Page 24 of Mountains Divide Us

“Why?” she asked shyly. I kind of liked her like this. I’d never really seen her as shy before, but then, I’d never really had a conversation with her. Not a personal one. Her bashfulness when I asked her about her dreams was more proof that she wasn’t so tough.

“Why what?”

She blushed, and I swore I could feel the warmth rush over her skin across the small table. “Why do you want to know about me?”

Leaning toward her, I took her hand in mine before she could go for her wine glass again. “Many reasons, but when you laugh, it makes me feel hopeful. I haven’t felt like that in a long time.”

Hm. When it came out of my mouth, I knew it was the truth.

Her eyes softened, and she sighed. “Whoa.”

Guess it was the right answer.

* * *

She didn’t bring up age again, and we ate. She even mowed down some kind of cake with Chantilly cream on top, and I sat back, watching her with something akin to satisfaction in my chest and low in my stomach, warming the food I’d barely eaten ’cause I couldn’t pay attention to hunger with the sound of her voice all around me in our little corner of the restaurant. Besides, the mushrooms that had come with my steak were drowning in butter, and I didn’t even want to think about that shit coating the insides of my arteries.

Talking with her hands, she made big sweeping movements while she described traveling through Italy and France, pulling bread apart and stuffing it into her mouth before she finished a sentence. It was charming, and her zest for life was sexy. She talked about fancier dinners than ours in castles in Scotland and at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and I listened, but a small, far-off part of my mind remembered all the diner and fast-food dinners I’d had in comparison. Cans of beans and sweet corn. I was glad I’d brought her to Paulo’s, but something told me she really would’ve been just as happy at José’s Diner.

Our age difference was bothering her though. I could tell every time a terse little frown appeared on her face when she made mention of something I knew nothing about, like bands she liked or concert festivals she wanted to go to, movies I hadn’t seen, or books I hadn’t read.

Truthfully, I couldn’t stop guessing what she had looked like or what she’d been doing at different points in my life. She was one year old when I’d joined the Army. A baby. As sappy as it sounded in my head, I felt pride when I realized I had been protecting the freedom she would grow up in. But still, I felt flat-out old sitting across from her.

The background music in the restaurant played quietly over speakers in the ceiling. I didn’t recognize the songs, but Samantha did, and she hummed along during the pauses in our conversation. There weren’t that many, but mostly she talked and I listened.

I was enraptured by her, getting swept up in the tender sound of her voice, when suddenly an old song popped into my head—“You Give Love a Bad Name” by Bon Jovi. There was a line in that song that my mama had played over and over. Something about the first kiss was your first kiss goodbye. It was the soundtrack to the downfall of my childhood. She’d listened to it obsessively, had a tape of it she’d recorded off the radio, and it lived in our old, beat-up car’s tape deck.

And then another song pushed its way through—“Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty. I remembered hearing it on my way to enlist the day of my eighteenth birthday. I hadn’t wanted to free fall into anything back then. Hearing that song on that day pushed me even harder to sign my name on the dotted line. It pushed me to join the Army, to ignore all my fears and dreams and just move on. Just live, even though I wasn’t sure what I had been living for.

I’d had an okay life. My childhood was a sad one, that was for sure, but now, I had a lot to offer to the world. I had no problem paying for this stuffy, overpriced dinner. I was good at saving my money, planning for the future I’d probably never have. I still didn’t want to “fall” into anything. It just wasn’t me, but maybe I could ease my way into something.

If I found the right something. The right… someone.

Samantha kept talking. She let me pay for dinner without argument, and once or twice, her hand twitched toward mine while we walked back to my truck parked in front of the library.

When we were there, I held the door for her while she threw her bag up onto the seat and climbed in after it, and her little black dress rode up her thighs. It fit her well and had my imagination running circles around propriety, but it wasn’t her usual garb. I liked her hippie skirts better. They suited her.

Still, it was hard not to stare, but I didn’t want to give her the wrong impression. I kept my attention above her waistline, but out of the corner of my eye, I watched her cross her legs. I was hoping Grumbly’s shed fur wouldn’t be covering her ass when she got out. I should’ve cleaned my truck before I picked her up. In fact, it was unlike me not to think of it, and it irritated me that I hadn’t. That damn dog really was a pain in my ass.

Remembering my emergency winter preparedness duffel in the back seat, I pulled a wool blanket out and covered her legs. A silent smile was thanks enough, but then she opened her millennial mouth. “Thank you, Frank, but you really don’t have to drive me home. I could’ve walked.”

“You ain’t walkin’ home in the dark alone in that dress. Not on my watch.”

“That’s kind of sexist, you know.”

“It ain’t sexist. It’s common sense. It’s cold, and I’m a cop, remember? I know exactly what could happen to someone like you on a dark road at night.” Not to mention she’d probably freeze to death.

I was smacking myself mentally for not using my auto starter, but I shut her door and climbed in the other side, and when I finally did start the truck, she asked, “Someone like me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Someone beautiful and… delicate.” And young. Sure, she was an adult, and it wasn’t like she was barely eighteen, but she was still a fuck of a lot younger than me.

She smiled but then caught herself and scrunched her face up. I wasn’t trying to sound like a jerk, but damn, the floral scent of her shampoo, her warmth, and the smell of her skin wrapping around me in the truck was like a drug, an aphrodisiac, and I couldn’t concentrate on what I was saying.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d experienced anything like it. Maybe I never had. I’d definitely never wanted to kiss someone so much in my near forty-nine years. I had to force myself to focus on my hands on the steering wheel and my foot on the gas pedal.

“‘Delicate’?” She scoffed with a laugh. “You mean naïve.”

“Ain’t what I said.”

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