at himself, because he knew the exact moment. When she’d come all over him in her bed, all the while drawing the most intense, soul destroying orgasm of his life straight from his soul through his dick.
“Ok ay, man, I never ever told anyone this ‘cause of how everyone around here thinks about her but…”
Kevin felt his face get red , and he tried to ready himself for what his friend was about to reveal. Fuck, he was actually jealous, jealous that Travis might have been with her first, known her as intimately as he did.
“ Last summer I was riding the trails back behind the house. I miscalculated a jump and hit a tree that had fallen over. I flipped over and the bike caught on a branch bringing part of the tree over on me. I was fucking pinned, no cell, no radio. I thought for sure I was screwed. But about an hour later, this woman came bursting through the woods, screaming her lungs out. She kept yelling ‘where are you? Are you okay?’” Travis threw his own towel on the foot of his bed and sat down. “It was your artist. She helped me get free. I wasn’t really hurt except for the burn from the exhaust, so I gave her a ride back to her place. It was weird. When she got off the bike I asked her how she knew where to find me and she just shook her head and laughed. She told me my cussing and swearing woke her out of a sound sleep.”
Kevin knew that was entirely impossible since Travis’ place was twenty minutes from town.
“She knew something, how I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t dismiss her so easily.”
“It’s not that easy, Trav.” Kevin rubbed his eyes. “Some of the things she sees… things she might see… they’re not so pretty.”
Travis gave him a sympathetic smile. “So it’s not that you don’t believe her, it’s that you’re scared of what she might see.” His friend reached over and cuffed Kevin on the back of the head. “Dude, you take responsibility for things that you have no control over.”
Kevin started to shake his head, to tell Travis he didn’t know what he was talking about, but the other man spoke over him. “Every fire that kicks our asses, from the one at your house to the one we fought this morning, you’ve blamed yourself, buddy. I’ve known you way too long for you to deny it.”
Kevin wanted to deny Travis’ words, but he couldn’t.
Travis shook his head. “Dude, she’s a little strange, but she’s a nice girl. If you can’t deal with what she sees ,” he mimicked Kevin’s earlier woo-woo hand motions, “then you need to walk away.”
“I don’t think I can ,” he muttered, reaching for his jeans.
Chapter Six
Jo stood back and surveyed the storyboard she’d finally finished for her mural of Ludington’s Great Fire. The first step for Jo in creating one of her murals was to plot out the entire image on large sheets of graph paper. She would then create a grid on the sheet of tin that would serve as her canvas. Finally she would chalk in the outline of her images before adding the detail that would bring the images to life in vivid oil paints.
Now, staring at the storyboard clipped to a bulletin board along the wall of her studio, Jo frowned at what she saw. As she’d mentioned to Chief Caldwell, it was an amazing story. During the summer of 1960, a fire had started behind the local five and dime. It had been a dry summer, and the usually lush landscaping that wound through the town had been brittle and dry, perfect fuel for the blaze.
By the time the fire department, at that time a volunteer force, had been called into the station and had rallied to fight the thing, the blaze had swept through the entire downtown area, devastating homes and businesses alike.
It had been a rallying point for the citizens of Ludington. They’d pulled together to care for those who’d lost their homes and livelihoods and, in some cases loved ones, in the way that only a small town can.
Now, forty years