Page 43 of Harrison Hyde and the Runaway Bride

She swallowed hard. “Made me sick to my stomach, too, when I saw that photo. Cause it looked for all the world like you should’ve been flattened.”

“Looked that way from my angle, too.”

She shook her head. “You saved my life, Harry.”

“Well, you saved mine. From Billy Bob, I mean.”

“Heck, he wouldn’t’a killed you.” She shrugged a shoulder and said, “I like you.”

“I like you, too.” It was an automatic reply.

She said, “I mean… you know… Ilikeyou.”

“Oh.” He had to think of how to respond to that.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I thought maybe— you said it made you sick to see me hurt, and then there was that spine-tinglin’ kiss, before, so— let’s go inside, huh? The gang moved all our stuff for us— hope you don’t mind.”

He touched her shoulder, so she turned back. And he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, kissed her like he had before, and then he pulled back enough to talk, and said, “I like you, too. A lot.”

She smiled, and it lit her brown eyes.

“It’s just that I can’t?—”

She pressed her finger to his lips. “You fixin’ to ruin it?”

He stopped talking. She tugged on the front of his shirt, pulled him in for one more kiss. She burrowed her fingers into his hair, and he wrapped his arms around her waist, and they kissed like teenagers after prom.

Then she let him go and got out of the truck.

He couldn’t start anything up with Maria.

He’d already started something up with Maria.

He’d told her he couldn’t live in southwest Texas, no matter how much the place kind of took his breath away. His dad and sister lived in Ithaca— for the moment. His job was in Ithaca. His mother was buried in Ithaca. It was illogical to pursue his feelings for Maria.

My God, he hadfeelingsfor Maria.

“Hey, there you are!” Shaggy, blond Baxter came and clasped Harrison’s hand, went to slap his shoulder, but he dodged it with a kind of graceless swoop.

Baxter was as tall as all the other male Brands, but not as wide. He wore black-framed glasses and sneakers, not boots. “Come on around back. We have pizza and beer.”

Then he went back the way he’d come. Maria took Harrison’s sleeve, not his arm, not his hand, just his sleeve. It was dark and she knew the terrain. As they moved around outside of the bunkhouse, toward the back, an orange glow suffused the darkness. The source was a campfire, a house-length away for safety. Lawn chairs, fallen logs, and coolers served as seats.Baxter handed Harrison a beer, and then the kid with the dark curls— he searched his mind for the name— Trevor, son of Maria’s Uncle Elliot and Aunt Esmeralda— brought over a pizza box, holding it open in front of the two of them. Maria took a big slice, so he followed suit. Maria said, “Here’s a spot,” and led him to a log covered in dry, brown moss. They sat and it was like a cushion.

Harrison looked at the gathered group and did a mental pop quiz. Orrin and Drew, brother and sister, seemed to stick close when in large groups. Drew seemed protective of Orrin. In addition to Baxter and Trevor, there was Bubba, who’d driven them. And just then, Willow came traipsing around the bunkhouse with a rucksack over her shoulder. “Got room for one more?”

“You bring beer?” Bubba asked, but then he hugged her, and the two of them found food, and places to sit.

They ate pizza. Harrison wasn’t a drinker, but the beer he was handed tasted good tonight, so he was taking a swig between bites. Every now and then somebody would say something random about the weather or the cattle. And then finally, Drew, the youngest, piped up with, “We’ve all seen the video.”

“What video?” Harrison asked.

“Yeah, what video?” Maria echoed.

“You don’t know about the video?” Drew asked. “They don’t know abut the video.”

Willow said, “The diner had a camera. Caught the whole hit-and-run. A waitress uploaded it to the internet before we told her not to. And it’s getting a lot of views.”

“I don’t know why nobody’s talkin’ about it,” Drew said.

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