Like Sweet Potato Pie (34 page)

“And you let her put her hand on your arm.”

“Man, Shiloh. Did you really spy on us?” he snapped, looking truly angry for the first time.

“You shouldn’t have had anything to hide.” I raised my eyes and chin level with his, brushing aside prickly twigs. “And I didn’t mean to see you. I just … did.”

“Well, she didn’t touch me. I moved away before she did. Eliza was always a little too touchy. If you know what I mean.”

“I don’t.” I held his hard gaze then finally let it drift. “She said you’re one in a million.” The words whispered off my lips before I could stop them.

Another guy tromped by in the distance, mumbling all kinds of murderous threats, and Adam waited before whispering back. “You’re one to talk. I saw you and your Argentinean boyfriend at the hotel, Shiloh.”

“Boyfriend?” I yelped, and Adam whirled around, glaring. Pressing a finger to his lips.

“Fiancé, then. Whatever he is. He blew you a kiss.”

“He’s neither.” I dropped my voice to an indignant whisper. “Blew me a kiss? Please. He hates my guts. He just showed up out of the blue wanting to stay at my house and marry me for a green card. And I said no. I took him to the Best Western instead. Satisfied?” I felt like sticking my tongue out, but restrained myself.

Adam’s face blanched. “You mean you–you’re not …?”

“Seeing Carlos? No. I’m not even returning his phone calls. And we did nothing more than talk in the lobby. Go ask the front-desk clerks if you doubt my story. Judy was pretty taken with Carlos; I’m sure she’ll tell you all you want to know.”

My cheeks burned, and I looked away, shaking against the cold ground.

Adam’s hand on my elbow startled me. “I don’t doubt your story. About Shane or anybody. I just … didn’t know.”

“Well, you should have asked,” I said, facing him. “You judged me.”

“You should have asked me, too.” He held my gaze, not flinching. Until I finally turned away, still reeling from his news about Eliza. “And no, I didn’t judge you. I called you to find out the truth, which you never cared enough to do with me.”

“I never said I didn’t care,” I whispered, digging scratchy bark bits out of my scalp.

His eyes met mine briefly then flitted away. “How was I supposed to know that?”

The shouts faded around us, and overhead I heard the low groan of the tall hemlock, bending in the winter wind. Adam inched forward on his knees and parted the thick branches then motioned for me to follow him.

“I hope you don’t mind getting dirty,” he whispered, lips barely moving.

“Oh, I do. I definitely do.”

We crawled through the damp leaves, scattered with patches of beaded snow, and Adam paused long enough to ball up my scarf and hurl it as hard as he could. It hung there in a distant bramble patch, fluttering.

“Sorry. I had to throw them off our trail.”

“I know. I’m just glad I didn’t bring my silk one, or I’d make you go get it.”

Adam motioned me behind him, and we crept through the underbrush and across the gully, slipping over fallen logs and piles of snow-speckled leaves until the edge of the new development land glimmered through the trees. He inched forward to make sure the field was clear then waved me forward—just as voices tangled through the trees behind us. Someone found my scarf.

“Let’s go!” Adam grabbed my arm and half dragged me toward the truck at top speed. He shoved the key into the lock and boosted me up then climbed in and locked the door behind him.

Adam gunned the ignition and threw the truck into R
EVERSE,
spinning the steering wheel and jerking us over a hard bump, just as two of the guys appeared in the clearing. A bullet zinged off the metal construction sign, and I ducked, covering my head. Adam stepped on the gas and roared out of the subdivision, raising a giant cloud of dust behind us. Barreling down the narrow dirt road and bursting through a piece of flagging tape, knocking over a cone.

“Put your seat belt on!” he yelled between gear shifts, gesturing wildly as I plastered myself to the seat, hands on the dash. “There’s black ice all over this road!”

We looked horrifying. My hair hung in damp strings, studded with leaves, and my entire dress and stockings torn and muddy under Adam’s too-big coat. Brown patches of what looked—and, unfortunately, smelled—like cow poo clinging to my shoes and the elbow of his coat.

