Page 106 of Brewbies
The one who let her heart rule her head. The one who muted her colors to match a man, to blend into a community.
To find a home.
“I thought that you should really be the one to tell him,” Roy said. “I know this will come as quite a shock.”
The words were a pin popping the bubble of Darby’s inner monologue.
She cleared her throat and glanced up at the sky. “It looks like it’s going to rain,” she said lamely. “I should probably get going.”
When neither acknowledged her, Darby accidentally on purpose nudged the metal window crank with her knee.
Caryn looked down at her hand still in Roy’s and blushed. “Yes,” she said, withdrawing quickly. “Yes, I suppose you should.”
Roy lifted the hand from the passenger-side window and reached into the paper bag slung over his arm. It returned holding a beribboned hatbox she recognized from his shop. “For the cloche,” he said. “I think Helen would want you to have it.”
Speechless, Darby looked at the beautiful box, then at Roy, whose mouth curved in a surprisingly handsome smile.
It was the first time she’d ever seen it.
“You make sure you drive safe, young lady.”
“Thanks,” Darby croaked in daddy issues. “I will.”
“Do keep in touch,” Caryn added.
“Will do.”
Pebbles shot out from Darby’s rear tires as the stomped on the gas, and her speedometer needle quivered as she steered her vehicle around the bend.
She pressed the gas pedal all the way until she spotted the tree tunnel ahead.
Home stretch,she told herself. Another hundred yards and she’d be free of this place. Free of the home it had promised to be. Free of disappointment that covered the landscape she’d once loved like moss.
Trees blurred in her peripheral vision as the tears spilled over Darby’s lids.
Almost there.
Red and blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror.
“Oh, come on!” She slapped her palm against the dash hard enough to send the grass-skirted plastic hula girl mounted above her air vents into a manic twerk. Apropos, as it had been the kitschy secondhand shop purchase that had given her the idea for her move farther across the Pacific.
Squinting at her side mirror to see the cruiser behind her, she felt a rush of relief.
McGarvey.
She slowed her speed and pulled to the side of the road, hoping like hell she could keep their encounter brief and uneventful. Turning on her hazards, Darby quickly dashed the tears from her face and tugged her sweater down to reveal another inch of cleavage.
She’d sooner lick the barnacles off a trash barge than cry her way out of a ticket, but if her sweater kittens happened to put McGarvey in a more generous mood, all to the good. Her days of trading distress for consideration were long fucking gone.
And good riddance.
Deputy McGarvey’s boots fell heavy on the asphalt as he approached the driver’s-side window. He rested his arms on the doorframe and leaned in, his face a mask of mock sternness. “Ma’am, do you know how fast you were going?”
Darby bit her lip and met his gaze with an apologetic one of her own. “Not exactly,” she said, tapping her ancient speedometer. “This thing can be a little hinky.”
“Forty in a fifty-five is hinky,” he said, a smirk tugging one corner of his lips. “Seventy in a fifty-five is a high-speed chase.”
“I’m so sorry,” she replied in a honeyed voice that sounded nothing like her own. “The thing is, I’m actually supposed to be catching the 4:15 p.m. ferry because I have to drop my camper off in storage for a seven p.m. flight out of Sea-Tac. If I miss it, I’m screwed until tomorrow morning, and I really,reallyneed to get there today.”
