His eyes sparkled and crinkled at the corners as he let out a quick laugh. “True. It’s not just kids. I had the same problem with some of my frat brothers.” He let his duffel down from his chest to swing it gently back and forth as we walked over to my truck.
“You locked up your frat brothers?”
“Only sometimes,” he said, waving his free hand in the air dismissively. “I was the chapter president, and it was an easy way to dole out punishments when they royally fucked up.” He gulped when he realized he’d sworn, glancing guiltily at Rose, then me before letting out a quiet sigh of relief when I shook my head with a grin to let him know not to worry. “Take away theirphones and shut them in a room with no stimulus for an hour-long time-out, and anyone would think I’d given them a death sentence.”
I laughed. Sounded familiar.
“Doesn’t always work, though. There was this one guy last year. Lucas. He had an aggravating addiction of leaving the taps running. He was put into time-out when he flooded the frat house. We thought the punishment worked, but then he did it again.” He grimaced at the memory. “Caused a fair amount of damage the second time. His dad had to pay for a complete renovation of the area that got soaked as well as reparations for the brother whose coursework and computer got destroyed.”
“Ouch,” I said, wincing in sympathy at the presumed expense before opening the door of my truck for him and motioning to Rose to move to the rear seats. “That would have been a costly couple of mistakes.”
“Yup.” Marshall nodded while I began clicking his seat belt into place. “His dad was not happy. He did seem resigned to his son’s shortcomings, though, so I assumed he was used to forking out thousands to get his son out of trouble.”
I noticed him eyeing me carefully as I worked, his hands held up and out of the way to let me get everything connected properly. After all these years, Rose was used to the many clips and belts each seat of my truck had to cater to the amount of off-roading I did at the farm, but for anyone new to the vehicle, it was very easy to get confused as to what went where. It was simpler to just do it myself.
It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t take the opportunity to run my hands over Marshall’s slim body as I made sure each belt was clicked into place. That was just a pleasant side effect.
And it certainly didn’t mean that I had an up-close-and-personal view of the way his breathing hitched when I ran my fingers along his chest to make sure the belt was in its properspot. Or of the way his cheeks flushed in embarrassment when he placed his hands carefully in his lap after I finished up.
Could it be that he was just as attracted to me as I was to him?
The idea was so very appealing, but…he was too young.
After I got in behind the wheel, I waved goodbye to Gabe and Scarlett before we left the pump area. Gabe looked like he was on the phone with someone while Scarlett was fighting with the register that had toppled from its perch during the storm, but both waved back to us as we went past.
It took us a little longer to get back home than it had earlier. There was debris from the tornado everywhere, and it looked like the worst of it hovered around the freeway that Marshall had been on. I glanced over at Marshall to make sure he was okay as we went past the destruction, and all the color had drained out of his face, leaving him incredibly pale and wide-eyed. My lips pressed together in sympathy before I leaned over slightly to rest my hand gently on his knee.
He flinched before he remembered where he was and who he was with. As he relaxed, he slowly burrowed his hand underneath mine, then interlaced his fingers with my own, allowing me to sit up more naturally while we held hands over the center console of the cabin. Every time we passed some of the more extreme damage, he would inhale sharply, and his fingers would tighten. I squeezed back until he let the breath out, and the tension would ease from his body.
Poor guy. I could only imagine the kind of shock and guilt he must have been feeling to have come through it almost unscathed. I wondered if he had a good support system where he could talk about what he’d gone through today. I hoped so.
Thankfully, the closer we got to home, the less damage we saw. It looked like the tornado had missed our place entirely. There was still the danger of more touching down for the rest ofthe day, but we’d been lucky so far. Hopefully, the luck would continue to hold.
After I pulled into the graveled parking spot next to the barn and turned the engine off, Rose and Bucky jumped out of the cab and ran for the house, leaving the rear door wide open.
“Hold up, Marshall,” I said, grumbling a little at Rose’s actions. “Let me come around and undo those seat belts for you. They can be a bit tricky.”
“Okay.” He sat there patiently while I walked around the truck, closed the rear door, and opened the front passenger door, then began working on the many clips. “Thank you.”
Still working on one of the belts, I raised my head to look at him quizzically. “For what?”
A barely there smile passed his lips before it faded as quickly as it had appeared. “For being so kind. Not many people would be as caring as you and your daughter have been to me today.”
My eyes softened at his words. It wasn’t so much what he was saying, morehowhe was saying it. It was obvious his nerves were still frayed after what had happened, but there was a resigned longing to the tone of his voice that made me wonder how much kindness he’d been shown in the past.
“You’re very welcome.” I shrugged as I unclipped the last connection. “You’ll find that most of the people in town would have done the same thing. Rockdale’s decent that way.”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Are you sure? I got the distinct impression that the workers at the gas station—”
“Gabe and Scarlett.”
“Right. Gabe and Scarlett.” He scrunched his nose in thought. “The way they were talking in the shelter made it seem the opposite.”
I huffed a chuckle. “That was just them being stressed out. They’re both honestly really nice people. You simply caught them on a bad day.”
“Ah.”
A deafening crack of thunder from immediately above us jolted us both, and we looked up at the sky to see the dark clouds getting heavier.
