I opened my mouth again, but Jenny and Uncle Nate both shook their heads and Jenny reached for something on the table next to her. She turned around with a pad and a pencil and handed it to me.

I took it from her and brought it up, writing one word:

MAMA?

Jenny's eyes moved away from that word and Uncle Nate looked down at his feet. Right in that moment, the whole accident came screaming back into my brain–pictures and words pounding through my mind so that I slammed my head back on the pillow and clamped my teeth together.

I opened my mouth and screamed and screamed and screamed, but the room remained silent.

CHAPTER 7

Bree

On Saturday as I was clocking out at the diner, a number came up on my phone that I didn't recognize.

"Hello," I answered.

"Hey, Bree? This is Melanie. We met in the diner last week?"

"Oh, hi!" I said, waving bye to Maggie as I walked toward the door. "Yes, of course I remember you."

Maggie smiled and waved back.

"Oh good!" she said. "Well I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time, but me and Liza are going out tonight, and we wanted to see if you'd like to join us."

I stepped outside into the muggy afternoon sunshine and started walking toward my car. I remembered my thought about trying to be a normal girl again, do normal girl stuff. "Um, well, yeah, okay, that sounds good. Sure, I'd love to."

"Okay, great! We'll pick you up. Nine okay?"

"Yeah, that's good. I'll be ready." I gave her my address and she knew right where it was, and so we said goodbye and hung up.

Just as I was putting the key in my lock, I noticed a group of boys about ten or twelve years old on the other side of the street, laughing uproariously. The bigger of the boys was pushing a smaller kid who was wearing glasses and had an arm full of books. As the big kid gave the smaller boy a particularly hard shove, the boy lurched forward, his books scattering on the sidewalk. The other boys laughed some more and walked off, one of them calling behind him, "Nice one, freak!" Even from across the street, I could see the embarrassment that washed over the small boy's face right before he squatted down to pick up his books.

Little jerks. God, I hated bullies.

I headed across the street to help the boy.

When I got there, he looked up at me cautiously, his chin quivering slightly. I noticed that he had a light scar where he must have had surgery to fix a cleft palate. "Hey," I said quietly, smiling a small smile at him and bending down to help him pick up the books. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said quietly, his eyes darting to me and then away as his cheeks colored.

"You're a reader, huh?" I asked, tilting my head toward the books.

He nodded, still looking shy.

I looked at the title in my hand. "Harry Potter… hmm. This is a good one. Do you know why I like this one so much?"

His eyes found mine and he shook his head no, but didn't look away.

"Because it's about an underdog who no one at all believed in–this funny looking kid in glasses who lived under his aunt and uncle's stairs. But guess what? He ends up doing some pretty cool stuff despite everything he has going against him. There's nothing better than watching someone no one expects to win, come out ahead, don't you think?"

The little boy's eyes grew wide and he nodded his head.

I stood up and so did he. As I handed him the books I had collected, I said, "Keep up the reading. Girls love it." I winked at him and his face broke into a huge grin, beaming at me. I smiled back and turned to walk away when I noticed Archer Hale standing in a doorway just a few stores away, watching us, an intense, unreadable expression on his face. I smiled at him, tilting my head, and something seemed to pass between us again. I blinked and Archer looked away, turning to walk down the street. He looked back at me once as he moved away, but when I caught his eye, he immediately turned again and kept walking.

I stood there for a couple seconds, watching Archer walk in one direction, and then turned my head to see the little boy walking in the opposite direction. I huffed out a breath and turned around and walked back across the street to my car.

I stopped at the local nursery on the way out of downtown and picked up some flowers and soil and a couple plastic planters.

When I got home, I changed into shorts and a t-shirt and spent a couple hours re-potting the flowers, placing them on my porch and doing a general yard clean-up, including weeding and sweeping off the front stairs. One of them was loose, and getting looser, but I was a disaster when it came to home improvement projects. I'd have to call George Connick.

