Completely Smitten

by Susan Mallery

  “You need to lighten up.”

  “What I need is a drink.”

  Chapter Seven

  Shortly after four that afternoon, they stopped at a seamy antique store outside of Wichita. Kevin watched as Haley pounced on various “treasures.” Her squeals of delight brightened the eyes of the owner, as the sixty-something woman calculated profits. Kevin didn’t have the heart to warn her that Haley’s idea of a magical find didn’t match most people’s and was rarely over three dollars.

  In almost seven hours he and his traveling companion had barely gone two hundred miles. It turned out that Haley not only had a burning desire to explore every shop, out-of-the-way museum and monument within twenty miles of the highway, she had the attention span of a gnat once they got there. She bounced from exhibit to exhibit, item to item, barely pausing long enough to see anything, which made him question why she’d wanted to stop in the first place. She also had a bladder the size of a thimble and yet insisted on drinking quart-size bottles of water, which meant there were pit stops every twenty or thirty miles.

  She should have been making him crazy—instead, he found himself completely charmed. Shortly after lunch—where they’d stopped at Mom’s Café and Home Cooking Emporium—he’d realized that with Haley, it was all about the journey. After being cooped up for years in a small town and never going anywhere, she wanted the adventure of exploring life. And if that meant examining a stuffed armadillo, then that’s what she did. “Kevin, look!”

  He followed the sound of her voice and found her crouched over a bucket of arrowheads. She held two in her hand and was digging through the rest, apparently looking for a matched set.

  “Aren’t they cool?” she asked, holding out her finds to him.

  “They’re great.”

  Arrowheads? She was so happy to have found them that he didn’t have the heart to point out they were so plentiful that she could practically pick them up on the side of the road.

  “How many are you looking for?” he asked, thinking that if it was too many, he should plan on them spending the night here.

  “Three. And they have to be exactly the same. What about this one?”

  She handed him an arrowhead. He compared it with the others and reluctantly gave it back. “Too round. You want one that’s more pointy.”

  “Okay.”

  She happily dug away, finally producing the triplet to the two she’d already chosen. When she stood, she offered one of those generous, beaming smiles that always made him think that the men in her hometown were idiots for not snapping her up the second she turned eighteen.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said, pointing to the rickety building that could almost pass for a store.

  Kevin leaned on his cane and mentally braced himself for more stuffed dead animals and maybe some old clothes. She seemed real fond of them, although she’d yet to buy either.

  Heavy clouds had obscured the sun, so it was dark inside. Haley walked down crooked rows, pausing to admire an old cookie jar and a set of mismatched spoons. When she reached the back, she called his name.

  “It’s Depression glass,” she said when he joined her in front of an old glass case. “My mom used to collect it. We have it back at the house. My father always told me it was mine when I married.”

  She pressed her fingers against the case. Her full mouth pulled into a straight line and her eyes turned sad.

  Kevin didn’t know if she was missing her mother, her father, her old life or just the promise of whatever future she’d run away from. He’d been putting bits and pieces of the puzzle of her life together since he’d met her and decided to take one of his theories for a test drive.

  “You didn’t want it enough to get married?” he asked.

  She looked at him and rolled her eyes. “No one gets married to inherit a collection.”

  “Depends on what’s in it. I could be had for the right price.”

  She laughed. “You are so lying. Aren’t you the man who explained the difference between having sex and making love? Men who make love cannot be bought.”

  “You’re wrong. I like to think of myself as a potential gigolo.”

  “Really?”

  He’d dug the pit himself, then had pretty much fallen into it all on his own. He took a single step back. “Ah, no. Not really.”

  She was still chuckling as she headed up the next aisle. An old tintype caught her attention. It showed several lawmen standing next to their horses.

  “Your ancestors,” she said, holding it out to him. “They were good guys, just like you.”

  He knew he couldn’t describe himself that way, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. He put the picture back on the shelf.

  “I’d like to get to Texas before Christmas,” he said, pushing lightly on the small of her back. “Unless you see another armadillo that tempts you, I suggest we pay for your treasures and hit the road.”

  “You’re so pushy.”

  “And you could happily shop in a used sock store.”

  She shook her head and walked to the counter where she paid for her three arrowheads. “You underestimate the value of treasure,” she told him.

  “No, I don’t share your definition of the word.”

  “These are a part of our country’s heritage.”

  Haley collected her change and thanked the woman, then headed toward her car. Kevin didn’t understand that little things like arrowheads and the glass vase she’d purchased after lunch were all symbols. Sure, a lot of people would think they were junk, but to her they were the talismans of her journey to freedom. She tucked the arrowheads into a small paper bag with an old leather bookmark.

  Kevin came up beside her. “I’ll call them treasures as long as I don’t have to claim any of them.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He jerked his head toward the back seat. “What’s your dad going to say when he sees all that? Will it fit in with the family decor?”

  “I’m not going to be living with him anymore. I’m going to get my own place.”

