Page 93 of Trailer Trash

I moved in front of him and put my hands on his chest. “Do youwantto go back?”

He stared at me with a blank expression. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“Yes, itdoes, Jed. If you don’t want to work for Skeeter, you can do something else. We’ll figure it out, then go back and deal with it together. Next week.”

He shook his head with a sad look in his eyes. “No, Neely Kate. We have to head back now.”

“Why?”

“That wasn’t a call from my old boss. It was a call from my friend. Scooter’s missing.”

“What?” Skeeter’s younger brother wasn’t the brightest of men, but he had a sweet disposition and was loved by a lot of people. From what I’d heard, Skeeter tried to keep his brother out of the crime world. “What happened?”

He ran a hand over his head. “I don’t know, but I need to get back and help look for him.”

I put my hand on his arm. “You don’thaveto help, Jed.”

“I do. Scooter is like family.”

While I understood why he’d made that decision, it still ticked me off. For the first time in my life, I felt like fate had finally taken my side, just to snatch away my happiness again. “So you’re just gonna go back to workin’ for Skeeter just like that?” I snapped my fingers.

“No. It’s not like that, Neely Kate. I’m not going back to be Skeeter’s right-hand man. I’m going back to help find Scooter.”

I put my hands on my hips and glared up at him. “You really believe that?”

He didn’t answer.

We grabbed our bags and headed down to Jed’s car, tossing our bags into the back seat. After Jed checked out, we stopped at a gas station to fill up the car and get some donuts and coffee. We were several miles down the highway before I said, “I’m sorry.”

He turned to me in surprise. “What in the hell doyouhave to be sorry for?”

“I was upset about your decision to go back . . . I was being selfish, and I’m sorry.”

“Neely Kate,” he groaned.

“No. Of course you’re going to help find Scooter. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be the man I . . .” I what? Loved? Was falling for? “The man I care about.”

He was silent.

“You think you’re irredeemable, Jed Carlisle, and I know you’ve done some bad things. You know I have too. But maybe we buy back pieces of our souls with the good things we do. Calling the authorities about baby Crystal and stayin’ until they got there. Goin’ back to Henryetta to look for Scooter. Shoot,helpin’ me. Don’t you think those good deeds you’ve done help counteract the bad?”

He shot me a glance. “I didn’t help you out of the kindness of my heart, Neely Kate. I did it for purely selfish reasons.”

“What are you talkin’ about?” I wasn’t sure my heart could bear someone else betraying me. Especially if that someone was Jed.

He shook his head in frustration. “I mean, I couldn’t let you go to Ardmore without me because I would have been sick with worry. If you’d cut me loose, I would have tracked you and followed you every step of the way. I wasn’t about to let you do this alone.”

A lump filled my throat, and I choked out a short laugh. “That’s not selfish, Jed. That’s called caring about someone.”

He reached out and grabbed my hand. “I’m not sure you know how much you mean to me, Neely Kate.”

I squeezed his hand back. “You mean a lot to me too.” I considered everything he’d done for me over the last couple of days. Actions spoke louder than words, especially for someone like Jed. “Hey, where’s the bag you dug up?”

“In the trunk.”

“What do you plan to do with it?”

“Look it over for anything useful. I need to find out how close they got to tying you to his death. Maybe it’ll help us figure out whether the guy who showed up at Zelda’s was working for Kate or investigating Manchester’s disappearance.”

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