Tyler held the door open for Maya, but she hesitated.

“You need a ride, right?” he asked.

She pulled the edge of her bottom lip in and stared at him.

“Right. You don’t know me.” How did he explain that though she didn’t know him, he knew her? Or at least felt like he did. More specifically, how did he explain it without sounding like a total weirdo? “You can trust me.” He closed one eye. Great, Tyler. That’s probably what every bad guy ever said to a girl before kidnapping her. “Oh, I do some work for the Figgs sometimes. You could call them and ask them about me. I have a phone.” He hooked his thumb toward the driver’s seat where he’d left his cell.

But she seemed to relax. Her shoulders dropped a little. “You brought birdseed to Violet.” He nodded. “Okay then. If they trust you, I will too.”

“Good.” He patted the door and she climbed in. A moment later, they were headed up the highway toward the store. He fiddled with the radio a moment and found an old Otis Redding song. The windows were down, the warm air filling the cab and fluttering the edges of their clothes and hair. Tyler tried to keep his eyes on the road, but they kept scampering to the right.

Her eyes were dark as the river at night, and her skin was a gorgeous tawny hue, like a new penny. Her hair was pulled up into a knot at the top of her head, but a lot of it fell down around her face, framing her cheeks with a fringe he wanted to reach out and touch. Just behind her left ear was a small brown freckle.

“So . . .” Once he started, he didn’t know what to say.

She waited but when he didn’t say anything, she gave a quiet laugh. “Yes?”

“I have no idea. Where are you from?” There. Safe territory.

But she didn’t answer right away. And when she did, it wasn’t in the way he’d expected. “I’m from all over.”

“All over what? Alabama?”

“Sort of. I moved around a lot. Foster care.”

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “I’m just glad to be out of it and on my own.”

“You live by yourself? That must be nice.”

Her only answer was a murmur, neither a yes nor a no.

Tyler thought of his family—stoic, hardworking Dixon; his sweet, polite mom, Caroline; and his wild, athletic younger sister, Missy. They really weren’t all that bad, but with Maya sitting next to him, everything seemed bigger. His future had seemed like this small tunnel he had to walk through to get to the other side, but now it was wider, like a big field that held all kinds of life and space and time.

When he pulled into the parking lot of Holt Feed and Seed a few minutes later, his dad was standing at the door.

“I’m glad you’re back,” his dad said as Tyler exited the truck. “You’ve got . . .” He broke off when he saw Maya climb out of the passenger side. His gaze darted inside the store, then back to Maya. His fingers went to the brim of his navy blue hat with the Holt logo and he gave it a characteristic tug. “Young lady.”