Page 37 of The Queen's Box

She bent down and grabbed her backpack and sandals. Cole opened the passenger door for her, and she got in. The seat was torn but warm. The door thunked shut behind her, and then Cole was sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. The truck coughed, then steadied, and gravel popped beneath the tires as they climbed higher, ever higher, on the dusty mountain road.

~

Colestank. Willow hadn’t noticed it when they’d been outside with the mountain air to mask and dilute it. But now? Trapped together in the cab of his pickup truck?

Willow knew she didn’t smell the best herself. But compared to Cole, she smelled as sweet as a summer rose.

Cole smelled like the manure-packed flower bed it grew from.

She edged as far toward the passenger door as she could, her backpack clutched in her lap and her bare feet tucked beneath her. Cole had covered a tear in the upholstery with duct tape, but the tape had peeled back like sunburnt skin. Its stiff edge rubbed against Willow’s skin.

The old truck rattled and clanked as they climbed higher. The headlights carved pale arcs through the dark. A low mist was coming in over the mountains, and it might have been pretty, but all Willow could focus on was the horrible stench radiating from the man who’d offered her a ride.

Could she crack open her window? That felt rude.

She could pull the soft gray baby blanket from her backpack and wrap it around her neck and lower face, using it like a scarf-slash-mask. That felt even ruder.

She scooted one millimeter closer to the door, pulling her knees toward her chest and subtly—or so she hoped—burying her nose in the crook of her arm. She wished she were wearing long sleeves.

Cole threw her a look. “Icanstop. I can let you out.”

So much for being subtle.

“No, sorry,” she said. She lowered her arm and tried to breathe normally. She gagged, a visceral heave that made her chest spasm and her shoulders cave in.

“It’s just mud,” Cole said crankily.

“Are you sure?” Willow said.

Cole shook his head incredulously. “Let me guess. You’re a city girl? You have, what, a lawn guy who mows your yard every other week?”

Every week, actually. But he wasn’t Willow’s lawn guy. He was her father’s. And he wasn’t justa lawn guy. He had a name, which was...

Which was . . .

She scowled. “Do you have a problem with freshly mown grass?”

“Not at all. Do you have a problem with mud?”

“No. That doesn’t mean I go rolling around in it.”

“So you’ve never been muddin’,” he said. He made a contemptuous sound. “Why am I not surprised?”

Willow had no idea what “muddin’” was, but from the way Cole smelled, she guessed it meant throwing yourself into a great wet slick of the stuff and sliding down it like snow. Gee, how cultured country boys were.

She sank lower in her seat, annoyed with herself for yet again judging someone based on stereotypes. Then again, overall-wearing Jefferson had turned her over to the church police, and Cole, good Samaritan though he was, smelled like a literal pigsty. She turned toward the window and tucked her nose into the crook of her arm again. So what if Cole judged her a snob? Let him.

Cole rolled down the driver’s side window. “There. Happy?”

“I am. Thank you,” she said icily.

They drove in silence, the road curling along the mountainside like a strip of ribbon. Trees pressed in, their limbs wild and untamed. Every so often, a branch scratched the frame of the truck.

Finally, Willow sat up straight and lowered her arm from her face. She still got whiffs of Cole’s stink, but the air was basically fine with the window rolled down.

“Why’d you move to Lost Souls?” she asked.

Cole’s hands stayed steady on the wheel, but his features tightened. “I had a little brother, Micah. When he was four years old... we lost him.”

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