under the sink.
“And he just left a brand-new Mercedes in the lot of the mill?” She twisted on the tap and washed her hands with liquid dish detergent.
“Yep.”
Shaking the excess water from her fingers, she said, “You know, it’s best not to mingle with the rich folks. Especially the Monroes.”
“I thought the Fitzpatricks were the people to avoid.”
“Them, too. They’re all related,