Free A Broken Kind of Beautiful by Katie Ganshert

as if shaking away her suggestion. “I called Ludd’s. They’re a repair shop in Greenbrier. Somebody is headed out to pick us up.” There was something about the way he said somebody .
    “You know who this somebody is going to be?”
    “The owner’s son.”
    “And you don’t like him because …?”
    “I didn’t say I didn’t like him.”
    “You didn’t have to. I made an inference based on the scowl I see before me.”
    “I like him fine. It’s just …” He brought his hand to the back of his neck and shook his head, like it didn’t matter.
    “It’s just what?”
    “He used to date my sister.”
    Davis’s sister. White-blond hair and sunflower dresses. She used to skip a lot. Ivy remembered her more clearly than Davis, since Sara was much closer to Ivy’s age. By the time Ivy came to live with James and Marilyn permanently, Davis had already gone off to college. “I remember her. Sara, right?”
    He nodded.
    Ivy dug through her memory. She didn’t recall seeing her at the funeral. Just Marilyn and Davis. But then Ivy didn’t have a keen radar for women. “So this guy broke Sara’s heart and you’re playing the whole protective big brother gig?” A dull pain hugged her middle. When had a man ever protected her like that? “This ought to be interesting.”
    “What?”
    “The car ride.” Another car drove past, only this one slowed a little, like it couldn’t decide if it should stop and help or keep going. “How long until I meet the heartbreaker?”
    “Forty-five, fifty minutes. And his name is Jordan.” Davis tapped the tire with the toe of his shoe. “I can’t believe my car broke down.”
    She eyed the vehicle, unable to join Davis in his disbelief. The thing looked exactly like the kind of car that would break down. A semi drove by, followed by an RV. She fiddled with the rubber lining of the passenger side window, then leaned into her palm. “So what should we do, Davis? Fifty minutes is a long time.”
    “We could talk.”
    “About what? God? Politics? The meaning of life?” What did someone like her have to say about topics like that? Nothing worthy of hearing. “That’s not what I had in mind.”
    He pulled at his jaw.
    “Do I make you nervous?” she asked.
    “No.”
    “Liar.”
    “You don’t make me nervous. You make me curious.”
    “Well, that’s a first. And what, exactly, are you curious about?”
    “About who you are.” He held out his hand and flicked it up and down, motioning toward her body. “Underneath all this.”
    Underneath all this? This, as in, her hair and her legs and her face? She removed her hand from the car. She wasn’t anything underneath all this. Allthis was it. She turned south, gazing down the length of the highway, and spotted a red sports car in the distance. “It’s pointless waiting for a tow truck out in this heat when we don’t have to, don’t you think?” She stepped around him and his broken-down Jeep, brought herself into full view of the passerby, and stuck out her thumb.
    “What do you think you’re doing?”
    “Hitchhiking.”
    “Don’t be stupid.”
    She stuck her thumb out farther. “Trust me, Dave.”
    The red car slowed.
    Davis grabbed her arm and waved the car away with his other hand.
    “You lost us a ride.”
    He released her quickly and stepped back. “For all you know, that guy could have been a serial killer.”
    “A serial killer? Here?” The threat seemed statistically impossible. “You’re paranoid.”
    “Probably.” The set of his jaw stiffened. His eyes flashed, then dimmed. “But I’m not going to be responsible for putting you in danger.”
    An intriguing reaction, but the chirp of her cell phone prevented her from examining it further. Judging by the ringtone, her dear uncle was calling.

    Davis moseyed past the shoulder and sat beneath the dense foliage of green, attempting to find some relief from the sun. He stared at the poppies and cornflowers decorating the stretch of land