Page 35 of A Twist of Faith
“Naw, but about three nights a week she does. She’s spent so many years cooking for a herd of people, it’s hard for her to get out of the habit.”
“It’s nice that you all stay so close.”
“I reckon we’ve always been close. Even when I lived in Charlotte for a time.”
Her head spun his direction. “You lived in Charlotte?”
“You make a whole lot of assumptions about me, don’t ya?”
She flat out ignored his question. Tough little thing sure hated being wrong. His lips scratched a grin.
“Why were you in Charlotte?”
“I did some consulting there for a few farms. Ran a construction company too.” He gripped the wheel more tightly as he rounded the next bend in the road. “You’ll want to be careful of this curve coming up. Especially in fog or bad weather.”
Dee followed the direction of his nod. Every time Reese passed the turn, it made him nervous. He’d even considered moving his house to the other side of Mitchell’s Crossroads before Lou started driving so she could avoid the curve altogether.
“That’s a steep drop.”
“It sure is.” Reese controlled a shiver. “And it comes right up on you when you least expect it. The road narrows here where the bank’s eroded from rain. Just be careful.”
“Why do you sound so angry about it?”
Stubborn woman. “Do you have to question everything?”
“Don’t you?”
“Some things I take on faith that a person is thinking of my welfare, trying to help me.”
“I’m sorry if I’m not a Pollyanna.” Her words tensed. “But I haven’t had a lot of people in my life I can trust, and certainly not a family like yours.”
Reese got a sight of her in his peripheral vision, arms crossed and chin tight. Few people ever experienced a family like his—and it was easy to take it for granted. He sighed. “There have been three accidents off that drop.” Reese slowed the truck to a crawl, visions flashing through his mind. “The one in our family was two years ago. And the driver wasn’t a stranger to this road.”
The pain creasingReese’s forehead confirmed the serious tone in his voice. Dee almost reached out to touch his arm again, share his hurts, but good sense kept her hand firmly planted in her lap. The last time she’d touched him, the tenderness of his look urged a knotted spot in her heart to unwind. He offered something her soul craved and it frightened her to her core.
She moistened her dry lips. “What happened?”
His brows pulled tighter and he focused on the road ahead. “Tom,” Reese stopped and shot Dee a sideways look. “Lizzie Simpkins’ husband. I reckon you met Lizzie at work?”
“Yes.”
“He’d found, I mean … he was driving my wife home.” Reese grew quiet, hesitated. His fists clenched and unclenched on the wheel, as if working up the words to say next.
But he didn’t have to. Dee read the end of his story in the emotions on his face.
“Nobody knows what happened to make him lose control of the car. I came upon the scene, first. Not sure how long they’d been down there. They were already—” He paused again and took a few deep breaths.
Dee’s stomach twisted, replaying the pain of loss she knew so well. She pressed her eyes closed, as if not seeing his pain might make the words mean less, but every syllable he spoke weighed down with his loss. He understood.
“There was nothing anybody could do. Maybe, if I’d been there a few minutes sooner.”
“At least you didn’t have to watch her die, Reese.” Her throat squeezed out the confession. “Nobody wants that memory in their heads.”
A fact she knew all too well.
“No, I reckon not, but I saw her lifeless face staring back at me from under the water. I was completely helpless to change any of it.” Reese’s voice broke and he shook his head. “A person never forgets a moment like that.”
Her hand covered his forearm, the kinship with him deepening. “I’m so sorry, Reese.”
