Page 15 of Ever With Me

Heavy pressure enclosed his chest, like a belt wrapped too tight, and he started forward. It didn’t take long for him to find the street. Draped in blue-toned early morning light, the collection of brick and stone shops on Main Street was strangely bleak. Flyers on the window fronts spoke of community events—including a charity festival—all so small-town stereotypical and saccharine that he rolled his eyes.

People in places like this were all the same.Busybodies, cliquish, insufferable.They’d smile at outsiders and then turn right around and gossip about them as soon as they walked out the door. People who weren’t born here never truly broke into the so-called community.

He’d seen it all before in his hometown of Fountain Springs in North Carolina.

He saw the way they’d pretended to rally around his family.

Nothing but a bunch of fakery.

Hands stuffed into his pockets, he tore his gaze away from the buildings, dripping with their attempts at charm. Just like that Depot he’d crashed into. It had more cinnamon-scented, plaid-toned knickknacks than a Cracker Barrel Country Store.

He’d walked for what had to be at least a couple of miles when he gave up on the concept of cell service getting any better. At the sound of a car approaching, he turned to the road and threw his thumb in the air. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d hitchhiked—maybe as a teenager—but this seemed as good a time as any.

An old man in a truck slowed and rolled the window down. “Don’t think I’ve seen a hitchhiker round here in twenty years.” He laughed, his blue eyes twinkling. “Where you heading?”

Thank God the man was old. Old people didn’t tend to recognize or give a rat’s ass who he was.

“I’m trying to get to”—he searched for, then rattled off the address Cormac had texted him—“but my car broke down. Any chance you know where that is?”

The man nodded. “Sure do. Want a ride? I was heading into town, but I can take you over there if you’d like. Short drive from here.”

“Sure you don’t mind?” Brooks didn’t mention how muchheminded getting in the passenger seat of any vehicle, but he had to accept his situation.

He smiled again, his face pleasant. “Would I have stopped if I minded?”

Fair enough.Brooks set his bags in the bed of the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. The man shifted a hand-tied bouquet of what appeared to be wildflowers from the seat into the back. “Sorry. I just picked these for my wife.”

Brooks raised a brow. “You serious?”

The man pulled back onto the road. “Absolutely. She loves flowers. Always has. And I love to see her smile.”

It was almost enough to make his cynical heart thawslightly.Almost.

But not really.

The man was clearly a kook.

“You’re not from around here, obviously,” the man said, his eyes focused on the road. “Just passing through or staying for a while?”

“Passing through for a few days.” His palms started sweating as he jerked his eyes from the steering wheel. He didn’t want the man to think he was studying his every movement on the wheel intently—even though he was.

He hated,hatednot being in control of a car.

“Where’re you coming from?”

“LA.” How hadn’t he gotten the clue that he didn’t want to talk yet? “I’m not staying in town, though.”

“That’s too bad. The lake is nice, but the town is better.” The old man reached over into the side pocket of his door and pulled out a can of Pringles. “Want one?”

“I’m good, thanks.” He couldn’t think of anything less appetizing.

The man winked, then popped one in his mouth. “The wife thinks I eat too much salt. So I have to sneak them in the car.” He gave an obvious glance at Brooks’s left hand. “You married?”

Of all the people who had to pull over, it had to be someone chatty. “Nope.”

He put another chip in his mouth and chewed slowly. “Let me guess. You don’t have a good woman in your life, either.”

Brooks snorted. “Come again?”

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