Page 76 of Love in Tandem
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She began forcing him into some sort of cha-cha. It seemed appropriate for whatever brassy Latin-sounding song was blaring from the speaker. “See, isn’t this helping?”
“Helping what?”
“Helping us to not think about things.” Or at least helping Sophia to not think about things. Like her parents. Or Joshua leaving soon to get back to his boring furniture job. Or Charlotte leaving simply to find a job if they didn’t locate the money.
Nope. Sophia didn’t want to think about anything. Except this moment. When she’d never witnessed worse dancing in all her life. Sophia couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re terrible.”
“I tried telling you.” But she noticed he couldn’t stop smiling. And wow, did she like that smile. Wow, did she like him.
Somewhere in their dancing, they’d transitioned from the cha-cha to something that resembled ballroom dancing, which had them colliding into the kitchen counter, then the refrigerator.
“Maybe we should take this outside,” Joshua said, nearly spinning her into the stove.
“Too bad Hopkins never got around to making that baseball diamond,” Sophia said with a giggle when a kitchen chair toppled over. “We’d have a little more space. You could twirl me around home plate.” She gripped Joshua’s shoulders and stopped dancing.
“What? What’s wrong? Did I step on your foot?” Joshua’s hands slid to her waist, holding her with just the right amount of gentleness and firmness—just like the first day they met. And wow, did she really like his hands too. But now wasn’t the time to think about that.
“Joshua.” She shook his shoulders. “Did you hear what I said? Home plate.”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“You said you saw a sketch for a baseball field, right? Well, what if Hopkins did start working on it? What if the money’s not in the house? What if—”
“You’ll find everything you need at home.” He turned his head toward the window above the kitchen sink where twilight bathed the tall trees and rock fence in shadows. His breath stirred up the strands of hair that had come loose next to her ear while they danced. “You really think he could’ve meant out there?”
“Well, he’s certainly buried treasure before, hasn’t he? And it sounds like he loved baseball.”
“He adored baseball,” Joshua mumbled, then met her eyes with a new spark in his own. “Okay. I’ll find that sketch again. It’s worth a shot. Maybe tomorrow we’ll find everything we need at home after all.”
“I have a good feeling we will.” Because she really didn’t want to think about what her life would look like if they didn’t.
Late the next evening, as the sun disappeared behind a row of towering conifer trees, Zach steered their tandem into one of the campground sites at Natchez State Park.
Unlike any of their previous stops, this campground was packed. RVs filled every lot, campers yacking in lawn chairs around their coolers and grills, lanterns strung up to take over where the sun was about to leave off.
“You care where we stay?” Zach asked over his shoulder, not that they had too many options. He spotted an area big enough to pitch their pathetic excuse of a tent next to a couple of Porta-Potties.
Charlotte mumbled something back. Something along the lines of being willing to sleep inside the Porta-Potties at this point. Poor girl. She had to be exhausted. Zach knew he was.
After the whole gas-station-missing-mother fiasco yesterday, they’d ended up biking their tails off to reach Jackson, Mississippi. But once they got there, Zach just didn’t have the heart to make Charlotte sleep in that stinky tent. So thanks to the cash from Earl, they scraped together enough to afford a sketchy motel room that would’ve made the “snake-infested” picnic benches from their first night appear glamorous in Charlotte’s eyes—if she’d kept them open longer than what it took to reach the bed and crash.
Today, needing to make up some ground, they’d left at the first glimmer of dawn and managed ninety miles, despite the ruthless heat index. Unfortunately, staying nourished and hydrated throughout that ruthless heat index had required using the rest of Earl’s money. Which meant they were stuck with the stinky tent tonight.
But that wasn’t what concerned Zach. What concerned Zach was how they were going to survive their last day tomorrow on a couple of bananas and granola bars—about all they’d have left after their supper tonight.
His stomach growled, Charlotte’s answered back. They shared a weary smile.
“Hey, y’all,” a woman’s voice reached out to them.
Zach turned to see a plump woman waving her arms from across the paved road that circled the camping area. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Don’t mean to attack you as soon as you land, but we’ve got plenty of leftovers if you’re hungry. You’re welcome to join us.” She waved to a picnic table parked next to her RV where a group of people were sprawled out, some sitting in lawn chairs, a few playing frisbee. “We’re just dying to know where you’ve been and where you’re going.”
Charlotte’s smile perked up as she glanced at Zach. She didn’t even have to say it. An answer to prayer. And not just Charlotte’s. Somewhere these past five hundred miles, Zach had started uttering quite a few himself.
“Thank you,” Charlotte called back. “We’d be glad to join you.”
“Wonderful,” the woman replied with a friendly southern drawl. “My name’s Faye. Head over whenever. No rush.”
“You sure this is a good idea?” Zach pulled their crusty tent out of his backpack and flopped it onto the ground, giving Charlotte a wink. “They could be a bunch of crazies just waiting to slit our throats.”
