One Summer by Karen Robards Page B

bills, which he put down on the table with a slap before heading toward the cash register. Rebuked into silence, Rachel was left with nothing to do but retrieve her twenty and follow.
    One by one, heads turned as he passed, and in only a couple of seconds it seemed as if every eye in the place were on him. Rachel, trailing some little way behind, was in a perfect position to observe the reactions of her fellow citizens to Johnny Harris.
    “Isn’t that—?”
    “Oh, my land, it is!”
    “What’s he doing here?”
    “I heard he got parole because the Grants offered him a job in their hardware store.”
    “Elisabeth never did any such thing!”
    “Not Elisabeth, Rachel. Look, there she is with him. Can you believe it? Oh, hi, Rachel!”
    This last was said in a much louder tone as Rachel turned her eyes on the speaker. Rachel responded to thegreeting with a tight smile and a small wave. She’d known nearly everyone in the restaurant her entire life, but that wouldn’t keep them from stripping her flesh from her bones with their tongues, she knew.
    “Hope everything was all right?” Jane, having bustled up to the cash register, sounded slightly friendlier as she took Johnny’s money. He handed her a twenty. Where had he come by any cash? Rachel had heard the state paid convicts for working while they were in prison, but the wage was something like ten cents an hour. He’d been in there for ten years, so at forty hours a week that came to …
    She was still trying to arrive at the approximate sum when Jane handed him his change and he stalked on out the door.
    With a quick smile at Jane, Rachel followed.
    He was already in the parking lot heading for her car by the time she caught up with him, his long legs eating up the short distance. That he was still furious was obvious enough to the most casual observer, Rachel thought, casting him a reproving glance over the roof as she unlocked the car and got in. He slid in beside her, jaw tight, eyes hard. Rachel’s lips pursed.
    “You’re acting like a child in a tantrum,” she told him as she edged the transmission into reverse.
    “Oh, yeah?” His eyes took on an unpleasant glitter. “Well, you’re acting like a damned rich-bitch snob. Sorry if my manners don’t suit you, Miss High and Mighty.”
    “Your attitude suits me even less than your manners,” Rachel snapped, goaded. “And don’t you swear at me! You might try showing a little gratitude.”
    “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? For me to be grateful. Should I kiss your feet or your ass, teacher?”
    “You,” Rachel said fiercely, “can go straight to hell!”
    With that, she stepped on the gas. The car shot backward.
    “If you’re not careful, we’ll both end up there. Keepyour mind on what you’re doing, for God’s sake,” he said through his teeth as she screeched on the brakes, the rear bumper a scant few inches from a solid brick wall. “My life may not seem like it’s worth much to you, but I sure as hell don’t want to end it in a car wreck.”
    Rachel had to fight an urge to hit the gas hard just to teach him a lesson. Her jaw now set as obstinately as his, she concentrated on her driving and got them to the store without any mishaps more serious than a run-over curb.
    When they pulled into the deserted parking lot behind Grant’s Hardware just minutes later, neither of them had said so much as another word. Rachel suspected she owed Johnny’s forbearance to his healthy fear of her driving. She took a deep breath. If he was being childish with his lowered brows and scowling mouth, well then, honesty forced her to admit that so was she.
    “Now, then,” she said as she put the transmission in park and turned to look at him, “suppose we talk this out.”
    “Suppose we don’t.” He reached for the handle, opened the door, and got out without another word. Freshly affronted, Rachel winced at the volume of the slam. As she watched him walk around the front of the car and noted