long, thick and curly, what C.J.’s sister Jess would call “big hair.” She seemed edgy, the big-haired woman did. She kept hugging herself as she watched the girl with the phone, throwing glances over her shoulder into the rainy dusk.
And now C.J. could see a third person there, snugged up against the older woman’s legs. A child, a little bit of a girl with dark hair cut to chin length and straight across her forehead, and the biggest, blackest eyes he’d ever seen. Since those eyes were gazing straight at C.J., he did what came naturally to him. He smiled. The eyes kept on staring at him, not blinking, just kind of shimmering, like deep, dark pools.
C.J.’s heart gave a peculiar quiver, and all at once it seemed like the most important thing in the world to him to see that child smile. So he smiled even bigger, showing those famous Starr dimples, and said, “Hey, hon’, how’re you doin’?” Since it struck him that the eyes had kind of a hungry look, and that it might have been seeing him tucking those goodies away that was making her stare at him that way, he held out the bag of cheese puffs and added, “Here you go, darlin’-you want some of these?”
C.J. would have been the first to admit there was a lot he didn’t know about kids, but even so it set him back some when the child cringed away from him and tried to hide behind her momma’s legs, as if there’d been a dead rat in that cellophane package instead of cheese puffs. It wasn’t the reaction C. J. Starr was used to getting from people when he turned on that smile-put it that way.
He transferred the smile to the child’s mother and ruefully explained, “Sorry, ma’am, I sure didn’t mean to scare her.”
The woman gave him a tight little smile in return and muttered something politely vague, along the lines of, “That’s okay, but we’re fine.”
Not friendly types, these people. With a mental shrug, C.J. was about to go on his way when for some reason he glanced over at the girl with the cell phone, and it happened to be just as she pivoted and looked right at him. His heart gave another one of those odd little shivers. She wasn’t as young as he’d thought; young enough, but definitely not a kid. Her eyes were searching, soul-piercing sharp, and…it might have been something about the artificial lighting in that rest stop, but he’d have sworn they were
He didn’t know what it was about her, but whatever flirty comment he’d planned on making went right out of his head. Instead he gave her a polite nod and a mumbled, “Ma’am…” and added on the trucker’s benediction: “Y’all have a safe trip, now,” as he hunched inside his slicker and plunged out into the mist. A few steps farther on he broke into a jog.
Back in his truck, he put the two women and the little girl out of his head while he stashed his goodies in the usual places and popped open the can of soda. Then he turned on the cab lights and reached for the pile of law books he kept handy on the passenger seat beside him. The way he saw it, with that exam coming up and his entire future riding on the outcome, every little minute he could squeeze in some studying was a plus.
The roaring of the wind brought C.J. out of his doze.
No, wait-that wasn’t wind.
He had himself a stretch to get rid of the kinks and cobwebs, then gathered up his junk-food wrappers and soda can and climbed out of his truck-one last stop at the rest room, he told himself, and he’d be headin’ back out on the road himself.
The air was warm and soupy, but he was a Southern boy, and to him warm and soupy was the way it was supposed to be in the springtime. Wet dogwood petals dotted the grass and sidewalks and the roof and hood of the parked car, and the air smelled of crushed leaves and mud, with a sweetness from some sort of plant he couldn’t identify, and maybe a hint of something rotting off in the woods somewhere. Smelled just right to him. Like spring.
Spring wasn’t C.J.’s favorite season of the year, though. “Spring can break your heart,” was the way his momma, Betty Starr, put it, stoic after a late freeze had wiped out her saucer magnolias and flowering crab apple trees for the umpteenth time. C.J. preferred fall, with sky so blue it made your eyes ache, and that indefinable touch of melancholy in the air.
Then he had to laugh at himself like any Southern-raised boy would at such thoughts-even though he knew the momma who’d raised him wouldn’t have laughed. Betty Starr was a schoolteacher who’d brought up her three daughters and four sons to enjoy books and reading as much as they did hunting and cars, and to have an appreciation for the softer aspects of nature that was at least on a par with a fine deer rifle or the inner workings of a gasoline engine.
In spite of that, given the circles in which he’d grown up and spent most of his life, C.J. had gotten in the habit of keeping poetic notions to himself.
“Excuse me, sir…”
Lost in his musings and shaking water from his hands as he emerged from the restroom, C.J. damn near jumped out of his skin when the slender form stepped out from behind the wall that screened the entrance, blocking his way. She had both hands tucked in the front pocket of her sweatshirt, and her neck looked fragile as the stem of a flower rising out of the folds of the laid-back hood.
“Whoa!” he said, rocking back and putting out his hands in the exaggerated way people do when they almost collide with somebody, but at the same time turning on his smile, full wattage, to let her know he wasn’t put out about it. “Ma’am, I believe you’ve got the wrong door. The ladies’ is around there.”
He would have gone on his way, but she seemed inclined to stay where she was. Though she didn’t return his smile.
“I’m sorry to bother you-”
“Hey, no bother-what can I do for you?” C.J. was radiating charm from every pore. And that didn’t have anything to do with the discovery he’d just made that the woman was a whole lot prettier than he’d first thought she was, in a strange, almost fairy-tale sort of way, with a ballerina’s neck, little delicate chin, soft lips and skin so fine it seemed lit from the inside. But he’d have turned on the charm in equal measures for a freckle-nosed kid or a ninety-year-old with a face like a road map. That was just his way.
“I need to ask you a favor. A really…big favor.” A smile flickered briefly, as if some distant voice had prompted her to mind her manners. It struck him how tense she was, like a deer in that last instant before she figures out you’re watching her and bolts for the bushes.
“I’ll be glad to do what I can, ma’am,” C.J. responded automatically. But he was beginning to feel uneasy now, too, just a faint “Uh-oh…” whispered in the back of his mind. The last thing he needed right now was more delays.
“My car won’t start. I’m afraid it might be the alternator. I was wondering if you-”
“Be glad to take a look for you.” Relieved that what she wanted was something he could give her without taking up too awfully much of his time, he was feeling confident and was already walking off toward the only remaining vehicle in the parking lot. “That it over there?” He spun back and held out his hand. “Got the keys? Won’t take me but a minute-”
“No. There wouldn’t be any point in you looking at it.” She was standing where he’d left her with her hands stuffed deep in the pocket of her sweatshirt. She was shaking her head, and her voice was a hard, flat monotone. “I’m sure it’s dead. What I wanted to ask you was-”
“Did you call Triple A?” Really uneasy, now, he was remembering the cell phone, and the anxious way her big- haired friend had watched her make the call. Not wanting to, he also remembered the little girl with the haunting eyes.
“They’re backed up-a lot of accidents, they said. Because of the storm, I guess. Those get priority, so they said there’d be at least a two-hour wait. That was an hour ago.”
“Well then-”
“I just called again. Now they tell me it’s going to be another two hours. We can’t stay here that long. We can’t.”
It occurred to C.J. that her voice might be easy on the ears without that edge of tension in it. As it was, its very
