Free Signed, Skye Harper by Carol Lynch Williams Page B

the passenger seat. He sounded pleased. “You’re back.”
    We’d been driving down the highway for a while now. The swim, the warm water, had made me sleepy. I’d washed the Gulf and salt away. Thought, while I stood in the tiny shower, how a boy was driving toward Vegas. The cutest boy in all of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. I’d bit my lip.
    Now my hair was still bound up by a towel.
    “I’m back.” I pulled the towel loose and let my damp { 136 }
    hair go. It sprung into corkscrew curls. In the moonlight it looked the color of good silverware.
    Was I going to be able to stay awake long enough to help drive?
    Swimming is the best thing to put you to sleep. And ocean swimming wears you out.
    “You’re good at that water thing.” Steve drove with both hands, but he did his driving like he did his surfing. So natural it looked like maybe he was born to take this trip with us. “I can see you in the Olympics.”
    I grinned. “Really?” I sounded pleased, and I couldn’t make myself do anything but show that emotion. “I sure hope so. I got things to do with my life.” I stepped over Thelma and settled myself in the seat.
    Steve sort of looked at me. A passing car lit up his face, and when he smiled, my heart did that Grinch thing and grew a little bigger. “Swimming things?”
    I nodded. “Swimming things,” I said.
    “Nothing else?”
    “Like what?” I said. I pulled at my hair, trying to comb through it with my fingers. I needed my pick. “Do you mean like college?”
    He shrugged. “Sure. Or business.”
    I pulled my feet into the seat. “You think I want to always bus tables at your daddy’s restaurant? The answer is { 137 }
    no. Maybe start a different restaurant for me and Nanny ourselves. Maybe.”
    Steve looked at me a long second.
    “Watch the road,” I said.
    “I can see it.”
    “No you can’t. You’re looking at me.”
    “I can drive with my eyes shut,” he said.
    “Well, don’t.”
    He stared at the road a minute then closed his eyes.
    “What are you doing?” I straightened up in my seat. The towel fell to the floor.
    “Showing you my talents.”
    “Open your eyes!”
    “I’m telling you, I can drive with my eyes closed. I have a sixth sense.”
    “Stephen.”
    “I like it when you say my name that way.”
    The motor home never left the road, but stayed right between the white and yellow lines. He was pretty darn good at driving blind, but . . . “Open your eyes!” My voice was something of a whispered screech. “Nanny is gonna skin us both alive.”
    Instead, Steve turned and glanced at me. His right eye was closed. The left, open.
    “You jerk,” I said. Then laughed. { 138 }
    85
    Almost Night Driving
    We drove with the late-night radio playing. Out of Orange, Texas. Into Beaumont, Texas. Another state down. Whew!
    Jackson Browne, Cher, Dr. Hook. Donny Osmond, Carly Simon, Neil Diamond. Roberta Flack, the Jackson 5, and even a bit of Jesus Christ Superstar .
    The sky was covered with clouds now. Lightning was blinding, even at this distance.
    “Probably a twister coming,” Steve said.
    “Probably,” I said. I slept sitting up. I fought to stay awake, but my body wasn’t having any of that. As I slipped off to sleep, Thelma came up to sit next to Steve and keep him company while he drove.
    Then someone said, “Winston Churchill. You are something else.”
    “What?” I said. My eyes snapped open. Electricity sliced the sky in half. Pecan pie sounded great.
    “You’re dreaming,” Thelma said.
    “Yes, I am,” I said. { 139 }
    86
    Sleeping on the Road
    I woke up on the sofa, Nanny pulling into a Phillips gas station.
    “Guess where we’re headed?” she said.
    I blinked. Cleared my throat.
    “That’s right. San Antonio. You know what’s there?”
    I tried to speak.
    “The Alamo.”
    “Oh.” There it was. I had my voice back.
    “You know what happened at that historic site?”
    I opened my mouth.
    “Your great-great-uncle twice removed fought against