Kiss Me Hard Before You Go (14 page)

“But you have a choice,” she said. “This is my lot in life.”

“How many people do you know would hire a carny like me?”

She thought for a moment.

Finch answered before she could come up with a number. “Zero. That’s how many. If I told anyone I’d been working on the circuit since I could walk, they’d associate me with crooks and weirdos and tell me to scram. It’s a double-edged sword.”

“Certainly someone would hire you,” she said.

“Probably not, but I’m not going to sit here and drown my sorrows in this sugary drink.”

“It’s tea,” she defended with a whine.

“It’s sweet,” he said.

“There’s two kinds of tea: unsweet and sweet.”

“There’s no such thing as unsweet tea. It’s just iced tea,” he said, and his lip curled up to one side. “You can’t unsweeten something.”

“Yankee,” she said and stifled a yawn. She took another sip, hoping the caffeine would perk her up.

“I probably should get going,” he said. “I’m putting you to sleep, and it’s late. I don’t think your dad would like me being here.”

“He’s gone, and I’m not tired.”

“So I am boring you then, aren’t I?” He playfully nudged her.

Evie felt warm inside, enjoying the feeling of his hand on her arm. She wondered if her face was as flushed as her insides were. “Very much.” She smirked at him.

He moved his head forward and peered around. “Where’s your dad?”

“Taking some cows to their death,” she said with a frown.

“You don’t go with him when he does this?”

“No. I have to stay here and take care of things. Besides, if you’ve been once, you don’t want to go again. Slaughterhouses aren’t pleasant places to revisit,” she said.

“We’ve been to some depressing towns on the circuit. They’re not killing cows, but they stink really bad and the people are strange.”

“If you’re calling them strange, then I bet they’re
really
weird.”

He laughed and finished off the contents of his tea. He stood up and brought the pitcher to the table and poured more tea in their glasses.

“Thanks.” Her elbows rested on the table, and she folded her hands together under her chin. “You’ve been all over the country, huh?” she asked.

He thought for a moment. “Not everywhere. I’ve been all over the south and the mid west, though.”

“That’s more places than I’ve ever been.”

“I don’t really get to see the towns. I’m so busy working, and on the few nights I’m off, I’m too tired to sightsee.”

“Is your dad in the carnival?” she asked.

He laughed out loud and shook his head. “Your questions are all over the place.”

She tapped on her head. “I have a whole bunch stored up here waiting to come out.”

“The prospect of that scares me a little.” He flickered a grin. “My dad is in the carnival, but not this one. He works for another unit.”

“What does he do?”

He scratched his eyebrow and squinted. “Last I heard he was a ride operator.”

“You don’t talk?” she said.

“No, not really. He’s never been around, so I don’t have a relationship with him,” he stated without emotion.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He took a sip of his tea and said with indifference, “No reason to be sorry. I’m not.”

“But doesn’t it bother you?” she asked and then added with an embarrassed expression, “Sorry. I’m prying.”

“You are nosy,” he said and laughed. “But I guess I promised you I’d answer your questions if you fixed me some tea, and no, Evie, it doesn’t bother me. I got over that a long, long time ago.”

“Did he leave you?”

“When Mom found out she was pregnant, he high-tailed it out of the carnival faster than you can spit. Mom was always dumb when it came to men. She’d pick the worst guys and swear she was going to change them. Even when I was a kid, I knew you can’t change people,” he said in a sharp tone. “David, my father, is definitely not the type that should be a dad. Mom fell in love with his looks and charm, and that’s about it, because he doesn’t have much else to offer the world. Then he left her at the ripe ole age of eighteen fending for herself and an unborn baby. I run into him about once a year, but there isn’t much to talk about. He lives in his own world.”

Evie’s eyebrows pulled down in concentration. “My mother left,” she confessed. “She left when I was eight years old, and I haven’t seen her since.”

He gave her a sympathetic look and slightly shook his head. “It seems we have something in common.”

“Yeah, I guess we do,” she said with a breath.

She yawned again, and Finch made a face. “There I go boring you again.” He stood up, taking their glasses to the sink. Evie got up and followed him to the door.

“Thanks for the drink,” he said.

“You mean the tea,” she corrected.

