Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(44)

If this brain of mine doesn’t want anything to do with the girl I was—as Ginny puts it—then I guess I’ll have to let go and move on, make new memories. I need to meet new people, get a job. Maybe jump in this lake this summer. And camp under these stars. I tip my head back and take in the vast sky, closing my eyes to absorb the sun’s rays that kiss my skin. We’ve hit a spring heat wave and, though the nights are still in the low 30s, the temperature has reached highs of close to 80 degrees.

I need a new name.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard,” I say to both horses. “Ginny’s right. Just pick a name and that’ll be my name!” Rubbing Felix the Brown’s muzzle, my gaze wanders over the lake again. “But that’s the final straw, then.” A new name is the official reset button. I’m abandoning the girl I was, everything about her, including hope that I’ll find her again.

Leaning down, I skim the pebbles for a few small stones. I toss one stone, a second, a third, listening to the faint plunking sounds as they hit the water.

The water.

The idea blooms inside my mind, growing, sending a ripple of excitement through me.

It’s been there all along.

“What’s that smile for?”

I hold out the temporary ID.

Ginny scowls. “Don’t be testing my patience now. Hand it on over.”

I do, and then ball my fists under my armpits and hold my breath as she squints at the temporary driver’s license that the nice man from the DMV issued me this morning. Sheriff Gabe had my identification papers finalized with the judge last week. Then he used his position to cut whatever red tape was required to get me a driver’s license test. I earned a perfect score. The petite, dark-haired woman said that she would have thought I’d been driving for years.

I know when Ginny reaches the line that shows my new name because her scowl fades. “Water Fitzgerald?”

“I hope you don’t mind, but I figured if we’re going with the whole cousin story, then it might make sense.” That’s the official explanation that Meredith and I came up with. Second cousin, once removed, from Pittsburgh. I got hurt in a car wreck. It may keep the gossips at bay.

“Hmm . . . Smart thinking,” she offers in an unusually soft tone. I wait for her to make some snide comment about my choice of first name. When she doesn’t, I exhale in relief.

“So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take the truck out for a drive. I won’t go far, I promise.” I pat my phone in my fleecy pocket. “And I have my phone on me, just in case.” I’ve left Ginny’s ranch several times with Meredith and Sheriff Gabe, but now I’m desperate to wrap my hands around the old yellow truck’s steering wheel and just drive off, with no destination in mind.

Ginny makes an unintelligible noise in response and then turns her focus back to her quilt, her slippered foot pushing off on the wooden floor to get the bench swinging again.

I don’t wait another second. I walk as fast as I can and climb into the big truck. I’ve driven it up and down the driveway for mail a few times, so I’m ready to hear its struggle as I turn the key. Finally the diesel engine relents, kicking in with a slight rattling sound.

With a wave toward Ginny, I ease it into drive and give it gas.

She watches me roll by, her quilt resting on her lap, a slight smile on her lips.

SEVENTEEN

Jesse

then

“Jesse?” There’s something about the way she says my name. It gets my blood pumping hard through my veins in an instant.

“Uh . . .” I roll my head to check on Boone, stretched out on the other side of the sectional, remote in hand. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Were you planning on coming over to work on the car tonight?”

I check the digital numbers on the cable box. Nine thirty. I’ve done exactly what I planned on doing all day today. Sweet f**k all, while nursing a hangover. I went out to shoot some pool with a couple of buddies last night. I ended up drinking too much and comparing every woman who approached me to Alex. They all fell short. Needless to say, I came home alone. “No plans on it.” It’ll take Viktor a week or two—at least—to “appropriate” the parts, I’m sure. I pause. “Why?”

“Oh, I was just going to tell you not to bother. The power’s out with the storm.”

“Really?” This is the worst November I’ve seen in Portland yet. I’m surprised we haven’t lost our power too. “It’ll be back up soon, though, right?” Back in Sisters, when there’s a good storm and it knocks our power out, it can be down for an entire night. But Viktor and Alex live in a rich neighborhood. I’m sure the rich get priority service, even with the electric companies.

“It was out for hours the last two times.”

“So . . . what are you gonna do until then? Too early to go to bed, I guess?” There’s not much else to do in a power outage except sleep and . . . well, I’m assuming Viktor isn’t there.

“I’ve checked into a hotel. I can’t sleep when the power goes out and I’m in the house alone.”

“And you were going to be alone all night, weren’t you.”

“Yeah.” I hear the hurt in her voice. I have a good idea why he’s not coming home and I’m guessing she does, too.