Just Down the Road by Jodi Thomas Page A

can work on a new song.”
    “Sounds good. We should practice. I got the feeling tonight that a few of the drunks were actually listening.”
    Beau agreed as he stepped outside and ran for his old car. He’d been thinking about what he needed to do all week long. He had one stop to make before he could sleep.
    Border hadn’t suspected anything. As far as Border knew, Beau was just going back to his dad and stepmother’s house.
    Though Beau usually slept on the couch in the Biggs boys’ duplex, he often went back to his folks’ place late Saturday night. He could slip into his old room and sleep until noon, then pick up clean clothes as he left. As long as he was gone before his parents got home from church, he didn’t have to face his dad.
    Beau always left a note for his mom in his room thanking her for washing his clothes and for leaving plenty of leftovers in the fridge. She’d been kind to him, but not loving. She seemed more like a shadow in his life, completelydwarfed by her husband’s strong personality. She’d been the only woman he’d ever called Mom, but she’d never taken to the role.
    Beau had never thought to mind, or even try to change her. It was just the way things were at his house, always had been, probably always would be. When his father preached of women being silent, his mother took the lesson home with her.
    Only tonight, before he went home, Beau had something he had to do. He drove out to the truck stop and sat in the same booth Border and the girls had helped fill last week.
    The place was deserted except for a few truckers who liked to drive the roads at night when there was less traffic. One man, several booths away, talked low on his cell while he ate. The other was reading a western and never bothered to look up when Beau walked past him.
    Beau didn’t have to wait long. Five minutes after he sat down, a water glass slid across the table toward him.
    “Your friends showing up tonight?” Willow asked.
    Beau looked up. “N-no. T-they weren’t my friends. N-not that it’s any of your b-business.”
    She shrugged and, to his surprise, smiled. “I really didn’t think they were. You and Border looked near panic when I brought out the food. I guess I would have ducked out too if I’d been you.”
    “S-sorry about that. I-I hope they didn’t make a scene.”
    “They did from the moment they walked in. I don’t know why you’d think they wouldn’t as they left. I never heard a woman swear so much and hiccup at the same time. Your date said she wasn’t going to pay, but my boss stepped out from the back and threatened to call the cops.”
    “S-she wasn’t my date.” There, he thought. He’d said what he came to say. “They were just two women who offered to buy us breakfast when we finished playing at Buffalo’s.”
    “I heard you were doing that.” Willow put her pad and pencil back in her uniform pocket. “So you joined the bar scene after graduation?”
    “Y-yeah, and you joined the truck stop crowd.”
    Willow shook her head. “We’re not exactly climbing the ladder of success, are we, Beau?”
    “N-not yet, but I got plans and o-one of them is to stay away from women like those two. I-I could feel my brain cells dying just being so close to their dim light.” He fought to keep from stuttering.
    Willow didn’t disagree with his evaluation of the dates. “I should tell you about some of the folks who come in here.”
    “I’m listening, but I doubt you can trump my pair.” Beau forced each word out slowly.
    She backed away a step. “I’m due for a break. Mind if I sit with you for a while? It’ll be nice to talk to someone who isn’t just passing through on a long haul. I’ll buy the Cokes.”
    “S-sounds grand.” Beau watched her disappear through the swinging doors of the kitchen. He leaned back and smiled. He didn’t want a wild bar girl with too much makeup and her breasts hanging out. All he wanted was a friend to talk to. He could never