Page 41 of Eight Years Gone

“Crap,” Grace squealed, snagging her beach bag and blanket as Christy grabbed her soda can and the picnic lunch they never got around to eating.

All three of them ran, heading for the makeshift parking lot.

“I’ll call you later,” Christy shouted as she got in her car after Brennan shut his door.

“Drive safely,” Grace called, getting behind the wheel, dripping all over her seat.

“Well, this is great.” Taking off her sunglasses, she pulled her towel from her bag, drying off. Then she fastened her seat belt, turning over the engine as lightning flashed in the sky, and Christy drove off.

“This should be interesting,” she murmured as she turned the wipers on full blast, then started down the long lane to the main road, looking forward to getting home and getting lost in her work—to stop thinking about Jagger for a while.

But then she gasped, slamming on her brakes when he ran toward her car, flagging her down in the storm. Pulling over next to him, she rolled down the passenger side window a crack. “Get in.”

He wasted no time complying, soaking her seat as he sat down. “I was hoping I hadn’t missed you. I ran like hell to get back over this way.”

She reached for the towel in the back, handing it to him. “Here.”

“Thanks,” he said, burying his face in the cotton, then went after his soaked hair before he dried his chest and arms as the wind knocked against her Kia.

“Are you all set?”

“Yeah,” he said as he fastened his safety belt. “Thanks again for stopping.”

She nodded, forcing herself to relax her shoulders. “Of course.”

Pulling back onto the road in the deluge, she kept her speed low as the trees swayed with the next nasty gust. “You ran out here from town?”

He shrugged. “It’s only five miles.”

“Only?”

He jerked his shoulders again. “I’ve certainly run farther. Ten miles here and back isn’t all that much.”

“Huh,” she said, focusing on the road instead of the fact that Jagger’s eyelashes were still wet and webby, accentuating his fantastic dark-blue eyes.

“You still listen to your nineties stuff?” He gestured to the radio.

She hadn’t been paying attention to the music—to The Sundays “Wild Horses” playing through the speakers.

She quickly slapped at the button, turning it off, remembering the day she and Jagger had ended up on her bedroom floor while the song played in the background.

She slid a glance his way as he looked at her, knowing he remembered too.

God, why wouldn’t the rain stop so she could drive faster? “Uh, taekwondo,” she said almost desperately. “How are things going with that?”

He nodded. “Good.”

“Good.”

He got more comfortable in his seat, locking his hands behind the headrest in the way he’d done more times than she could count. “Uh, I stopped by Aunt Mag’s last night. She gave me that box she’d been holding on to.”

Grace sat up straighter, tightening her hands on the wheel, well aware of the box Jagger spoke of. “Oh.”

“I thought all of that stuff would have gotten thrown away.”

She shook her head. “I took it with me when I left Wakeview.”

“Do you ever go back?”

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