Mary Sullivan - No Ordinary Home

When the waitress returned, Gracie ordered steak and eggs, because she would need the protein to get her to Denver. Not many truckers picked up hitchhikers anymore, not like they used to. How could she blame them? The world was a dangerous place.

She thought back to when she was a teenager flirting with veganism. These days, she was far more practical. She needed meat.

This afternoon, and for the next few days, she’d be hoofing it toward Denver. As always, she broke the trip down into segments. If she could make it as far as the next small town by this evening, she might be able to work a full day tomorrow and get herself a cheap motel room for the night. Maybe grab a hot shower before continuing on to Denver and visiting a bank. She should look respectable for that.

If someone would hire her for the day, that is.

The meal came with hash browns and toast.

“Do you have rye bread?”

“Sure, but I have to charge you an extra dollar for it.”

Gracie avoided looking at Austin. “Make my toast rye, and bring marmalade. And I want rice pudding for dessert.” She would need the iron from the raisins. “And a large glass of milk.” Lately, she’d been worrying about calcium. Were her bones weakening because she wasn’t getting enough? Would she pay for it later in life?

Her head still pounded, especially as she wondered whether she’d made the right choice in running away. Then she thought of her mom and dad, and that jerk Jay, and the circus her life had been, and her regrets faded.

Better to be on the road than to be involved in that again, but some days she was so tired she just wanted to quit. Then she would remember she already had. How did a person go about quitting...quitting?

Get your hands on your money.

That will solve your problems.

CHAPTER TWO

GRACIE ATE LIKE a half-starved animal, which Austin guessed she was. Man, could she pack it away.

“Careful,” he warned. “Don’t make yourself sick. You’re putting all of that into an empty stomach. You’ll fill up too quickly.”

“I can take care of my own stomach.” She stopped eating. “Sorry,” she said. She must have realized her tone had been caustic and remembered that he was paying for her meal. Austin almost laughed. He figured if she’d been on the road awhile, on her own, she’d learned to take care of herself pretty well.

She was a prickly one, all right.

“We going to get a move on soon?” Finn nursed the last of his coffee. Both he and Austin had finished their meals, but then they’d ordered less than Gracie had, and she was still plowing through hers.

Finn was still watching him, as he’d done all through lunch, but Austin had avoided his gaze. Now he met Finn’s cynical glare head-on. Finn’s left eyebrow sat cocked. The man could carry on whole conversations with his unruly eyebrows.

That raised brow said everything he wouldn’t utter in front of the woman. They’d been best friends for more than fifteen years. Austin could almost read Finn’s mind, imagined every word he wouldn’t say out loud.

Are you for real, Austin? We’re on the road, on vacation, and you pick up a stray? You can’t stop yourself from helping people, can you? Not even on vacation.

Ready to defend his actions, Austin halted at the quirk of Finn’s lips, because the man was glancing from his scratched cheek to the small woman beside him.

Again, man, really? You let that little thing get the better of you? Some cop you are.

Austin wanted to say she was stronger than she looked, but shame had him holding his tongue. And a certain odd loyalty to the woman he’d only just met. Then his humor kicked in and he grinned and shrugged.

Finn grinned, too, and the tension between them eased.

It would be a shame to let a woman, a stranger, come between a pair of good friends.

Even so, at the moment, Austin’s loyalty was to Gracie, because of her hunger and poverty. Finn had never known a day of need in his life. Austin had. He understood desperation. He totally got despair.

To his credit, Finn had held himself back from asking what had happened while he’d waited for Austin inside the diner.

“As soon as Gracie is finished we can go.” Austin turned his attention to her. “Where’re you going from here?”

She shrugged. He didn’t like the thought of her on the road, even if she was tough enough to handle anything that came along. He wondered if she fully understood the dangers to a woman alone in these places.

If she’d robbed a different kind of man, if it had been late at night with fewer people around, she might have been in more trouble than she could handle. And behind the building, no one would have heard her scream. The thought chilled him. She might be stronger than she looked, but hunger had left her depleted.

“Where did you sleep last night?”

She shrugged again. He grasped her wrist and repeated the question.

She put down a spoonful of rice pudding and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. She’d been raised to have manners. He’d noticed her speech was good, her grammar correct, better than his. She hadn’t been raised poor. He’d bet on that. So, what was her story?

“I know you’re feeding me and I appreciate it,” she said, tugging on her wrist until he let go, “but where I sleep is nobody’s business but my own.”

“You made it mine when you stole my wallet.”

“She what? ” Finn leaned forward, expression fierce. “Why haven’t you called the cops? Instead, you’re feeding her?”

Austin raised a hand to placate his friend. “She stole my wallet, but I caught her and got everything back.” Finn looked angry enough to spit bullets. Or maybe that should be tranquilizing darts. After all, the guy was a veterinarian. Naw. The way he was staring at Gracie was pretty lethal. Austin figured he’d better appease him. “She apologized—didn’t you, Gracie?”

She nodded. She’d returned to her pudding and her mouth was full. Good thing. It prevented her from lying. Or maybe she lied easily. He knew nothing about her.

“Where are you headed?” he asked again. “Where are you sleeping tonight?” Last thing he needed was a woman depending on him—he’d had a bellyful of that, more than one man should have to bear in only thirty-one years—but he couldn’t help worrying. The world was a dangerous place, especially for a woman on her own.

“I’m trying to get to Denver. I’m hoping to hitch a ride from here to the nearest town.”

She was heading to Denver? So were they.

Finn must have seen the wheels turning in Austin’s mind because he shook his head. “No. No, no, no. Stop thinking what you’re thinking, Austin.”

Finn had sat through enough of Austin’s griping sessions to know exactly how hard Austin’s life was with his mom. Finn’s eyebrow shot up again. Don’t take on another needy woman, man.

Sensing the tension, Gracie’s head shot up. “Are you heading to Denver?”

Austin nodded.

She swallowed the last gulp of her milk. “Can I hitchhike to the next town? I’ll be no trouble. You can drop me off there and I’ll find my own place to sleep. I promise,” she said, her voice full of both desperation and hope. “Just give me a ride that far. I can make my own way to Denver later. I’ll be no trouble. Honest.”

Finn groaned. Austin knew why. They’d been best friends since high school, and he knew Austin inside out. He knew there was no way Austin would—could—say no.

“Okay, but only as far as Casper. We’re stopping there so Finn can visit a friend.” They could drop Gracie there. The last thing, the very last thing Austin needed was a woman hanging on to him.