She frowned. “You’re a mouthy little thing.”
I scooted back a little. I didn’t want to be mouthy. I hadn’t really meant to offend. But it seemed inevitable. Each small misstep was a blow to my thin confidence. I’d been prepared for the big problems. Finding housing, dealing with money. Driving across the country. Eventually having a boyfriend and figuring out if I could have sex like a normal woman after what had happened. I hadn’t counted on my complete lack of social graces. Like a thousand tiny cuts, they were tearing me apart before I’d even gotten to my destination.
“I’m really sorry,” I said, and I meant it. Whatever was the right thing to do or say in this moment, I didn’t know it.
But I couldn’t agree to eating dinner with him, to letting him pay for my meal, and then owing him…what? What was the proper etiquette when a man bought dinner? A goodnight kiss, more? I didn’t know that either. But I did know he made me uncomfortable. If I could put my foot in my mouth around this waitress, it would be so much worse around him. Even several booths over, his dark gaze tied my tongue in knots.
“I can’t,” I whispered, trying to convey to her the urgency of my situation. The impossibility of it.
“Have it your way.” A strange light entered her eyes, like one of remembrance. “Maybe you have the right idea anyway. It always ends the same way. Might as well hold onto control as long as you can.”
Her words sent a chill down my spine.
I fumbled with my coin purse. “I don’t need the bill. Here, this should cover it.”
The twenty dollar bill I left was more than the total should have been, even with a tip, and I couldn’t really spare any money but neither could I stay there another minute, pinned by his gaze and terrified by the ancient pain in hers.
Pointedly avoiding looking at him, I slipped out the door and scurried along the broken concrete until I reached my room. I shut the door, twisting the heavy deadbolt to lock it.
CHAPTER THREE
The first person to see and describe Niagara Falls in depth was a French priest who accompanied an expedition in 1678.
My skin still prickled as I huddled in my motel room—something about him had been off. The way the man had looked at me, unflinching, unnerving, had tripped off all sorts of animal instincts inside me that I couldn't precisely interpret except to know to avoid him.
I latched the little hook on the door for good measure. Glancing sideways at the heavy drapes, I sent silent thanks for the metal burglar bars on the window.
In the diner, where even the waitress had seemed intimidated, I'd felt vulnerable. But now I was well and truly encased in the motel room, where I would stay until morning. It felt a little like failure, falling back on my old ways, but I considered it only a temporary retreat. Things would be different in Little Rock and even that was only until I’d saved enough money to continue north.
A shower was the next order of business, so I headed across the shadowed room and bumped directly into the round dinette table.
“Ouch,” I muttered.
Had that been directly aligned with the door before? I wasn't even sure where the light switches were. It had been daylight when I'd first been in the room, with the sunlight streaming through the window...through the open drapes. Now they were closed. I had seen that clear enough even in the darkness, the vertical lines where the barred window had once been visible.
A shiver ran through me. Who had closed the curtains? Had someone been in my room while I’d eaten?
Housekeeping. It must have been the maid service. Please, God, let it have been them.
I stood frozen in fear and indecision for a moment before forcing myself forward. The cool vinyl wall met my outstretched palms, and I fumbled until I found the switch. It flicked up with a click, flooding the bathroom with a blinding yellow light.
My heart thumped wildly for one moment as all the things my terrified imagination had conjured didn't happen. Nothing but an empty, dingy, slightly dirty motel bathroom. A shower with a questionably yellowed shower curtain, a sink, a toilet. No beasts or monsters in sight. No scary men with ill intent.
I spared a glance for the room, now lit faintly by the spill of light from the bathroom. The bed was made, my bag still sitting on top, gaping open from where I had pulled the dress out earlier. The table and chair sat in the empty space between the bed and the wall, obtrusive for the blind and clumsy like me.
I was freaking myself out with this. No, he had done that. The man at the diner with his too-knowing gaze. Well, he was pushy and inappropriate, and I was done being scared of strangers.
The tile was cool against my bare feet. I undressed quickly, finding relief in the warm water that rained on my skin. I even used the bitter-smelling soap wrapped up in paper, comforted by the intensity, feeling cleansed of the man's presence and safe again. More importantly, I was free. Independent. Exactly what I had always longed to be—though I had little experience with it. Maybe that was what made me so jumpy. Maybe he was a normal man, a nice one, and I had jumped to conclusions.