I fumbled with the seat belt, clicking it in just as Adam swerved around a curve, tires screeching.

“Ouch.” I massaged my head where it had banged against the glass. “Where’d you learn to drive, New York?”

“Funny.” He glanced in his rearview mirror, breathing fast, then stepped on the gas.

“Are they following us?”

“Maybe. There’s dust back there.”

“Oh great.” I groaned, flopping back against the seat and trying to catch my breath as he jammed the truck into gear and swerved down a side road scattered with distant houses and cars. We sped left and then left again, leaving the cow pastures behind in a rush of roads and stoplights.

Adam turned to me again, the sun sinking toward the mountains in a wash of red and blue. “Shiloh Jacobs,”—he shook his head, chest heaving—“you make more enemies than anyone I’ve ever met. Care to explain?”

S
o you’re really not dating Carlos?” Adam asked when I’d spilled everything about Trinity.

“Huh? No.”

Adam didn’t reply for a while, clenching his dirty hands on the steering wheel. “I guess you think I went too far the night I … uh … at my house, after you gave me …”

“No.” My forthrightness surprised me. “Not at all.”

Adam swerved. It was slight, but I felt it. Apparently he didn’t expect my response at all. He raised his hand and brushed it through his hair, messing up the back, and then let it fall back to the steering wheel.

“Black ice. You have to be careful because it …” He looked over at me as I sat back in my seat, loosening the seat belt that suddenly felt tight. “What did you say again?”

“Is it hot in here?” I cracked the window.

“Hot?” He was still staring at me.

“Yeah. Can you turn that thing down?”

“What thing?”
Hopeless. We are hopeless.
I fumbled at the dash until Adam clicked the heat off.

“So you do feel … uh … something?” Adam’s knuckles clenched on the steering wheel. “Toward …”

“Toward who?”

“Well, maybe … me?”

My hands, which suddenly started to tremble, knotted themselves together. “Maybe. A little.”

Neither of us spoke for a long while, and Adam turned away, face toward the window.

“Where were you going again?”

“Beulah’s house. For Frank’s surprise party.”

“Want me to take you there?”

I didn’t answer. Just raised an eyebrow as Adam glanced at my torn stockings and leafy hair, one side of which hung in my eyes.

“I guess not, huh?”

“Um … no.”

Adam flicked on his windshield wiper to loosen the pine needles stuck underneath. “How about some coffee then?”

“Coffee? Like a date?” I tried to keep the smile back, reaching on the floorboard to move Adam’s work boots and a bag of mulch away from my dirty shoes. It sounded tacky to ask, maybe, but I was sick of guessing. If some guy wanted to go out with me, he’d better say it up front.

“Not a date … per se.” Adam reached over with an apology and chucked the boots and stuff in the back with his free arm. “See, here’s the thing: I don’t date. I mean, not exactly.”

“You what?” I threw my arms up. “I need an aspirin. Right now.” I pressed my eyes closed and rubbed my forehead.

“What? I don’t date. I’d rather get to know a woman truthfully, the way we are in real life. Almost like a courtship. Meeting her family. Seeing if we’re right for …”

You can NOT be serious.
I opened one eye in disbelief. “Right for what? Marriage?”

“Yeah.” He downshifted to a lower speed. “Marriage. A life together. That’s what the whole point is, right?”

I laughed, sort of, but Adam didn’t. And the rest of my laugh froze there, like the frosty skin of ice on a pond as we drove past. “Um … okay,” I heard myself say. “Sure.” As politely as if he’d offered me a discount on rose fertilizer. Not sure if I was being serious or sarcastic.

“Tastee Freez okay? The one out in Churchville where those guys won’t come looking for us?” He glanced down at his muddy jeans. “And where we won’t get too many odd looks dressed like this?”

Right. That makes perfect sense. Get chased by lunatics and soiled by cow manure then go out in public.

“Then we can go back and get your car. If … if that’s all right with you.”

I dug a twig out of my hair. “Are you sure I’m not keeping you from something?”

