“Just one stranger helping another.” She winked at him.

“You slept in my bed the night we met, even if all we did was sleep. You cooked for me. I’m thinking you wouldn’t have fed me if you wanted me to leave. Tell me there must have been something that drew you to me.”

“Your size frightens me, but you’re kind, Ketch. And funny.”

“You left out handsome.”

She knelt beside him in his truck and started fixing his hair and digging the collar of his shirt from beneath his pullover. “Let me work on you a minute before I make up my mind.”

He circled her waist and pulled her between him and the steering wheel.

In a blink, the playful mood was gone and he saw anger in her green eyes.

She scrambled away and hugged the passenger door, and he tried to figure out how to say he was sorry.

Ketch pulled off at an abandoned roadside park. He cut the engine and swiveled to face her. A dozen questions were on his mind, but he remembered that first morning when she’d made the rule of no questions.

“If you want to talk about something, kid, I’m here.”

“No. It’s just dangerous driving like that. I’m fine.” She opened the door and stepped out of his truck.

Ketch did the same, but he didn’t move toward her. He put his hands in his pockets and rounded his shoulders as if to make himself smaller and not as threatening.

She picked a few bluebonnets growing around the broken bones of a picnic table. In a small voice she said, “I’m little compared to you, but I’m not a child.”

He kept his voice just as low. “I’m big, but that doesn’t make me a bully. You got to know, I would never hurt you.”

He watched her, thinking how beautiful she was. She couldn’t have had it easy. Growing up with a single mother moving her around, and then her only parent sending Tuesday to live with an old woman. She’d told him she’d been just a kid when Eva had died and she’d had to take care of everything. No one cared, or maybe knew, she was out on Primrose Hill alone. She’d had to ride her bike to school. It crossed his mind that she was still riding a bike at twenty-two.

“You know how to drive?” He finally broke the silence.

“Nope. Don’t need to. I don’t have a car.”

He smiled. “I could teach you.”

“When?”

“How about right now?” He relaxed as he saw her smile.