When I stood back to admire all my work, I couldn't help smiling at my little cottage. It was adorable.

I went inside and took a long shower, scrubbing the dirt from under my nails and shaving everywhere. Then I turned on the small radio that was in the cottage and listened to a local music station and took some extra time doing my hair, drying it, and curling it with a curling iron so that it was long and wavy. I put on my make-up carefully and then lotioned my legs up so that they would look nice in my stretch knit, dark silver dress with the scoop back. It was casual yet sexy and I hoped it would work for where we were going tonight. I made it even slightly more casual with my slip on black sandals.

The last time I had worn this dress was a graduation party my dorm threw. I had drunk my fair share of keg beer, laughed with the other girls on my floor, and made out with a guy I had always thought was cute, but hadn't spoken to until that night. He wasn't a very good kisser, but I was just drunk enough not to care.

As I stood there remembering, thinking about the girl I was, I missed her. I missed my old self. I hadn't been a girl unmarked by tragedy. I wasn't naïve to the ways of the world. I knew that you weren't guaranteed anything and that life wasn't always fair. But my father and I had survived the tragedy of my mother's illness together and we were strong. I had never once considered that he would be snatched from me in an instant, in a senseless moment that left me alone and reeling. And that I wouldn't get to say goodbye.

Perhaps this road trip that I was on wasn't the answer I had hoped it was. It hadn't really been a conscious choice though.

Everything in Ohio had reminded me of my dad, my grief, my fear and my loneliness. Several numb months after that night, I had packed a small suitcase, put Phoebe in her dog carrier, got in my car and drove off. It felt like the only option. The sadness was suffocating, claustrophobic. I needed to escape.

I forced myself to snap out of it before I sunk too far down into fear and melancholy. It was Saturday night, the weekend. And on the weekend, normal girls went out with their girlfriends and had some fun. I deserved a little bit of that, didn’t I… didn't I?

Melanie and Liza pulled up in front of my cottage a few minutes after nine and when I saw their headlights, I went outside, locking up behind me.

The door to the small Honda swung open and Justin Timberlake blared out, breaking the silence of the night.

I grinned as I pulled the back door open and got in to Melanie and Liza saying warmly, "Hey!"

"You look hot!" Liza offered, looking back over her shoulder as Melanie pulled away.

"Thanks," I smiled. "You too!" They were both wearing skirts and tank tops and I felt relieved that I had chosen a similar outfit.

As we drove the thirty minutes to the other side of the lake, we chatted casually about my job at the diner and how I liked Pelion so far, and Melanie and Liza told me a little bit about their summer life-guarding.

We pulled up in front of a bar called The Bitter End Lakeside Saloon, a small, wooden structure by the side of the road with a parking lot out front. As we got out of Melanie's car, I could see that the front was decorated with fishing poles, lobster cages, boating signs, tackle boxes, and other things lake related.

We walked inside to the smell of beer and popcorn, the sounds of laughter, loud talk, and pool balls hitting each other. The bar looked a lot bigger on the inside than the outside had indicated. It felt simultaneously dive-like and trendy, with more fishing items and signs adorning the walls.

We showed our ID's to the bouncer and took a seat at a table by the bar. By the time we got our first round of drinks, there was already a line forming at the door.

We spent the first twenty minutes or so laughing and chatting. Melanie and Liza were scoping out the guys they thought were cute and trying not to make it obvious. Melanie noticed someone almost immediately and went about the business of catching his eye. It worked and after a few minutes, he came over and asked her to dance.

She followed him away from our table, looking back and winking as Liza and I shook our heads, laughing. We signaled the waitress for another round. I was already having fun.

As I tipped back my beer, a man just walking in caught my eye. His head was turned, but I could see his broad shoulders and long, muscular legs encased in a pair of well-worn looking jeans. Oh, wow. Just the sheer size of him, his build, and his wavy brown hair made me blink and train my eyes his way as he began to turn. He turned toward me, laughing at something the guy next to him said and our eyes met. Travis Hale. His eyes flared slightly, and his smile grew larger as he made a beeline for our table.