“The sweet tea.” He smirked. “It was good, and the company wasn’t half bad, either.”

“When you don’t have that dumb smirk on your face, it’s not that bad.” She stretched to look up at him.

He peered down at her and grinned. “When you’re not glaring at me, I don’t mind your face so much, either.” He pushed the screen door and walked outside. The outside porch light shone down on him.

“Hey, Finch,” she called.

He turned around and looked at her.

“Thanks for helping me tonight. Maybe you’ll teach me how to throw a knife like that?”

“I would, but I’m afraid you’d try and use those skills on me when you’re mad at me,” he said.

“Only if you smirk,” she shot back.

“Sometimes when I see your face, I can’t help but smirk,” he retorted.

“Well, sometimes when I see yours, I want to hurl,” she said, grinning.

“Night, Evie,” he said.

“Goodnight, Finch.”

***

Sniffling and moaning woke Evie up. She shot up out of bed and jerked her head to the right; Katie stood in front of her carrying a suitcase and sobbing hysterically.

“Katie,” she said with uncertainty. It was dark in the room, but the shadowy figure looked like her best friend.

She set the suitcase down on the floor. “Oh Evie,” she cried and sat down on the bed, sobbing into her chest.

Evie patted her gently on the arms and said in a soft voice, “Shh, it’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” she said while crying, making it difficult for Evie to understand the words coming out of her mouth. She was talking so fast.

“It’s going to be all right.”

“I ran away, Evie,” she said.

“You what?” Evie widened her eyes.

“I had to.” She pulled away from Evie’s chest and sat upright. Evie reached over and turned on her bedside table lamp. Katie’s face was ruby red, and her eyes were bloodshot and puffy.

“What happened?” she asked and leaned forward, placing her hand on top of Katie’s.

They sat with their legs crossed, facing each other. Katie took an uneven breath and wiped her eyes. “I told my parents I was pregnant.”

“It didn’t go well,” Evie said more as a statement than a question. Knowing Nate, it didn’t go well at all. He had a short fuse, and Evie knew he’d be more concerned about how it looked – his one and only daughter pregnant before marriage. The town was sure to talk, and an uptight, stodgy man like Nate would care more about
that
than his own daughter.

“My dad was really mad. I’ve never seen him so angry, Evie,” she said. “He told me I had to go stay with my aunt in Georgia until I had the baby. He said,” and she whimpered, sucking in a deep breath, “he said I’d have to give it up for adoption. I told him I wasn’t giving the baby up. I’m having the baby, and I’m gonna raise him, even if it’s without Todd.”

Evie found her eyes welling up with tears, and she fumbled for the right words to say. “I’m so sorry, Katie,” she said. It was the only consoling thing she could offer.

“He said the most horrible things to me. He’s never been this mean to me before.” She sniffled and pain filled her small brown eyes.

Evie had heard Nate call his daughter plump and fat on more than one occasion. One of the few times Evie went over there for dinner, Nate grabbed Katie’s plate and dumped half the food in the trash. “You keep on eating this way, you’ll be so fat we’ll have to get a crane to carry you out of here. Look at Evie. Her plate doesn’t have that much food.” Katie just lowered her head in shame and toyed with the rest of dinner.

“He called me a slut and said that’s what I get for spreading my legs. He even defended Todd and said that I was messing up
his
life.” Katie shivered and shook her head slightly, looking down at her stomach and rubbed it gently. “He said he wasn’t going to let me have a bastard.”

Evie was at a loss for words. Hearing that Katie’s father would say such things was beyond her understanding. She knew Gray would never do that. He’d be mad if she got pregnant, but he’d never make her feel lower than dirt. Nate McDaniels was a bad man, and Evie knew why so many people in town avoided him—only a man with a blackened soul would utter such hate to his own flesh and blood without any remorse.

Evie was shaking on the inside, her hands were clenched into tight fists, and she was so damn angry. She wanted to get in her truck and throw pair after pair of skates at that awful man. She was tempted to find Finch and ask him to throw knives at the asshole, but she knew she had to contain herself. Criticizing Katie’s dad wasn’t going to make the situation better, and going over there to tell him off would only make matters worse.