  Haley spoke the words with more bravado than she felt. When she was done, she hunched her shoulders, half expecting lightning to strike her. But nothing happened.

  She straightened and glanced at the gathering clouds. Was it possible that moving out on her own wasn’t as completely horrible and selfish as she’d first thought?

  She almost asked Kevin, but she knew he wouldn’t understand the question. For him, life was simple. He was a man who knew what he wanted and either went after it or did it. He didn’t fret about other people’s opinions or expectations. He wasn’t afraid of anything. If only she could be more like that.

  “So where are you moving to?” he asked as he opened the passenger door and slid onto the seat.

  “I don’t know. Once I know where I’m working, I’ll find a place close by. It doesn’t have to be big or anything.” As long as it was hers and no one else’s.

  “Do you have any specific places in mind?”

  “No. I want to teach, and I can do that anywhere. It’s what I’ve wanted since I was a little girl.”

  “What do you teach?”

  She sat next to him and smiled. “Middle school math.”

  “You’re kidding?” He looked her over. “If my middle school math teacher had looked like you I would have been a whole lot more interested in algebra.”

  His compliment pleased her. Kevin had made it clear that he was attracted to her, at least a little. She still thought he was good-looking and very sexy, but the more they were together, the more she liked who he was.

  A rumbling in the distance caught her attention. She turned toward the horizon and studied the dark clouds. “That looks like a bad storm.”

  Kevin nodded. “I hate to say this, but we should probably find a place for the night.”

  “Okay.”

  She spoke casually, but her heart was pounding hard. They were going to have another night together. Last night they’d kissed. Would they again to
night? Would they do more?

  She started the engine, then put up the convertible top. As they drove down the narrow road that led back to the highway, the first drops of rain hit the windshield.

  “Let’s look for a place close to a decent restaurant,” he said. “I’m up to going out for dinner. What about you?”

  She thought of the pretty summer dresses she’d bought. This would be her first chance to wear one. “That sounds like fun.”

  He shifted in his seat and stretched out his leg.

  “Do you want another pain pill?” she asked.

  “I’ll wait until bedtime. If we talk it will distract me. I’ll even let you go first. Why do you have to run away to become a teacher?”

  The question shouldn’t have surprised her, but it still made her tense. She tightened her hold on the steering wheel and tried to figure out how much to tell him.

  “I don’t know how to explain my life without sounding like a spineless idiot,” she admitted.

  “I don’t think you’re either.”

  She gave him a quick smile, then turned her attention back to the road. The highway was up ahead. She put on her blinker, then merged with the traffic.

  “You’re nice to say that, but running away, as you put it, has shown me that I’ve been both for a long time. I guess it became a habit. I remember being a little girl. Nice ladies from the congregation would come over and help me pick out clothes for church. They would brush my hair and put ribbons at the end of my braid. They always told me that I had to be a good girl and make my daddy proud. They said that I was the minister’s daughter and that meant I was held to a higher standard. For a long time I thought that meant I had to be tall.”

  Kevin didn’t laugh. “That’s a lot for a kid to have to deal with.”

  “Some of it wasn’t so bad. I liked that someone was always around to help with homework or take me shopping. But they never stayed. Eventually they went home to their own families, their own children, and I was left alone with my dad.”

  “He never remarried, right?”

  She shook her head. “A lot of people said that he would, but he never even dated. I hoped he would. I wanted a mother of my own. I wanted to feel that I belonged. To someone. To a family. But that never happened. And then I grew up and I stopped waiting to belong.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  She didn’t look at him—she didn’t dare. Was Kevin right? Did she still want to be a part of something? She supposed that everyone did in one way or the other.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted. “I found myself not wanting to disappoint anyone. Doing what was expected wasn’t all that hard, so I did it. I made the right choices.”

  “Which meant not moving away?”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “I don’t want you to think my father was a difficult man, because he wasn’t. He’s wonderful. So loving and giving. We’re all lucky to have him.”

  “You and the congregation?”

  “Right. He never punished me or yelled at me, but I knew when he was unhappy with me. I could see it in his eyes. So I did what I was told. Like the summer I turned eleven and the ladies in the church didn’t think I should be running around in shorts anymore. So I wore dresses. And when I went to high school, three different women talked to me about the perils of having a bad reputation and how easy it was to take the wrong road. So I was always careful never to do that.”

  “In the end you worried so much, you didn’t date at all.”

  She nodded. The rain came down a little heavier and she turned on the windshield wipers.

  “My father always hoped I’d marry a minister. I wanted to study to be a teacher, but everyone knows that ministers’ wives have to play the piano, so I studied music instead.”

  “I thought you said you had your teaching credentials.”

  “I do.” She shrugged. “It was a small act of rebellion, but when I went back to college and got my master’s of fine arts in music, I completed the rest of the courses I need for my teaching certificate.”

  “A quiet rebellion?”

