Page 21 of Shelter from the Storm

“Yeah. Manny told me.”

“You can’t walk to work,” he insisted.

“It’s only five miles,” she countered. Five of the most painful, brutal miles in existence.

“All uphill,” Theo countered, stating the obvious. He’d put the truck in park, so now he turned to face her. “You know what? This isn’t a problem. I’ll pick you up and drop you off every day.”

Gretchen was shaking her head before he even finished the offer. “No. No way. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“Fine. Then you’ll borrow one of the farm trucks. We pretty much only use them during the hours when you’d be at work anyway, so it’s not like we’d miss one overnight.”

Gretchen bit her lower lip, her silence apparently enough for Theo to understand.

“You can’t drive.”

She didn’t miss the tone of surprise. Given he’d grown up on a farm, Theo had probably been driving since he was old enough to see over the steering wheel.

She sighed. “I’ve spent the first twenty-four years of my life in a city with ample public transportation and rideshare options. Never needed to learn.”

Briggs had seen a driver’s license as something that would afford her too much independence and give her a way to leave him. Not having a license had slowed her escape, like the lack of money, and the fact he had her phone tied to Find My Friends, so he always knew where she was.

That was why her old phone had been left on her desk at work the day she left him. Brenda always drove her to and from work, and that day, they followed the same routine, in case Briggs was checking her location. Once at work, Gretchen grabbed her suitcase and new phone, leaving her old cell, along with her Dear John letter on her desk, escaping without him knowing.

Theo didn’t appear overly concerned about his new employee’s lack of car or license. “I’ll teach you how to drive.”

Gretchen frowned. “That’s not necessary.” Actually, it was, but she couldn’t ask her new boss to do that. Could she?

“We’ll practice in the brewery parking lot after hours,” he continued, as if she hadn’t rejected his offer. She was starting to realize that Theo had a bad habit of ignoring things he didn’t want to hear.

“Seriously,” she said, trying to think of a reason to refuse.

“Once you’ve mastered the parking lot, we’ll take a spin around town, and from there,” he made a horrified face, “we’ll move on to the mountain road that leads you to work.”

She couldn’t help but smile, because that damn road to their farm was treacherous as hell, and he was right to look terrified.

“There it is,” Theo said.

“There what is?”

“That pretty smile. I was wondering when you’d let me see it.”

Gretchen’s cheeks felt hot, and she hoped she wasn’t blushing. It had been too long since she’d heard kind words from Briggs. Or from anybody, really.

She shut those thoughts down.

Enough.

No more thinking about Briggs.

No more comparing everybody she met to him.

No more wallowing in the past.

She’d moved here to move on, so she was fucking doing it. Moving right the hell on.

From this moment, Briggs Howard was evicted from her thoughts.

Before Gretchen could continue to refuse Theo’s offer to teach her to drive—even though she really didn’t want to—there was a tap on his window.

---