Play It Safe(2)

“Park’s closed at nine.”

That wasn’t good. Not that I was in the park well past closing hours but that he had a nice voice, deep, resonant, rich. It was attractive. Very much so.

Also not good.

My guess, he was in his twenties, not as young as me but not much older. Still, his voice and manner, both held authority, confidence. Lots of it. More than his age would give him in normal circumstances. Men that age, they were still boys.

Unless life made them men.

“Just waiting for the all-clear,” I told him quietly. “I won’t be here long.”

“It’s after eleven, it’s dark, it’s cold and there’s no one around. Not safe for a woman to be sittin’, swingin’ in a park all alone. Wherever you need to get, you need to get there,” he told me.

Okay, well, that was interesting. He wasn’t a local who didn’t like a stranger breaking the rules in his town. He was a man who didn’t like to see a woman alone in a relatively safe nevertheless there was always danger anywhere situation.

And he acted on it.

And he did it late on a cold, dark, winter night.

That said a lot about him.

What he’d say next said more.

“Walk you where you need to go,” he offered.

“I’m staying at the hotel. I can see my door. Thanks but I’m good.”

His torso twisted and he looked to the hotel. My eyes didn’t leave him. He was tall. He was lean. His shoulders were broad and they were that even without the leather jacket. Very long legs. Power in them. Power in his shoulders. Power in his veined hands. Power in his wide chest. I’d seen it all across the bar. Even at his age, he was not a man you messed with. This was half to do with the way he held himself, the way he moved. The other half had to do with how he was built. He had a beautiful frame, silhouetted now in the streetlamps. But it was unmistakable that he knew what he could do with it. I figured he was fast. I figured he was strong. I figured he was smart.

And I was never wrong so what I figured I knew to be true.

Only a stupid man would underestimate this man, regardless of his age.

He turned back to me and asked, “Reason you can’t get in?”

“My uh…friend is enjoying himself. I gave him fifteen minutes. Reckon he’s got about five left.”

He made no response and his silence lasted awhile. Then he lifted his chin and made to move back.

“Have a good night,” he muttered, turned and walked back through the park.

I shouldn’t have watched, I shouldn’t have.

But I did.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

I liked the way he moved. Just walking. I liked it.

A lot.

Too much.

So I watched him move, round the hood of his beat up, light blue, rusted out pickup. And I watched him swing in. And I watched him start it up. Then I watched him rattle away.

Then I closed my eyes tight, sucked in a breath and wished, not for the first time, but with a burn I’d never felt before that hurt and it hurt badly, that I didn’t have to play it safe.

Then I opened my eyes, looked at my watch, pushed off the swing and headed to the hotel.

Chapter Two

I Would Love That

Thirty-four hours later…

I looked out the window of the diner trying not to see what I saw.

But I saw it.

I’d been to a lot of towns in a lot of states and I’d even seen this.

County seat but the county seat of a sleepy county. Courthouse square. A red brick and ivory mortar and stone courthouse-slash-police department smack in the middle. Attractive. Sweeping staircases up two sides with big urns at the bottoms of the balustrades that, no doubt, would be filled with flowers if it wasn’t January. Down staircases at the two other sides that didn’t attract attention. This was because lockup was down there. Offices and courtrooms on the upper three floors. Big American flag flying from a flagpole at the top.

The square had large, what would be green patches of undoubtedly well-tended grass in spring and summer but it was now covered in snow. Huge trees that had been there decades, maybe even longer, that were now barren but in fertile months would throw a lot of shade. Benches for folks to sit on. Even bigger but matching urns that were now empty but in summer months would be filled with flowers dotted around. A cross of sidewalks leading to the four sides of the courthouse, criss-crosses too, all now cleared of snow in a way that it almost looked like someone had edged it right up to the turf, the removal was so precise. Curlicue wrought iron, handsome streetlamps that had been cleared of their Christmas decorations.

This town didn’t have Christmas decorations in late January. This town took care of itself. The Christmas decorations went up in a town lighting ceremony that everyone showed up at on the day after Thanksgiving then were quietly taken down and stowed away as soon as possible after New Year’s. I had been there three days, it was late January so I did not know this for a fact but still, I knew it for a fact.

My eyes moved to the buildings around the square. Most of them, like the one the diner was in, were two storied red brick. Some had creamy mortar plates close to the top stamped with dates. One said 1899 which surprised me, that was old especially for here. Another said 1907. Shops, restaurants and sandwich places on the bottom floors, offices with signs in their windows (mostly attorneys and bail bondsmen) on the top.