While I Was Away(49)

So roughly eight hours after leaving Los Angeles, Adele finally found herself rolling along side a scenic looking lake. There were huge, luxurious log homes everywhere, and she worried she'd completely missed the mark and had wasted her time.

“You're crazy,” she sighed, pulling into a convenient store's parking lot. “Everyone was right, and you're fucking nuts. He's probably in Vegas right now, drinking with buddies.”

With a groan, she crawled out of the car. Eight hours sitting down had felt like torture – how had she survived laying down for four months!? She stretched her arms as she walked into the small store, wondering what she was going to do. Were there hotels in the area? Would she have to drive to Tahoe, after all?

“Good evening,” the young girl behind the register called out. Adele smiled and walked up to her.

“Hi. I was wondering, I have kind of a weird question,” she chuckled. The girl closed her magazine and smiled back.

“Okay, what's up?”

“I'm looking for a friend,” Adele started slowly, choosing her words carefully. “He said he was coming up here for a vacation, but you know, I'm such a ditz – I can't remember if he said he was here, or at a different lake.”

“That's a bummer.”

“Yeah. But see, he comes all the time, so maybe if he did come here, maybe you know him,” Adele babbled.

“Oh, yeah, maybe! What's his name?” the girl asked, getting into the spirit of it.

“Johannes Lund.”

“Hmmm, I think I'd remember a name like that. Doesn't sound familiar, sorry.”

“That's okay. He's tall, maybe six-foot-two? Long legs, dark blond hair,” Adele described, knowing she was doing him no justice at all.

“I'm really sorry, but that sounds like a lot of people around here.”

“He might go by Joe,” Adele offered, remembering how the waitress had called him that. “He's a nurse, and he has the most amazing green eyes.”

“Don't know any nurses named Joe,” the clerk replied. “But green eyes ...”

Adele's heart leapt while the girl searched her brain, but then they were interrupted. A woman with two young children bustled into the shop, desperate for a bathroom. Before she could even get an answer, her little boy leaned forward and vomited all over the linoleum. The mother and the clerk leapt into action, one grabbing napkins off the counter while the other ran for a mop.

“I'll, uh ...” Adele called out, skirting around the sick. “I'll come back when you're not so busy.”

She stood outside the front door and scowled across the parking lot. Really, what were the chances? River says “I'd camp and fish”, so Jones has to be here? It was ridiculous. She had a better chance of winning the lottery. She should turn around and go home, just wait for Jones to go back to work in a week.

As she stepped into the parking lot, a large Ford pickup truck started pulling in. She glanced at it, taking in the light blue paint job for a second, then looked back at her own car. Paused. Glanced back at the truck. Then openly stared.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, her car keys falling to the ground as her hands went slack.

From inside the truck, Jones looked back at her, his expression mirroring her own. His hands also seemed to have gone numb, as well. While he stared at her, the steering wheel in front of him lazily turned, and Adele winced when the front of his truck crunched into a cement post at the end of a parking spot.

“Shit!”

Adele tried to remember if she'd ever heard Jones curse before – he'd always been so prim and proper.

In your dreams. He was prim and proper in your dreams. Don't scare him off again.

“I'm sorry!” she called out automatically.

Jones didn't respond. Just sat for a minute in his truck, staring straight ahead. He hadn't turned off the engine and it was making a strange noise. When she looked down, she could see some sort of liquid dribbling out from under it – surely not a good sign.

Adele knew he probably wanted nothing to do with her, but of course, she'd known that before dragging her ass into the countryside. So when he finally opened his door and stepped out of the vehicle, she scurried over to him, trying her best to ignore his glare.

“I'm really so, so sorry,” she gushed.

“What are you doing here?” he grumbled, pushing past her to survey the damage.

“I ... I ... I was stopping to ask for directions,” she babbled. “I shouldn't have stared, or should've said something, or -”

“Ms. Reins.”

The anger in his voice actually made her blush with embarrassment.

“Adele,” she corrected him in a soft voice.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded again.

He was somewhat looming over her, his arms folded across his broad chest. He had a baseball cap pulled low over his brow, covering his face in shadows. She wished she could see his eyes.

“I had to talk to you,” she answered honestly.

“You followed me up here!?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Someone told you where I was.”

“... no, not exactly.”

He threw his hands up in the air.

“Ms. Reins, you've already pretty much gotten me fired with some stupid lie, and now you're stalking me? Are you trying to get one, or both of us, arrested?” he asked. She shook her head.