Page 140 of Book and Ladder
My stomach drops. I grip the wheel so tightly my knuckles ache—my steering wheel might as well be a stress ball. Every stop sign I rolled through flashes through my mind like a criminal highlight reel.
Maybe if I drive perfectly for the next ten seconds, the patrol will let this one slide.
The chirp of a siren precedes the bullhorn notifying me, “Pull over, Daisy.”
I follow the command and pull my car to the curb, glancing at the clock on the dash. Twelve minutes after twelve.
Chuck Mason, one of our local police officers, approaches my car. I watch him in the side mirror, wondering what could be the worst thing to happen if I tear away from here without waiting for him.
I’ve never been a rebel. Always colored in the lines. I pride myself on being responsible and dependable. But right now I feel like pulling a hit and run—or at least the run part. I don’t actually want to hit anything.
“License and registration, Daisy?”
“Chuck, you literally called my name over the speaker.”
“Protocol,” he says, fighting a grin. “You realize you blew through those stop signs like a greased pig on Founders Day?”
He extends his hand.
I pop open the glove box. The contents spill onto the floorboard—napkins, straws, my tire pressure gauge, and the plastic keeper where I store my registration.
“I know! I’m so sorry. Patrick told me to meet him—some mysterious thing—and I’m already almost fifteen minutes late.”
“Oh, shoot! That’s today?” Chuck says, eyebrows leaping. “If I wreck Patrick’s big plan, I'll never hear the end of it.”
“You know about it?” I gape.
“Sure do. Now don’t run another stop sign—hang tight. I’ll get you there myself.”
Chuck practically sprints back to his cruiser and before I know it, the siren is on full blast and he’s leading me through town, straight to the location where Patrick asked me to meet him.
We pull up to the curb. The siren cuts out. Chuck waves as he drives away, grinning widely into his rearview mirror.
Patrick turns, staring at me like I’m the emergency he didn’t train for—but it’s more than that. I see it now. He’s as nervous as I am, and possibly there’s a flicker of hope in his gaze.
Our eyes linger on one another, holding me still and calling me out. The laughter in my chest tangles with something sharp and real.
Patrick: the podcaster, the firefighter, the man I hated.
But now … I’m not sure my heart remembers how.
Chapter 37
Patrick
I am half agony, half hope.
Tell me not that I am too late
… I offer myself to you again …
~ Jane Austen, Persuasion
I getto the house early. I told her noon, but I can’t risk her showing up to another disappointment. Not after high school. Not after the corn maze. Not again.
From here on out, she’ll never have to wonder if I’ll show up.
Besides, I needed time to unload everything—notes, boxes, a porch full of proof that I’m backing my words with action.
