“Why do they have a cabin so far away? We’ve been driving forever.” She looked out the window again.
“Because they live in Fargo, and it’s only half the distance we’re going to travel.” The distance had made it hard for him to go to the cabin often. Although he made it there at least once a summer, he would love to do so more often.
“I never thought of you being from anywhere. Are you from Fargo then?” She sounded amazed.
“Born and raised.”
“Do you want to go back there?” Her green eyes stared at him with interest as she shifted in her seat.
“No, not in years. I like my job and the town. I like the small school.” It was true. Except for the year of the accident, he had never thought about looking for a job elsewhere.
“But you’re not married or anything?”
“Nope, the dating pool is small. The one drawback of a small town.”
“What about Mia?” she asked.
“Mia at the diner?” He had known the woman for years, but there had never been anything between them. In fact, he hadn’t seen her as a possible person to date since they didn’t run in the same circles. Mostly he assumed she was already dating someone.
“Yes, she’s your age and a lot of fun.”
“I guess I’ve never noticed her like that before,” he admitted, and the car fell into silence as he drove through the countryside. Glancing over, he saw her looking out the window, but every now and then, she would shift in her seat.
“Do you want to stop?” he asked as she slid her hand behind her back and winced.
“How far is it?”
“About an hour still.” He was familiar enough with this drive after all these years.
“Could we? I can’t sit that much longer. My back starts to hurt.”
He pulled over in the next town they came to. “What do you want to do?”
“Can we just walk? It helps.” She opened the door and stiffly got out.
Sam jumped out, circled the car, and took her hand as they started to walk down the sidewalk. Should he let go of her hand? Why had he grabbed it? They were only friends, and he should drop it. But she was holding on as tightly as he was, so he held on. “How bad is your back?”
“Getting better. It hurts when I don’t get to move enough, like in the car,” she admitted.
“From the accident?” he questioned, even though he already knew. She had been perfect and athletic before that happened.
“Yes, it was broken in two places. But I was lucky, and they were able to fuse it back together. I wasn’t paralyzed. A little back pain is fine compared to not feeling my body anymore.” She laughed at her own pain.
“How about we don’t talk about the accident? Do you still play sports?” He tried to change the subject. She had been a three-sport athlete: volleyball, basketball, and track. Despite her height, she had been agile and graceful enough to be good at anything she tried. She had even had scholarships from a college that she lost because of the accident. If it hadn’t happened, he wondered what she would have achieved.
“No,” was all she said, not elaborating as they walked.
“No, that’s it?” he questioned teasingly.
“Not since the accident. See? Not so easy not to talk about it,” she said sadly.
“I guess it isn’t something that you can put in the back of your mind.”
“No, it’s always there. Something always reminds me.” Lifting the arm he held, she pulled up the sleeve on her T-shirt that came to her elbow. Once the sleeve was up two inches, there was an angry red line just over an inch long and jagged and rough. “My bone went through the skin about an inch. They set it and sewed me up that first night. But they were fixing and sewing so much that they weren’t taking their time with the stitches, so many of them healed with the stitches visible. They can fix it, but it involves cutting them back open and stitching them back up. A lot of pointless pain. I stopped the surgeries like that a few years ago. I was tired of being in pain. I have a lot of scars like this, some better, some worse.”
Taking her arm gently in his hands, he ran a finger over the scar; it felt as jagged as it looked. “Why didn’t they take more time that first night?”
“I wasn’t expected to make it. Less than a 25 percent chance that first day. No need for great stitches to put me in the ground.” She was looking down at her arm where he held it, stroking it with his fingers.