She found herself smiling again. “Because it forced me to make a decision. Was I doing my baby any favors by staying with this man? No. He didn’t even want the baby. He kept trying to talk me into getting an abortion so the baby wouldn’t ‘cramp our style.’ So I finally quit trying to make the relationship work and got out.”
Katie listened to the tires on the wet, shiny pavement, astonished at how rarely she thought about Andy anymore. She wondered if that would change once she had the baby as a constant reminder.
“Okay, it’s your turn,” she said.
“My turn for what?”
“You owe me a deep dark secret.”
“What kind of secret?”
“I don’t know…something juicy. How old were you when you lost your virginity?”
“Fifteen.”
“Who was she?”
“My best friend’s mother.”
“What?” Katie supposed this was information she should have already known, but the relationship she’d had with Booker two years ago was so different from what they had now. They’d never really talked before, at least not so honestly.
“She was divorced and bored and wanted to feel desired again, I guess.”
“How did she approach you?” She frowned. “She did approach you, didn’t she? I mean, you didn’t seduce her at fifteen!”
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t have that much confidence at fifteen,” he said. “She did the seducing.”
“How?” she repeated.
“She’d have Gator invite me over to stay the night, flirt with me, brush up against me whenever possible. I could feel her interest from clear across the room. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what she wanted.”
“Your parents must have been furious when they found out.”
He gave her a funny look. “Are you kidding? They never knew what was going on in my life. They were too busy trying to kill each other.”
“Is your friend’s mother still alive?”
“She was only thirty-something at the time.”
“Then she could’ve gotten pregnant!”
“She was on the pill.”
Katie adjusted her seatbelt again. “Have you had any contact with her recently?”
“Hell no, not for years. And I don’t plan to.”
Katie could easily imagine Booker catching the eye of an older, lonely divorcée. He was a tough kid with parents who didn’t look after him. He’d probably matured early, judging by the five-o’clock shadow that covered his jaw only a few hours after a shave. And, although Katie knew it wasn’t a conscious thing, Booker’s chocolate-colored eyes carried the promise of knowing how to please a woman. Judy at the diner had said it best—he had bedroom eyes.
“Did Gator ever find out?” Katie asked.
Booker slowed as he turned off the highway toward the farmhouse. “God, I hope not.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. I lost track of him when I went to prison.”
Katie studied his profile. “What was prison like?” She’d never asked him that before, either. She’d purposely avoided any mention of it.
He knitted his fingers over the top of the steering wheel and hunched forward, showing the first sign that he might finally be getting tired after their long day. “Lonely,” he said simply.
“Is that when you cried?”
His eyes briefly met hers before moving back to the road as he continued to dodge the potholes that made this part of the trip so slow after a storm. “No.”
She wanted to press him for details, but as they turned into the farm, their headlights swung across the snow-covered lawn and she saw someone sitting on the porch swing, hunched against the cold.
LEANING FORWARD, KATIE squinted as a boy no older than thirteen or fourteen stood up. Tall and gangly, he had shaggy blond hair and—
“Oh my gosh! It’s Travis,” she said.
She nearly hopped out of the truck before Booker could come to a complete stop, but his hand shot out to grab her. “Hold on,” he said.
As soon as Booker parked, she got out. “Travis, what are you doing here?” she cried, hurrying toward the house.
Her younger brother shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The way he held himself, tense and sullen, told her this was not the social visit she’d craved since her return.
“What’s wrong?” she asked when she was close enough to see his troubled face.
His breath misted on the cold night air. “It’s Mom and Dad. I just—” The muscles in his jaw worked, and he pulled his hands out of his pockets and made fists, as though he longed to hit something or someone.
“What?” she said.
“They threw me out of the house.”
“But you’re only fourteen!”
“They don’t care. They don’t care about anyone.”
Booker came up behind her and stood silent, listening.
“What happened?” she asked Travis.
“I got kicked out of school. Again.”
Again? As far as Katie knew, Travis had never been a stellar student. But he’d never been a behavioral problem, either. “For what?”
“For bringing nunchakus to school.”
She felt a moment’s confusion. “Nunchakus?”
“Martial arts weapons,” Booker explained.
“But where did you get them in the first place? There’re no karate instructors in Dundee.”
“I bought them off a kid who moved here from Utah.”
“Oh.” She considered what to say next. “Didn’t you realize they wouldn’t be allowed at school, Travis?”
Her brother shrugged. “I didn’t think it was any big deal. It’s not like I hit somebody with them.”
“That’s good at least.” Katie gave him as much of a hug as he’d allow in his agitated state. “How did you get all the way out here?”
“I thumbed a ride down to the turn-off and walked.”
“Don’t ever thumb a ride. It’s dangerous.”
“Billy Joe and Bobby Westin picked me up,” he said, his tone suggesting that she was overreacting by a wide margin.
Billy Joe and Bobby Westin were pretty harmless most of the time. A couple of good ol’ boys in their thirties, they hung out at the Honky Tonk and had the beer bellies to prove it. “Maybe that wouldn’t be a problem during the day. But Billy Joe and Bobby are usually drunk this late at night,” she said.