  “One I never confessed to.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m not very proud of that. I should have told my father the truth.”

  “Maybe he shouldn’t have put you in the position of having to hide your heart’s desire.”

  She’d never thought of it that way. Could her father have made things easier for her?

  “We’re about as different as it’s possible to be,” Kevin told her. “When I was growing up I never met a rule I didn’t want to break.”

  “Sounds like fun. I would have liked that, but breaking the rules is more difficult, coming to it this late in life.”

  “You’re making progress. Look at your car.”

  “Good point.” Her father would never have approved of the car. Allan would have gone one step further and forced her to return it.

  “What about that place?”

  Kevin pointed across the highway to a small motel sharing a parking lot with a steak house. It was still early but there were several cars parked outside the restaurant. Always a good sign.

  “Works for me,” she said. “I’ll take the next off-ramp and circle back.”

  When she pulled in front of the motel, the rain seemed to let up a little. They climbed out and started toward the front office. Kevin was limping pretty badly.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked as she walked next to him.

  “I’m stiff from sitting so long. I just need to stretch my muscles out.”

  She eyed his drawn features and the tightness around his mouth. She would guess he needed another dose of pain medicine, but he was being stubborn about taking as many as he was allowed.

  “Suffering isn’t macho,” she muttered.

  He grinned. “Sure it is. You’re fussing over me. If nothing hurt, you wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

  They both knew that wasn’t true, but she liked his teasing her, so she didn’t say anything.

  They approached the front desk, where an old man gave them a toothy grin. “What can I get you folks?”

  Haley’s mind hiccuped. What did they need? One room? Last night she hadn’t thought twice about sharing quarters with him. He’d been injured and completely out of it. But tonight was different. He was certainly alert. Plus, they’d spent a whole day together, which somehow made sharing a room more intimate than it had been the previous evening. Yet he was still hurt and what if he needed her help? She didn’t want to be too far away. Was she being overly cautious about something that didn’t really matter?

  Before she could find the answer to any of her questions, Kevin spoke. “We’d like adjoining rooms, please.”

  “Sure thing.”

  The old man collected two keys, then handed them each a registration card. As Haley filled hers out, she tried to figure out if she was relieved or disappointed. Probably a bit of both. While she’d wanted to stay in the same room as Kevin, she was also terrified to do so.

  “How’s the steak place next door?” Kevin asked as he handed over his completed card.

  “Best steaks in three counties,” the manager said. “I suggest you go early. The wait’ll be shorter and we’re expectin’ some pretty bad storms tonight. Might even have a twister come on through.”

  “Beats cable,” Kevin said. “You finished?”

  Haley nodded and gave the man her card. He swiped Kevin’s credit card, accepted her cash, then gave them each a key.

  “Ground floor at the end. Should be plenty quiet. Enjoy your stay.”

  “Thanks.”

  Kevin headed for the door. Haley trailed after him.

  “Was he saying we could have a tornado tonight?”

  “Looks that way.” Except for The Wizard of Oz, she’d never had any personal experience with that kind of storm.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  He glanced at her. “We go have a steak dinner.”

  “I meant about the storm.”

 
; “There’s nothing to do. If one comes through, it comes through.”

  “But where do we go? Is there a storm cellar or something? What about my car?”

  He put an arm around her. “For a minister’s daughter, you don’t have very much faith.”

  “I have plenty of faith. What I don’t have is an escape plan if a tornado comes.”

  “If we hear the sirens, we’ll get in the bathtub and pull a mattress over ourselves.”

  Did people really do that sort of thing? “It doesn’t sound very comfortable.”

  “It beats getting hit on the head by a dresser.”

  They got back into her car and she drove down to the end of the building. After collecting their luggage, they each went into their own rooms.

  Haley stood in the middle of a bedroom that looked a lot like the other motel rooms she’d stayed in over the past few days. But instead of flipping on the television to check out the cable channels, she stared at the closed and locked door separating her room from Kevin’s.

  Should she open it? Were they semi-sharing quarters? If they weren’t going to open it, why had he asked for adjoining rooms? And why was her stomach getting all tight and knotted from thinking about this?

  She was rescued by a knock on the door. Haley unfastened the bolt and pulled it open. Kevin smiled.

  “Want to keep these open?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  He stepped into her room. “Have you noticed these places all look the same?”

  “Pretty much. I hope the cable’s good.”

  “So you can shop on that home shopping program you like so much?”

  “I haven’t actually bought anything yet.”

  “Give it time.” He glanced at his watch. “When do you want to go to dinner?”

  “I’m hungry now.”

  “Me, too.”

  Haley glanced down at her jeans. “I’d like to get changed.”

  His gaze narrowed. “You’re not putting on shorts, are you?”

  “To go to a restaurant?” She was shocked. “I’ll wear a dress.”

  “Uh-huh. Is that going to be better or worse for me?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  Kevin sighed. “I know. See you in twenty minutes.”