Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(40)

But if she’s not?

I look at the gate across the driveway . . . If I leave, I won’t be able to get back in to finish what I was working on. Viktor will be pissed.

I crank my engine.

The rain hits my windshield in sheets, the pools of water across the road pulling at my steering. Normally, all we get is a drizzle. Yet this is the second time she’s been stranded and it’s pissing rain. I’ve heard enough stories from my dad to know that drivers can get confused in heavy rain and plow into cars on the shoulder. I bite away at my thumbnail, speeding down the road, keeping my eyes peeled. What if I’m wrong and she is a mall girl?

I crest a hill to see the silver sports car pulled over on the opposite side. My chest swells with relief. And nostalgia. Even though it’s mid-afternoon, this is all too familiar.

I can just make out a single figure sitting behind the steering wheel, the windows fogged up with her breathing. Making a U-turn, I park directly in front of her. That way she can see me. Ducking from the rain, I run to her driver’s-side door and rap against the window.

There’s a long delay. And then a delicate hand wipes the fog away and Alex’s face appears. She cracks open her door, wiping the tears from her wide, red-rimmed eyes. “Jesse?” She frowns, glancing at the back of my car. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting soaked.” My sweatshirt’s drenched and clinging to my body. “So I hear you ran out of gas?”

“I was trying to make it to the full-serve near our house, but obviously I didn’t.”

“You’re not the first to ever admit to that.” I pull the door open and offer my hand. “Come on.”

“But I’ve called Triple-A.”

“And how much longer do you want to sit out here, waiting for them?”

She considers my callused palm, then slides her smooth one into my hand. She squeezes tight as I pull her out. “I have an umbrella,” she offers.

I laugh, switching hands to rope my arm around her waist and keep her close to me as we run on the shoulder. Her body tenses against me. I can’t tell if it’s from the cold or the proximity. I usher her into the passenger side and stand in the rain, waiting for her to buckle up—another by-product of being raised by a police officer and a surgeon who have seen too many ejected bodies—before I shut her door and circle my car, my fingers grazing across the rain-splattered hood.

I shiver as I climb in. “Sorry it’s not as nice as your ride.”

“Does it have gas? Because if it does, I’ll take it over my car right now,” she jokes, pulling a tissue out of her purse to blow her nose. “Did Viktor send you?”

I grit my teeth and pull onto the road. “No. I caught the conversation. Figured I’d come find you.”

“I didn’t think so.” She leans forward to inspect the heavy gray sky. “It hasn’t let up all day, has it? It’s depressing. I much prefer the sun.”

“You’re living in the wrong city, then.”

She chuckles. “Tell me about it. I grew up in Seattle. Rain is what I know best.” There’s an awkward pause. “So, where’d you grow up?”

“In the interior. Small town called Sisters. Way more sun there.”

“So you’re a small-town boy in a big city.”

“I guess you can say that.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Yeah,” I admit. “I’ll move back again, one day.” When I can buy my own piece of land so I’m not living under “the sheriff’s” roof. Hopefully by then, he won’t run the town anymore.

“I’ve heard it’s stunning out there, all those wildflowers in the mountains. And horse ranches, right?”

“Yeah, my parents live right next door to one. Well, former ranch. The old woman who lives there now hasn’t kept it going.”

She sighs. “I’ve never seen a real horse up close.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. My mom was terrified of them. Of their size. She thought I’d be trampled to death. I’ve never been swimming in a lake, either.”

Horses and lakes are what I know best.

“I think I’d like to live somewhere like that. One day. Lie out under those stars that you can’t see here.” She pauses. “I guess I’m a city girl who should have grown up in a small town. I feel like I’ve been living in the wrong life all these years.”

I try to picture Alex—in her sparkly blue dress and exotic sports car—pulling up to Poppa’s Diner in town, where three generations of families stuff their faces with grits and sausage every weekend, and every single person sitting in there has not only seen a horse but has probably grown up riding them. The image makes me smile. Then again, I know that these clothes, this car . . . it’s not the real Alex. It’s what Viktor has made her out to be.

“Your husband’s an ass**le. You should leave him.” Shit. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

Her gaze drops to her hands resting in her lap, her fingers tugging at the thick diamond band. “I wish it were that easy.”

Fuck it.

“He left you sitting on the side of the road.”

She clears her throat. “He’s right; it’s my fault. I should have filled up twenty miles ago.”