Chapter Three
What was Laramie thinking?
It was three p.m. on Tuesday, and here she was with a hamburger meal for a stranger. She still didn’t even know his name.
In her defense, she’d been on a mission to get herself a hamburger meal, and that was it.
She’d gone to a place she’d heard was good, it had all the five-star reviews and was supposedly the best burger around Salt Lake City.
And while she’d been sitting there, she’d thought how much she wished she knew someone here to share this with.
And then she’d thought of the wild-eyed stranger who got her a job yesterday, and she went up to the register and ordered another one.
And then she’d driven three miles to Whiny’s Tire Shop and parked directly next to the stranger’s white pickup truck.
All of the hangars were open today, and every lift had a car on it, and inside, the bustle of work was mesmerizing. These boys knew exactly what they were doing.
The tall hot one with the eyes that looked like they were made of spun gold was barking out orders and working without skipping a beat. He was so smooth, and fast.
He hadn’t noticed her pull up, and that was great. He’d already called her weird.
Laramie bit off the cap of the pen with her teeth and poofed it out onto the passenger’s seat, then wrote across the brown paper bag, Thanks again.
She glanced up at the hangars and he was still busy.
Perfect. She opened her door and got out.
In a rush, she put the burger meal on top of the hood of his truck, near the driver’s side windshield wiper, and then slipped back into her car.
As fast as she could, she put it into drive and pulled out.
She checked her blind spot to make sure no one was zooming through the parking lot, and when she turned back around to hit the main road, she had to slam on her brakes.
The man stood directly in front of her. She barely stopped in time.
He cocked his head, and his unsettling gold eyes looked like they were glowing from within. Perhaps a trick of the sunlight.
He strode around to her driver’s side door. “What are you doing?” he asked as she rolled her window down.
“Ummm…” This had been a mistake. “I put food on your truck.”
He ghosted a glance to his truck and back to her. “Why?”
“As a thank you. I wrote it on the bag. I wrote thank you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you want to fuck me?”
“Wh-what?” she asked, her heart dipping to her toes.
He stood to his full height. “I can’t figure you out.”
“Um, I wasn’t bringing you food for that reason.”
“Do you want to fuck me. Yes or no.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed more, and a slight smile stretched his masculine lips. “Liar,” he said low.
She didn’t know what to make of this guy. He made her feel like she was always on unsteady ground around him. “I shouldn’t have come here. I was just trying to do something nice for you but it’s clear that—”
“Stellan.”
“I’m sorry?”
“My name is Stellan.”
“Oh. I’m—”
“Laramie. I know. You keep telling me.”
“Yeah. Laramie Tucker. Okay.” She shrugged, deeply regretting coming here. Tomorrow was going to be awkward at her first day on the job. She scrunched up her face. “Can we forget I was here today?”
“No. I’m going to eat your food.”
Laramie pursed her lips. “You called me weird yesterday.”
“I still think you’re weird.”
Shoot. Laramie forced a smile and hated everything about this moment. “Okay, have a good day, Stellan.”
“Yep,” he said as he started walking away. “Hey, Laramie?”
“Yeah?” she asked tiredly, expecting another insult.
“I didn’t say weird was a bad thing.”
She twisted in the open window to see him walking away. He grabbed the bag of food off his truck and lifted it into the air and gave her one of those smooth, hot-boy winks.
Her heart beat faster, and something strange happened inside of her stomach.
Baffled by their encounter, she watched him disappear inside the front door and then rolled her window up. She sat there for a few more seconds, just gripping the steering wheel and staring at the busy road ahead that she needed to take a right on.
Okay, so he thought she was weird. But he liked weird?
This job was going to be more complicated than she’d thought, and here was why—Stellan had been right.
She was a liar.
She was absolutely attracted to him in that way. She had had a fantasy and then a dirty dream about him last night.
Stellan was the hottest man she’d ever been around, but even more than that?
He was interesting and kept her on her toes and was unlike anyone she’d ever met.
Second reason…
Laramie was here in Salt Lake City, a place she’d never been, for a specific reason. It was a painful, but beautiful reason that no one could understand, nor that she could do justice by explaining.
On the hard days, it sure would be nice to have a distraction like Stellan.
A smile took her lips as she pulled away from Whiny’s. He was in there eating the food she’d got him. He hadn’t flinched away or thought she was lame. He’d gone right in and claimed a lunch break.
That smile hung in her heart the entire way to Liberty Park.
She pulled in and parked, then got out and scanned the green space. There were plenty of bikers on the sidewalks thanks to the pretty weather today. From here, she could see a pond. Was that it?
She pulled out the notebook and flipped to the right page. There was a diary entry, but she didn’t need to read it again. She had it memorized. The sketch was what she was looking for. It was a fast one of two pairs of jean-clad legs on a blanket, looking out over a duck pond.
Laramie tucked the journal into her cloth bag and grabbed a blanket out of the back of her car, then made sure to lock the door before she started walking across the grass toward the pond.
This part always took a while because she was a perfectionist, and she wanted to be right where they had once been.
She studied the sketch and had to take an educated guess on the placement, since the bench looked different than in the picture. The trees were much larger now too.
She set her blanket up right where she thought they’d been and laid down. She placed the journal beside her and rested her hand on top of it as she looked up into the branches of the towering tree overhead. The sun looked muted, and speckled, and the sky was so blue. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.
That part always made her feel the distance. Rainy days were best for memory lane adventures.
She rested her free hand on her stomach and focused on relaxing every muscle in her body.
Moisture streamed from the outer corner of her eye, but it wasn’t from emotion. Not this time. Her eyes just watered sometimes when she laid down like this.
Stellan was a cool name.
She crossed her legs at the ankles and sighed, knowing exactly what she was doing.
Laramie was thinking about something other than this moment, but that wasn’t the deal.
The deal she’d made with herself was that if she moved here to Salt Lake City, she would be present for moments just like these.
Laramie closed her eyes and silently recited the journal entry from memory.
And as a calmness took over her body, inch-by-inch, she knew she had crossed another one off the list.