What She Saw

She supposed it wouldn’t. “Are you going to Ray’s wake, too?” She glanced at her watch. If she remembered correctly, wakes ended at nine, and it was already past that.

“Tomorrow night,” he answered.

All of a sudden everything zipped into clear focus. The faint fog left by the allergy pill was gone. Her heart even remembered how to speed up. “You’re staying in town?”

“Over at the La-Z-Rest. I’m on vacation.”

She almost gaped at him.

He caught the expression and his eyes danced a little. “What?”

“Why in the world would someone on vacation stay here?”

“Where would you go?”

“Any place. Denver. New York. Paris. Miami. I don’t know. Some place with things to do.”

“So you want action?”

“I wouldn’t exactly put it like that,” she admitted. “There’s nothing wrong with this place. I like it. It just doesn’t strike me as a vacation spot.”

“That’s because you live here. You can’t see its charm.”

A little laugh escaped her. “We roll up the sidewalks at nine, except for here and the roadhouses. You’re going to get bored.”

“I doubt it. It’s quiet here. I like that. Plenty of nice places to walk. I like that, too, especially when I spend so much time driving.”

She supposed she could see that. Maybe. “Well, if you’re into hiking, there are some nice mountains.”

“They probably look different when you’re not behind the wheel of a heavy rig,” he allowed.

“Well, I’ll be interested to see how long you last. Most people who visit here wonder how we can stand it.”

“What makes this place work for you?”

She thought about it. “People. Great people. There’s something nice about knowing almost everyone. But that’s not going to work for you.”

“Maybe not. We’ll see. It’s sure some pretty countryside.”

She looked down at the table and realized she didn’t believe him. She was right, nobody picked this place for a vacation. Not even someone who was tired of driving. People who vacationed here—and there weren’t a ton of them—came to camp up in the mountains and hike.

“So, looks like you got sunburned.” He pushed his plate to one side.

Suddenly self-conscious, she put her hand to her cheek. “I wish. No, I had a dress rehearsal for a play I’m doing at school, and I discovered I’m allergic to the stage makeup.”

A smile crooked one corner of his mouth. “I bet that’s miserable. And you have to do it again? When’s the play?”

“Friday and Saturday night.”

“I ought to come to see you.”

“I’m on stage for less than five minutes. You won’t see much. But it is good play, a mystery. One of the students wrote it.”

“I’ll definitely come.”

She laughed. “See, you’re already looking for stuff to do around here. If you stay long enough, you’ll go crazy.” She started to get up as she saw another truck pulling in.

But Buck stopped her by reaching out and touching her hand. The contact felt almost like an electric spark, a zap that ran through her entire body. Before she could react, he’d withdrawn his touch. “I need to talk to you,” he said. “About what happened to Ray. Not here, though.”

For the first time, a real shiver of uneasiness ran through her. What was going on? And why should she trust this guy she didn’t know? Was he some kind of stalker?

All of a sudden, she had major doubts about the kind of person Buck Devlin might be. About the danger he could represent.

“I don’t think so,” she said briskly and stood. “I don’t see customers outside of work. Ever.”

Then another driver came through the door, ending the conversation. For the first time, she was relieved to get away from Buck Devlin.

Haley felt a little silly for asking Hasty to walk her to her car. She didn’t tell him why, but she also couldn’t forget that Buck was in the motel just across the way. At least Hasty didn’t ask any questions. Maybe he didn’t think it unusual for a woman to get a little nervous from time to time about crossing that huge parking lot where almost anything could lurk.

And maybe it really wasn’t. All kinds of strangers came through that lot, people with no roots and ties here. Maybe she should have been afraid all along of walking out there alone in the dark. She just wasn’t used to thinking that way.

But Buck had made her think that way, and ever since she’d told him off, she’d been wondering if she had overreacted. He wasn’t the first driver to make a suggestion and he wouldn’t be the last. So what had set her off? Disappointment that he was no better? Or his reference to Ray?

She honestly wasn’t sure. Overreaction, she decided finally. She was still upset that someone she knew had died, her face was a mess because of an allergic reaction, she’d taken a pill that had left her feeling off-kilter all night and then Buck had wanted to talk to her away from work.

Well, it wasn’t the first time some driver had made that suggestion, but it was the first time she’d gone into hyperdrive over it.

Thinking back over it, she almost felt embarrassed. It wasn’t as if he was a total stranger, in the sense that he’d been coming into the place for many months now. People knew who he was and who he worked for.

Now if it had been some guy she’d never seen before, that might have been reason to get upset.

Or maybe she had reacted oddly because he said he was vacationing here. At the ends of the earth. At a truck stop surrounded by a small town and a lot of wide-open spaces and distant ranches. Most definitely not a place on most people’s vacation lists.

That, linked with Ray and Buck’s interest in what had happened in the parking lot before the accident, seemed odd.

But odd was not the same as evil. And maybe his company had asked him to check around. How would she know, since she hadn’t given him a chance to explain anything?

Standing before her mirror, washing her face yet again and feeling some relief that most of the redness and swelling had gone down, she decided she had probably overreacted.

She didn’t work tomorrow night, but she might run into him at Ray’s wake, and if she did, she promised herself she was going to ask some questions.

Because the simple truth was, she didn’t want to put Buck in the category he seemed to be sliding toward: just another creep. She didn’t want to put him there at all.

Especially when she finally crawled exhausted into bed and realized that his face was floating in her mind’s eye, and that all she could think about was what it might be like to feel his arms around her.

Stupid, but private, she thought as she drifted away. No one would ever know.

And she was too smart to get herself into trouble over a rolling stone.