The Lucky One Read Free Page B

knew that direct confrontation was out—the deputy would have claimed he was collecting evidence, and the strength of his word against a stranger’s would have been unassailable. Anything physical was out of the question, mostly because it would have caused more problems than it was worth, though he would have loved to go toe-to-toe with the guy. Luckily—or unluckily, he supposed, depending on the perspective—the girl had appeared, the deputy had panicked, and Thibault had seen where the camera had landed. Once the deputy and the girl headed back toward her friends, Thibault retrieved the camera. He could have simply left at that point, but the guy needed to be taught a lesson. Not a big lesson, just a lesson that would keep the girls’ honor intact, allow Thibault to be on his way, and ruin the deputy’s day. Which was why he’d doubled back to flatten the deputy’s tires.
    “Oh, that reminds me,” Thibault volunteered. “I found your camera in the woods.”
    “It’s not mine. Lori or Jen—did either of you lose a camera?”
    Both of them shook their heads.
    “Keep it anyway,” Thibault said, putting it on the seat, “and thanks for the ride. I’ve already got one.”
    “You sure? It’s probably expensive.”
    “Positive.”
    “Thanks.”
    Thibault noted the shadows playing on her features, thinking she was attractive in a big-city kind of way, with sharp features, olive skin, and brown eyes flecked with hazel. He could imagine staring at her for hours.
    “Hey . . . you doing anything this weekend?” Amy asked. “We’re all going out to the beach.”
    “I appreciate the offer, but I can’t.”
    “I’ll bet you’re going to see your girlfriend, aren’t you.”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “You have that way about you.”
    He forced himself to turn away. “Something like that.”

2
    Thibault
    I t was strange to think of the unexpected twists a man’s life could take. Up until a year ago, Thibault would have jumped at the opportunity to spend the weekend with Amy and her friends. It was probably exactly what he needed, but when they dropped him off just outside the Hampton town limits with the August afternoon heat bearing down hard, he waved good-bye, feeling strangely relieved. Maintaining a facade of normalcy had been exhausting.
    Since leaving Colorado five months earlier, he hadn’t voluntarily spent more than a few hours with anyone, the lone exception being an elderly dairy farmer just south of Little Rock, who let him sleep in an unused upstairs bedroom after a dinner in which the farmer talked as little as he did. He appreciated the fact that the man didn’t feel the need to press him about why he’d just appeared the way he had. No questions, no curiosity, no open-ended hints. Just a casual acceptance that Thibault didn’t feel like talking. In gratitude, Thibault spent a couple of days helping to repair the roof of the barn before finally returning to the road, backpack loaded, with Zeus trailing behind him.
    With the exception of the ride from the girls, he’d walked the entire distance. After dropping the keys to his apartment at the manager’s office in mid-March, he’d gone through eight pairs of shoes, pretty much survived on PowerBars and water during long, lonely stretches between towns, and once, in Tennessee, had eaten five tall stacks of pancakes after going nearly three days without food. Along with Zeus, he’d traveled through blizzards, hailstorms, rain, and heat so intense that it made the skin on his arms blister; he’d seen a tornado on the horizon near Tulsa, Oklahoma, and had nearly been struck by lightning twice. He’d taken numerous detours, trying to stay off the main roads, further lengthening the journey, sometimes on a whim. Usually, he walked until he was tired, and toward the end of the day, he’d start searching for a spot to camp, anywhere he thought he and Zeus wouldn’t be disturbed. In the mornings, they hit the road before dawn so