Two girls trailing along behind him stopped and looked dejected when they saw where he was headed. They turned to the group behind them.

"Bree Prescott," he said, his eyes lowering to my br**sts for a flash before returning to my face.

"Travis Hale," I answered, smiling and taking another pull on my beer.

He grinned at me. "I didn't know you'd be here tonight." He glanced over at Liza and said simply, "Liza." She took a sip of her drink and said, "Hey, Trav."

Liza stood up and said, "I'm gonna go to the ladies room. I'll be back."

"Oh, okay, do you want me to go with you?" I asked, starting to stand.

Travis put his hand on my arm. "I'm sure she can manage," he said.

"I'm good," Liza said, her eyes lingering on Travis's hand on my arm. "I'll be back in a few." And with that, she turned and walked off.

Travis looked back at me. "So I thought I was the one who was supposed to give you the welcome tour."

I laughed and then shrugged, looking up at him through my lashes.

He grinned again. He had a really nice grin. Somewhat predatory, I supposed, but was that a bad thing? I supposed it depended. But I had two drinks in me, and so for right then it felt good.

Travis leaned in. "So, Bree, this road trip you're on… when's it going to end?"

I considered his question. "I don't really have a specific plan, Travis. I suppose I'll turn around and go home eventually." I took a drink of my beer.

He nodded. "Think you'll stick around here for a while?"

I smiled. "Depends," I said, frowning slightly.

"On what?"

"On if I keep feeling safe here," I blurted out. I didn't necessarily mean to say it, but the beer was hitting my empty stomach and my bloodstream like a truth serum.

I sighed and peeled up the edge of the label on my beer bottle suddenly feeling exposed.

Travis studied me for a couple beats and then smiled a slow grin. "Well, that's good then because as it turns out, safety is my specialty."

I raised my eyes to his face and couldn't help laughing at his cocky expression. "Oh, I have a feeling that you're anything but safe, Officer Hale."

He faked hurt and slid his body into the seat that Liza had vacated a few minutes before. "Well that hurts me deeply, Bree. Why would you say that?"

I laughed. "Well, for one," I leaned forward, "if those blondes who came in with you could shoot poison arrows with their eyes, I would have been dead about fifteen minutes ago. And the redhead to my left, she hasn't taken her eyes off of you for one second since you got here. I even think I saw her wipe a little drool off of her lip. I have a feeling they all have plans for you tonight." I raised one eyebrow.

He kept his eyes trained on me, not glancing at any of them. He leaned back in his chair, cocking his head and bringing one arm over the back. "I can't help the ideas other people get in their heads. And anyway, what if my plans are different? What if my plans involve you?" He smiled lazily.

God, this guy was good. All cool charm and self-confidence. But it felt good to harmlessly flirt with someone–I was glad I hadn't completely forgotten how.

I smiled back at him and took a sip of my beer, keeping my eyes on him.

His eyes narrowed in on my lips around the neck of the bottle and flared slightly.

"Do you play pool?" I asked after a minute, changing the subject.

"I do anything you want me to do," he said easily.

I laughed. "Okay then, impress me with your geometry skills," I said, starting to stand up.

"Absolutely," he said back, taking my hand.

We moved over to the pool tables and Travis ordered us another round as we waited for our turn. After a little while, Melanie and Liza, and the guys Melanie had met all came over, too, and we spent the rest of the night laughing and playing pool. Travis was way too good at pool and won every game easily, clearly taking pleasure in showing off his skills.

Liza had switched to water early on so that she could drive us home, and I did as well close to midnight. I didn't want the next day, which was my day off, to be spent recovering in bed.

When the lights flashed indicating the bar would be closing, Travis pulled me in to his body and said, "God, Bree, you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen." His voice was like silk. "Let me take you out to dinner this week."