“No. I’m okay. You?”

For the life of me, I couldn’t believe why I’d agreed to coffee with Adam Carter after tromping through the woods at breakneck speed, risking our necks at the mercy of Creepo Chase Fletcher.

Adam’s hair stuck up like a rooster’s comb on one side, flattened on the other. A stray branch had sliced him across the cheek, leaving a bleeding red scratch.

“Shiloh?”

“What?”

“I asked you a question.”

“Sorry. What was it again?”

I should have screamed and thrown myself out of the truck window. Instead I chitchatted about who knows what as we meandered toward Churchville until Adam backed into a parking space. Indigo nightfall sifted over the land, and headlights and streetlights flickered on.

Adam got out and slammed the door, and I wordlessly unclipped my seat belt, waiting for him to come around and help me out of the truck.

I, Shiloh P. Jacobs, just climbed out of a pickup truck in a run-down, Podunk parking lot next to a greasy fast-food place and the town dump. Reeking of dirt and cow manure, with a cash-strapped landscaper from Virginia talking about marriage.
I have definitely lost my mind.

Outside the stars burned brighter than I’d ever seen them, pulsing silver through breaks in the heavy clouds. I walked side by side with Adam, our breath smoky, avoiding his gaze as he opened the door for me and put his gloves and keys on a little side booth.

“What can I get for you?” His voice held a funny mix of nervousness and fearlessness over the twanging country music.

“Coffee.” My hands shook just a little. I stuck them in my pockets, feeling a bit overdressed in my delicate winter outfit in a place that served Big Country Combos and root beer. Or I would have, if I didn’t look like I’d crawled out of a hole in the ground.

“Are you sure? Anything else?”

“No thanks. Just coffee, really hot. With cream and sugar.”

I watched him go up to the counter and order, and the fifteen-ish-year-old girl who rang him up neither blushed nor fumbled like Judy had done with Carlos. Of course not. This was Adam Carter, after all. Humble and plain. So simple you almost missed him, like one of those multiple-choice answers that you can’t believe they’d be dumb enough to put right there on the test.

“Here you go.” Adam set my coffee down on the table complete with napkin, stirrer, and little packets of cream and sugar. He went back to the counter to get his cup and sat down across from me. Right next to his head hung an old framed photo of a long brick building, reading, B
UFFALO
G
AP
H
IGH
S
CHOOL.

“Is that a joke?” I pointed, avoiding the stares of patrons on our dirty backs.

“The high school?”

“The name. That can’t be real.”

He smiled into his cup. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

I’d sort of stopped jotting down stuff like ridiculous truck names and lawn ornamentation in my
Southern Speak
journal, but this was pretty good. I considered.

“You don’t put sugar in your coffee?” I dumped in my second packet.

“No. Southerners like their tea with sugar and their coffee without.”

“That figures. In Japan we like our coffee with sugar and our tea without. And tea, by the way, should be green.”

“Tea should be black.”

I didn’t flinch. “Tea should be hot.”

“Tea should be cold.”

“Beans should be sweet.”

Adam grimaced. “Don’t even … no. Let’s not go there.”

I enjoyed my victory, smirking to myself. Picturing the dark reddish-brown, sugary
azuki
bean paste stuffed in traditional little Japanese cakes. Imagine those lined up on Kroger’s shelves next to the ham hocks and cornmeal.

We sat there silently until Adam awkwardly ran his hand through the chunk of sandy hair on his forehead. “Sorry if I freaked you out with the no-dating thing. I just … want something different for my life, Shiloh. I don’t like seeing people tying themselves together as a couple right off or slinking off to dark places to make out or whatever. It’s … I don’t know. Tacky.”

I choked on my coffee, grabbing frantically at the stack of napkins. Two patrons with cowboy hats, who’d already gawked at our unusual attire, turned again in our direction.

He shouldn’t have mentioned kissing. Not Adam. Not with such a serious face, our tightly wound nerves, and that goofy chili ad with a grinning groundhog dangling just over his head. I burst out laughing before I could help myself.