looked at her in astonishment. “Our Shawn?”
The years rolled away. He forgot about being easygoing as his mouth hung open.
“He’s not our Shawn,” Amy snapped. “He’s just someone who wants to run for public office and—”
“Shawn Garrett?” Wade repeated. “The guy couldn’t even get elected to the student council in high school. And I think he cheated in history. And math. Of course, he had to if he was going to pass anything. But the state legislature!”
The color was high on Amy’s face, but it still took a moment for Wade to connect all of the dots. His heart sank. “You didn’t get married to him or anything, did you?”
His eyes looked for her ring hand, but she had it around his mother’s waist as they stood there. He should have checked for a ring earlier when they were inside. He’d forgotten that nine years had passed. She was likely married to someone; he was a fool to think otherwise. But Shawn?
“It’s none of your business if I did,” Amy said as she stepped away from his mother, stomped to her pickup and yanked the door open.
Amy was six inches shorter than Wade, yet somehow she managed to look down her nose at him as she stood by that open door like she was defending her pickup from him. “I’ll come over to your house after I’ve stopped to let my aunt know where I am.”
He shouldn’t be grinning, but he was. There was no ring on her finger.
“You do that.” Wade watched her swing herself up into the vehicle. She had always been graceful, and her shoulders moved smoothly with her arms as she settled herself behind the wheel.
He should have turned to go to his own pickup then, but he just stood there with his mother, both of them looking at that old, red Ford and Amy inside it. He didn’t know what his mother was thinking, but he was having a hard time catching his breath. He just realized a ring wasn’t a requirement anymore. Not all women were as tied to those gold bands as his mother was to hers. He didn’t like thinking of Amy married to anyone. But wouldn’t she have admitted the fact if she was married to Shawn?
“She’s still as nice as ever,” his mother said, glancing up at him with that look he was coming to recognize.
Oh, no. She thought God was talking to her again.
Wade could only grunt. “It’s not a sign, Mother. Seeing Amy like this.”
“Oh, of course not, dear.” She sounded innocent enough, even though he knew she wasn’t being straight with him. She thought it was a sign, all right.
He needed to stop her matchmaking. “Amy’s probably married to someone, even if it’s not Shawn.”
His mother grinned just like she had years ago when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “She should be married. She’s cute enough any man would be a fool not to marry her if he had a chance to make it happen—good-tempered, too.”
He kept his mouth shut. There wasn’t much he could add to that, anyway. His mother was right. Amy always had been sweet to everyone. He turned to walk away, and then he heard a grinding sound. He stopped and looked back. Amy was staring down at the wheel of her pickup or, more likely, the ignition. When the starter ground again, he began walking to her door. She had the window rolled down by the time he got close.
“It’s not starting,” she said.
“I see that.”
By then, his mother had come over to the window, too.
“It’s okay,” his mother said. “You can ride back with us. Wade will come into town later and fix whatever’s wrong with it. He’s always been good at things like that.”
Amy looked at him with indecision on her face.
“No need to spend money for someone else to fix it,” he agreed. That old pickup of hers might be shined up nice on the outside, but he guessed the inside was held together with paper clips and baling wire. “I mean, money doesn’t grow on trees around here.”
Real smooth, he thought to himself as he tried to smile. Remind her that she’s broke. What woman doesn’t like that?
She frowned. “I can afford to pay you to repair it. Maybe not until after Christmas, but—”
“That’s not what I meant. We’re neighbors. Of course, I’ll fix it. No charge.”
“I’ll pay. I’ve been saving some money to go back east for a visit, so I can use some of that.”
“I see.” He could hear that his voice sounded pinched and tinny. He cleared his throat, hoping to make it come out more normal, but then realized he had nothing to say. The tone of her voice made him think there was more to her words than she was saying. He wished he knew why she was going back east. Of course, he couldn’t just ask, but he did remember that she had no relatives except the ones she lived with in Dry Creek, so if she was visiting back east, that probably meant she had a boyfriend somewhere. Maybe even someone she’d met on the internet.
“Be sure you meet in public places,” he said. “But not bars. Maybe a coffee shop. Or church. Church is good.”
She looked at him like he was deranged.
“I mean, on your trip back east,” he explained. “Be careful of strangers.”
“I’m always careful,” she said, her words clipped.
“That’s part of the problem. I haven’t met a stranger in a long time.”
“Well, that’s good then.” He hoped.
She didn’t say anything to that so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Well, fortunately, I can probably fix what’s wrong with your pickup. Most men could, so if there’s someone—” He waited for her to fill in a name of a husband or boyfriend, but she didn’t. “I’ll just need to order a part for it.”
She didn’t protest, so he figured it was settled.
In less time than he would have thought possible, Amy was sitting beside him in his pickup. His mother had said her hip would be sore if she couldn’t stretch her legs on the passenger side, so Amy had no choice but to slide in beside him.
He’d take what he could get when it came to being close to her. He was just glad he didn’t have any crumpled chip wrappers on the floorboards and that his heater worked. A mile or two down the road, he managed to check Amy’s neck to see if she had a ring hanging around it on a chain. The girls used to do that in high school. But she didn’t have a necklace of any kind.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled automatically. His elbow kept rubbing against her arm when he shifted gears. With the condition of the roads, he had already made his excuses more often than he liked. Added to that, he thought he caught the faint scent of spearmint. He would have asked her if she still chewed the gum, but she wasn’t looking like she felt real friendly toward him. She probably thought he’d already asked too many questions.
His mother was doing fine with the conversation, anyway, going on about how she wanted to decorate their old house for Christmas and needed to buy some ornaments, since they didn’t have any.
Wade felt Amy’s every move, but she clearly wasn’t as bothered as he was by the contact. He had never known a scratchy, wool jacket could be so tempting, though, especially after he noticed there wasn’t even a tan line where she used to wear a ring. That meant she must not be divorced or anything like that, either.
“Sorry again,” he repeated. This time, she was the one moving her arm, and she was doing it more than anyone needed to in his opinion. Not that he minded the contact; it’s just that he could do without the memories that were coming back.
Feeling her elbow graze his arm reminded him of the freckles on the back of her hand. When she was twelve, she’d worn a bandage over them one whole summer because