Free Texas Redeemed by Isla Bennet Page B

visit her dad as a “smart decision,” especially
when she’d sworn she never wanted to see him ever again. But Lucy figured
Machiavelli had the right idea—decisions were only as good as their outcome.
    If telling Peyton Turner to his face that it was best for
her and her mom that he stayed gone for good was what it took to make it
happen, then she’d do it.
    She sidled out of earshot of a woman rubbing a quarter
against a scratch-off lottery ticket, leaned against the gas station’s brick
storefront and called the taxi service number she’d found in Cordelia and
Jack’s phone book last night.
    She wished she knew what her parents had talked about at
the main house. Had he explained why he’d left and never come back until now?
Had her mom told him all about Anna?
    Lucy touched the hairclip that pinned her hair away from
her face. One of the faux gems had come loose and it was scratched and
sometimes pulled her hair, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was that
every year it got harder to remember her sister wearing it.
    A red car rolled to a stop at the pump near where Lucy
stood waiting for the taxi. The passenger window lowered, and a man in
sunglasses poked his head out. “Everything all right, beautiful?”
    Lucy’s hearing aid was turned on and functioning but she
pretended not to hear him and tightened her grip on her hobo and backpack.
    The driver slapped the horn and she flinched, dropping
the hobo in front of her feet. She bent to grab it, heard the click of the
car’s door opening and prepared to deliver a soccer kick straight to the guy’s
crotch.
    “Hey—” the man in the passenger’s seat started, with one
leg dangling out of the car. A group of teens who were no doubt ditching class,
too, appeared around the corner with sodas and chips in hand, and he shut the
car door, mumbling something to the man at the wheel. A few seconds later the
car circled around a row of pumps and sped off.
    You’re okay. You’re
fine. Calm down. Lucy didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath, and now
gulped air in and out. Tourism was the town’s lifeblood, but during the day
there were more out-of-towners about than people who called Night Sky home. And
tourists, or “city folk,” as her great-aunt called them, were too easy to spot.
They talked fast and drove impatiently—maybe struck dumb that the place had
need for only four traffic lights—and didn’t quite understand that in a rural
town like this one, there wasn’t much reason to rush anything.
    They were the ones who you really turned a suspicious eye
to, and the odds weren’t good that a stranger could creep into town, cause
trouble and creep away without having to answer to the law.
    A few minutes later a white sedan with a blue-and-green
logo reading To-Go Cab entered the lot. She clambered into the backseat and
rattled off her great-grandfather’s address.
    The driver spied her in the rearview mirror. “Shouldn’t
you be in school?” There was doubt in his heavily accented voice, making the
word sound more like skoowell.
    “It’s teacher conference day,” she lied, adding a
cheerful smile as she got settled. “Meter running yet?”
    Confused, the driver blinked a few times but pressed on
the accelerator and headed away from the gas station. “It is now. Is this a
drop-off or—”
    “How long can you wait?”
    “Depends on how much you can pay.”
    Lucy had counted twenty-two bucks in her wallet this
morning, which was a huge chunk of her savings from her allowance. She wasn’t
sure how long it would take to tell Peyton Turner that she didn’t want a father.
    In truth the idea of having a real dad around was strange
and … interesting.
    But it was a total novelty. After all, her mother had
taught her how to change a tire and wrangle cattle, how to mow a lawn and fight
for herself.
    And why should she get to have a dad when Anna hadn’t?
Anna was the one who’d never gotten in trouble, who’d always remembered when