Hadley & Grace(47)

Grace’s vision goes red.

“I told you, give it back,” Mattie says, stepping toward the kid.

He stares her down, not budging as he continues to wave the hat in the air.

Grace takes a step toward them, then reconsiders. She scans around her, and her eyes catch on the salt flat behind her; then she looks in the trash can beside her as a plan forms in her mind.

Grabbing an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle from the trash along with a half-empty Coke cup, she carries them back the way she came.

A moment later, she is back. Without hesitation, she walks behind the boy and swipes the hat from his hand before he can react. As she passes the younger boy, she says, “Don’t follow your brother,” and her eyes slide to the salt flat beyond the restroom and the bottle of Jack Daniel’s, now half-full with watered-down Coke, glinting a few yards in.

Mattie and Skipper follow her, Mattie’s anger pulsing in waves.

“I’ll drive,” Grace says when they reach the truck.

“I hate jerks like that,” Mattie mumbles through clenched teeth as she climbs into the passenger seat.

Grace takes her time strapping Miles in the back, climbs into the driver’s seat, then reverses from the parking spot. When she turns to look back through the windshield, a smile creeps onto her face and she points through the glass.

Mattie follows her finger, and together they watch as the large boy tests the crusted mud of the salt flat with his toe to see if it’s safe to take a step. Deciding it is, he steps forward, and his right foot sinks to his ankle. He tries to pull it out, but the suction pulls him off balance and he falls forward, his left foot plunging into the muck to his knee.

Mattie laughs, and Skipper yells, “Look. Look at him. Look, look, look,” his finger pointing as he bounces in his seat.

The boy flails his arms to hold his balance, then yells something to the younger boy, who still stands safely on the bank. The boy shakes his head, and the bully screams at him, losing his balance in the process. He nearly falls backward, then overcompensates and falls forward instead, his arms disappearing into the cesspool to his elbows.

Mattie laughs harder, and Skipper bounces so hard the whole truck bounces with him. Grace puts the truck in gear and drives toward the exit. She lived in Georgia until she was nineteen, and she knows a mud bog scorched dry when she sees one, the crusted surface disguising the muck that lies below.

As they roll past, Mattie lowers the window and yells, “Look, Skipper, a pig in the mud!”

The boy looks over his shoulder, a grief-stricken expression on his face, the desert mountains behind him—a truly majestic sight.

“Home run,” Skipper says. “Way to go, Trout. Home run.”

“He’s calling me a fish?” Grace says to Mattie, who’s still smiling ear to ear.

“Trout, as in Mike Trout,” she says. “Your nickname is now Trout. It’s an honor. Skipper doesn’t just give anyone a nickname, and he definitely doesn’t give out names like that.”





36





HADLEY


They have hobbled back to the office and are again tangled, the ACE bandage caught on Hadley’s crutches and forcing her to cling to the agent as he tries to unsnaggle them. He is trying hard to be a gentleman, and she is very naughtily making that impossible, a recklessness brewing inside her she hasn’t felt in years.

Purposely, she stumbles into him, landing in such a way that his bound hands are forced to catch her by the waist, his palms burning against the exposed sliver of skin between her blouse and skirt. Quickly, he shifts them away, which makes her giggle for what a Boy Scout he is—a man the opposite of Frank, respectful almost to a fault.

She has no idea what has come over her. She feels a little crazy. Perhaps from hunger. Is that a thing? Or perhaps it’s the prospect of being arrested that’s sent her off the rails. She has no idea. All she knows is she is done being good, playing by the rules, and hoping, somehow, it will all work out.

“Stay still,” he orders, and she obeys, staying put as he weaves the bandage in and out, lifting her arms and moving her legs, his face screwed up in intense concentration.

She braces herself on his shoulders and hops over the ACE bandage, moving in such a way that her breasts brush beneath his nose, knowing this is a part of her anatomy he has been trying very hard to avoid, his eyes catching and then snapping away, which she finds very amusing.

A boob man. She has always liked boob men, or she used to. They’re usually very appreciative of a woman’s curves and are willing to spend lots of time admiring them.

He bends down to unwrap the bandage carefully from her ankle, and she laces her hands around his neck as if needing the support, her breasts pressed to his ear.

“You know,” he says, “I could overpower you right now?”

She giggles, a high, girly laugh. “I dare you,” she says.

“To escape,” he clarifies, flushing red. “I could overpower you to escape.”

She leans in a bit closer. “Of course, if you did, and Grace came back, she might just shoot you.”

“True,” he says, “but at least I’d go out in a blaze of glory.”

He maneuvers around her, and she maneuvers with him, undoing the progress he’s just made.

“Stay still,” he orders.