“He locked me in my room and told me I was going to my aunt’s tomorrow morning,” she said. “But I snuck out. I’m not going to my aunt’s, and I’m not giving this baby up. He’s mine.” She brought a pillow to her chest and squeezed it. “You can’t tell him I’m here,” she said with a quivering voice. “If he knows I’m here, he’ll make me go.” She looked into Evie’s eyes with a pained stare. “Promise me you won’t tell him.”

“I won’t, Katie. I won’t,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not going back there, and I can’t count on Todd. He told me to get an abortion. As if I’d even consider that.” She peered down at her stomach, and touched it with both hands.

Evie decided not to tell Katie about her run-in with Todd. She knew it wouldn’t help matters.

“I hate them all,” Katie said, looking off distantly with fire in her eyes. “How can you love someone and hate them at the same time?”

“People disappoint you,” she said matter of fact. “Love takes time, but it’s sure as hell easy to hate. You can’t stop loving someone overnight,” she said and thought about her mom when she spoke. “But you sure as hell can hate them in a split second.”

“I can’t believe I thought Todd loved me.”

“Maybe he does, but he’s just too young to understand the kind of love you need,” Evie said, knowing that Todd was incapable of loving anyone but himself.

“No. He doesn’t love me. If he did, he wouldn’t have reacted the way he did.”

“He’s such a jerk,” Evie muttered and then realized she said it aloud. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I know you never liked him,” Katie said.

“Katie...”

“Don’t try to deny it. You make your emotions really obvious,” she said. “I know you too well, Evie.”

“I guess I do.” She let out a sigh.

“My dad’s going to come here tomorrow. It’ll be the first place he looks.”

“I know,” Evie said.

“I can’t stay here, but I don’t have anywhere else to go. I hate to get you caught up in this mess.”

Evie held her hand up. “I’m not leaving you to the wolves. We’ll figure this out.” Evie’s mind raced. She scratched at her scalp and bit on her lip. She snapped her fingers and smiled. “I got it!”

“What?”

“My mom and dad’s house,” she said. “Their old house on the other side of the farm.”

“The one you lived in when we were kids?” Katie asked.

Evie shook her head vigorously. “That’s the one,” she said. “No one will think to look there. No one’s lived there since Granddaddy died and we moved in here, and that was years ago. I can’t promise it’ll be nice inside, and there isn’t much furniture in it.”

“No. It sounds perfect, and I’m not in a position to be picky anyway.”

“At least this way Daddy won’t have to know.”

“You can’t tell him, Evie.”

“I know, and that’s going to be tough. I don’t like lying to him.”

“It’ll just be for a little while until I get things figured out,” Katie said.

“We’re going to have to get you situated early in the morning. Daddy will be here first thing, and you know your dad is bound to show up soon after.”

“I know. I just hope this works.”

“Me too,” Evie said. “Me too.”

Chapter 14

It was a cozy, ranch style house that was painted an egg yolk yellow embellished with emerald green shutters. A large white oak tree stood tall and proud adjacent to the house, creating a canopy of shade welcome during the hot summer months. Most of the plant life had died long ago, but what remained had taken over, spreading like wildfire. Some plants had trailed up the brick facade of the house, creeping their way to the roof. Weeds and dandelions were prominent, and a rusted rocking horse sat in the front of the house. The once apple-red paint had chipped, and the horse was missing an eye. A solitary patio chair sat off in the grass, and it too had rusted, the white paint barely visible.

Evie touched the horse for a split second. It rocked back and forth. The spring vibrated, and the horse squeaked as it moved. “I remember this,” she said, reminiscing about her early childhood memories when she, Gray and her mother lived in the small house. Her mother would sit on a lawn chair, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a bikini top, and watch Evie rock back and forth on the horse. She’d smoke her cigarette and lay her head back basking in the sun, while Evie shouted “Whee” each time she felt the shift of the novel amusement.

One time, when she was four or five, she couldn’t remember her exact age, Evie fell off that horse. The fall had hurt, and she had skinned her knees enough for them to bleed. Her mother wasn’t outside with her. She cried her way through the house and found her mother talking on the phone, laughing at what the person on the other end had said. Her voice was hushed, and when Evie entered, her tone changed completely.