“Take 35 south. I’ll tell you where to go when we reach Temple.” She shifted her gaze to the speedometer. “Watch your speed.”
No please or thank you. Just a quiet authority that stroked his ears and urged him to test her limits. “How ‘bout you just sit there, look pretty, and let me drive?”
“The cops are all over, shooting radar. I can’t afford more delays tonight.”
This girl seemed a lot less vulnerable than the one trembling on the road. Her voice was soft, musical even, but clipped at the edges as if repressing something beneath her scarred exterior, something beyond the hurt. Outside of her fleeting glances, there was a peculiar apathy in her stillness. Like a dormant animal, resting, waiting.
His discomfort swelled, feeding on all the unsaid things about her family. He merged onto the interstate. “Do you want to talk about your sister?”
“No.”
He scratched his stubble and grappled with her reserve. “It’s a good thing I came along when I did. I’m the only one who passes through there at this hour.”
The wind rustled against the windows as the truck gathered speed.
This was when a normal person would pick up the thread of friendly chitchat. Her silence challenged what he knew about girls and their self-involved monologues. He wasn’t usually a nervous talker, but seriously, her lack of conversation was growing more awkward and irritating by the second. “I live just down the road a piece from where I found you.”
She stared out the windshield, her fingers seemingly dead on her slender thighs. “Mm.”
Pity she didn’t want to talk. He had thirty minutes with this gorgeous girl. Thirty minutes to speak openly, to be himself in the company of a stranger. “I’m majoring in religion at Baylor.”
A sigh whispered past her lips. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why the Jesus career?” Her lips rolled as if constraining judgment.
“I promise you, the reason is completely and wholeheartedly…absurd.”
She glanced at him. Not just a flick of her scrutinizing eyes. He won a full-on head turn.
A tousle of chestnut curls clung to her face and spilled around her… Sweet Lord, he shouldn’t have been gawking, but her chest was very, very mature. He was certainly not immune to feminine attributes, but watching her mouth part, tipping up at the corners and stretching her scar, was hell on his focus. Confusion looked seductively X-rated on her.
A low-burning fire stirred in his groin, a sensation he’d never tried to sate with a girl. He could’ve blamed his abstinence on Christian principles and a demanding workload. Truth was, he derived pleasure from the exertion that hard work put on his mind and body. The girls hanging around his practices didn’t arouse him like the bruise of a tackle, the pains of farm labor, or the mental strain that accompanied religious stringency. He’d accepted his unconventional urges long ago and locked the darkest ones deep inside. If his parents knew the kind of thoughts he entertained, it would destroy them. His chest tightened.
He moved out of the passing lane and merged into an opening between two slower cars. He’d admitted to her the reason for his career choice was absurd. Might as well tell her why.
“My folks tried to get pregnant for years. When they reached their mid-forties and found God, they prayed, made promises, and nine-months later…” He gave her a raised eyebrow.
“You arrived.”
“Yep. Here to fulfill their promise. They’d made a deal with God. If He gave them a child, they vowed to raise their miracle to be a servant of His church in Baptist ministry.”
She laughed, a sweet sound for such a glaring expression. “Absurd.”
“Told you.” And telling her seemed to dislodge it just a little from his chest. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God. He just wasn’t fanatical like some of his classmates. Like his parents.
“So young to allow all your choices be dictated by a promise to God.”
“My promise is to Mom and Dad.”
“Whatever. It’s a promise that controls you. Doesn’t that make you angry?”
“It challenges me, makes me a better person. I’m good with that.”
A lull settled over her, and her gaze lost focus as she stared at him. She raised her hand, tentative at first, and reached for his face, fingertips resting on his cheekbone. When she traced his jawline, it was a caress so alluring he had to put all his concentration in keeping his eyes open and his hands on the wheel.
“Your life has always been predetermined, huh?” Her words were as perplexing as her touch.
“Mom and Dad gave me life, an honest one. In return, I accept the path they want for me.” He leaned ever so slightly against her fingers and murmured, “It’s just a job. You never know, it might lead to something extraordinary.”
She yanked her hand back, and her attention snapped to the road.
The absence of her touch left a cold shock. He rubbed his jaw on his shoulder. “Did I say something—”
“Take the next exit.”
Unease burrowed in him. What the hell happened? He exited, replaying the conversation in his head. Perhaps leaning into her touch had been too forward.
“Five miles up, turn right into the Two Trails Crossing subdivision.”
He passed Temple’s main drag, the emptiness of the streets seeping into the truck. His body knew she was sitting right beside him. Hell, it pulsed to close those few inches. But she seemed so very far away, lost in her thoughts.
Then she began to hum. It started with a tremor, out of the blue and shocking to his ears. Was she singing to avoid conversation or to slice through the quiet?
The fluttering harmonic built into a haunting rhythm. The tune was unfamiliar, yet the notes shifted through him as if breathed from the most secret part of her soul.
“What is that?” he whispered. “What are you humming?”
The enchanting crescendo cut off, and he immediately regretted opening his mouth.
She cleared her throat. Then he heard it. The a cappella melody of a voice so piercing and peaceful it jolted a
