Page 36 of The Scenic Route
“Yes, they are, Ms. Felicity Florence Pax.”
Her nose wrinkled, but even her middle name—which she hated almost as much as her sisters’ nickname for her—couldn’t dampen her exuberant joy. “Now we just wait for them to get where they’re going, and Dino is as good as tackled.”
***
“They both must have bladders of steel,” Felicity complained from the passenger seat over ten hours later.
“Or they’re going in a bottle.”
“Gross.”
Except for quick, infrequent stops for gas, Clint and Dino had pushed the old pickup hard as the sun went down. They drove through the night, making it more difficult for Felicity and Bennett to keep the truck in sight without sitting right on their tail. Somehow, they’d managed it so far, taking lightning-fast pee breaks and swapping drivers during those few gas stops.
“They have to be going to Vegas, right?” Felicity asked. Ever since they’d gotten onto I-15, the signs for Vegas with ever-shrinking mileage had gotten more and more frequent.
Bennett passed an SUV as he shrugged. “Or Los Angeles.”
With a groan, Felicity let the back of her head bump the seat. “Oh, please no. You’re a very pleasant road trip companion—especially compared to Charlie—but I’d love to stop and shower and sleep in a real bed and eat something that’s not half the protein bar I’d forgotten in the glove compartment months ago.” When he shot her a strange look, she mirrored it back at him. “What?” she asked.
“Charlie?”
“Charlotte, my sister?” She smirked at him. “Didn’t get to nicknames when you did your background check, did you?”
“No.” He made the face that she knew meant he was making a mental amendment to his notes.
“Speaking of nicknames, I never asked if you prefer Ben to Bennett.”
“No,” he said quickly. “Bennett’s fine.”
“Yes, he is,” Felicity couldn’t resist muttering under her breath.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. So no nicknames for you? Even when you were a kid?”
He paused long enough to catch her attention, and she studied his profile, eerily lit by the dash lights. “My mom called me Benny sometimes.”
“That’s adorable.” She smiled at the thought of a tiny Bennett but sobered when she remembered that his only parent had died when he’d been just a teenager. “What was she like?”
His silence seemed thoughtful this time. “She was a little flustered and overwhelmed by life, but she tried hard. I knew she loved me, although we never said the words to each other. When she got sick…” He swallowed and trailed off, staying silent long enough that Felicity started thinking of conversational segues. “When she got sick,” he said again abruptly enough to make her jump, “it was fast. She hated doctors, didn’t go in until things were…advanced. She was fine, then she wasn’t, then she was gone.”
“I’m sorry,” Felicity said, hating how useless the trite phrase was but not knowing what else to say. “What were your foster parents like?”
He smiled a little at the question, and she felt like she’d won something. “They’re great. I was—am—really lucky.”
“What are their names again?” she asked, eager to know more about Bennett, especially now that she was out of the earlier emotional minefield.
“Zena and Dean Roman. They’re still in Fort Collins.”
“So you get to see them a lot,” she said approvingly.
He dipped his chin in a nod.
“I’m always a little envious of people with good parents,” she admitted, the darkness of the car and her overtired brain allowing her to be more open than usual.
“I know your mom isn’t the best,” he said, obviously picking his words carefully and making Felicity snort at the understatement, “but what’s your dad like?”
It was her turn to consider the question. “Lono’s a good guy,” she finally said, “as long as he’s not around Jane. He loved her too much, and she’s very charismatic when she wants to be. Now that he’s back in Hawai‘i with his kind new wife and two little girls, he’s great. It’s just too bad he’s so far away now.”
