“You’re not putting me out. In fact, Wyatt and I were planning to drive into Eugene on Saturday. Let me see if we can’t make it a day earlier and avoid two trips.”
Jo hesitated but then started a slow nod. “Okay. That sounds . . . okay, sure.”
Who knew doing a favor for a friend would sound so painful.
“So my starter is fried, huh?” Jo shifted the subject once again.
“Yeah. I should be able to get it in on Monday.”
“That would be great.” When she glanced at the clock, he took it as a signal to move along.
Luke pushed to his feet and patted the top of her desk. “I’ll get back to you on the carpool into Eugene.”
“Thanks, Luke.”
“No problem.”
He made his exit with a nod to Glynis.
The pine-scented air of River Bend filled his lungs as he walked down the block. He waved at the high school principal, who drove by before Luke jaywalked across the street. A breeze caught the wind chimes that hung from the eaves of the crafty gift store.
He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans as he rounded the corner.
Sam’s diner drew his attention. He noticed Sheryl’s old car and glanced inside the windows. Zoe’s mother brought a wave of mixed emotions inside him. He saw Zoe in her mother’s eyes, but that was about it. Sheryl’s hair was at her shoulders, and instead of the sleek black color of Zoe’s, she had a mousy brown that had started to gray. The woman was weathered beyond her actual years. Sheryl had been a big reason Zoe had fled their hometown. And for that, Luke had a hard time liking the woman.
He’d never felt the need to leave River Bend. But lately, he wondered if that was a mistake. The world outside his town was huge, and he’d yet to experience much of it.
Unlike Zoe, who had seen more countries than he had states.
Luke hesitated only a second in front of Sam’s diner before walking the rest of the way back to the shop.
He walked into the open garage, past Jo’s Jeep, and into the office. A note on the phone said his father had gone home for lunch.
Luke glanced over his shoulder to the open workspace. Where else could a garage be left completely open and unattended without the worry of someone walking in and ripping them off?
He wasn’t sure he wanted to be in a place where people had to continually lock the doors. Yet boredom had set in like a growing cancer over the past year.
Ever since Zoe had returned, albeit briefly, for their class reunion.
Her face, along with many others, reminded him of how little he’d done with his life.
Maybe it was time he took a long, hard look in the mirror and determined if he was happy, or if he was simply lazy.
Instead of contemplating his internal drive, he picked up the phone and dialed Wyatt.
Taking an extra day in Eugene sounded like an excellent plan.
Chapter Three
“The town will not fall apart without you there, Jo. Relax.”
“You’re right . . . you’re right.” She looked out the back window of Wyatt’s twin cab truck before twisting around to focus on the road in front of them.
Luke placed his arm around the back of his seat and watched a play of emotions cross Jo’s face. The woman was a mess.
“When was the last time you took time off?” Wyatt asked from the driver’s seat.
“Uhm . . .”
Luke glanced at Wyatt and back at Jo. “Unless you sneak out of town when I’m not looking, I’m guessing the answer to that was back before you took the badge.”
“I have days off.”
“You have overnights off . . . leaving town for something other than work is what the rest of the world calls a vacation.”
“I’ve gone away a couple of times. And look who’s talking. When did you leave town last, Luke?”
It was his turn to stutter. “Uhm . . . ah . . .”
“Exactly! Pot to kettle.”
“I drive into Eugene quite a bit,” he said.
“Which is an extension of our backyard.”
She was right. “I should get out more. It’s a big world out there.”
“I always thought I’d see more of it,” Jo said.
“You still can,” Wyatt said. “It’s not like you’re old.”
Jo frowned as if in disagreement and continued to stare out the window.
“He’s right, you know.”
“I didn’t see anything of the world when my dad was sheriff, and I don’t anticipate the opportunity to now.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t change that.”
Her eyes skirted past his and out the back again.
That’s when it hit him.
As much as Luke felt as if all his options in life were spelled out for him, that any big changes had already happened, they weren’t. He made enough money to live a simple, comfortable life in a small town, working in a garage with his father. He had a modest home of his own. Yeah, his parents had helped him with the down payment years ago and refused to accept any payment back. The anchor to River Bend was his parents, a job he didn’t hate, and a lifestyle that suited him. What was Jo’s anchor? Her job . . . which, if he had to guess, she wasn’t in love with. Her friends . . . and the legacy of her father. For Luke, staying in the town he’d grown up with had been a choice. A logical one. For Jo it was an obligation, a weight that kept her looking out the back window of Wyatt’s truck en route to the airport.
The desire to learn Jo and Zoe’s weekend plans wasn’t just from his slight obsession with his old flame. He wanted to know that Jo would get her mind off River Bend. She needed to remember how to live a little.
“What kind of crazy plans do you and Zoe have this weekend anyway?” he asked.
“I doubt crazy is a word we’ll use.”
“Neither of you knit.”
She smiled. A smile Luke didn’t see on his friend’s face as often as he once had.
“House hunting.”
The image of houses in Texas did a dance in his head. It took a full thirty seconds for what that meant to sink in. “Zoe’s buying a house?”
“Sounds like it.”
“Wow.” He hated the knot in his throat. Hated that he knew her buying anything anywhere meant she wasn’t going to move home. He’d waited for years for word of her getting married. Or at least word that she was in some kind of meaningful relationship with one of those Hollywood types she always surrounded herself with. When he’d seen her at their ten-year high school reunion, and then again when Mel’s daughter, Hope, had gone missing, he’d felt his heart weeping once again.
Jo nudged his arm off the back of the seat.
His eyes snapped up.
“Do yourself a favor, Luke. Don’t ever go to Vegas.”
“What?”
“You have no face for poker,” she told him.
Hiding his emotions was something he had learned to do in Zoe’s presence, but apparently not with Jo and Wyatt. “I’ll have to work on it before the bachelor party.”
Jo sat forward, all her attention out the back window shifted. “Bachelor party?”
Wyatt slammed his arm across the seat to knock a little wind out of Luke’s chest. “Oops.”
“Something you wanna share, Wyatt?”
Wyatt glanced in his rearview mirror, then over at Luke. “Someday.”
“Someday? As in someday soon?”
Wyatt shrugged.
Jo lifted her eyebrows in question toward Luke.