Page 57 of Stand

She knew what she’d done, and she spoke about her crimes honestly and with genuine regret. Ty couldn’t believe it. Yet he could.

When she began to move on to the thirteenth schoolmate, Ty grabbed her phone and threw it behind him to land between the kids. “That’s enough for now.”

“I haven’t eaten enough crow yet,” she protested. But he could see the exhaustion in her eyes.

“She can keep going,” Matt said. “Every day she did this to these kids.”

Matt wasnotgoing to forgive Sam anytime soon. “Not yet. Let’s get to the hotel and get some rest,” Ty insisted. “You can get out the tar and feathers again tomorrow.”

They’d booked a hotel in Cleveland that Sam had stayed in before. It was nicer than Ty wanted, but he knew that staying somewhere safe meant they’d have to pay a premium. He’d hoped to walk around the city a little with his kids—maybe go down to the water, just so they could say they’d seen a Great Lake. Now that he’d finally left his cloistered little town, he was waking up to just how much world there was out there.

But also he was kinda pissed at Matt, and he didn’t feel like walking around an unknown town with only Sam as their guide. They ordered room service and settled into awkward silences in their own rooms.

They continued west the next morning. Sam took her turn driving, so there were no phone calls, and they drove for four hours in near silence. “Cairo can wait,” she said evenly when Ty asked about him. And certainly the dog seemed to have taken on the atmosphere in the car and stayed with his head on his paws, hidden behind the kids.

They pulled off eventually onto a side road and followed it to a small town with a picture-postcard diner, a regional high school, and not much more. Matt and Alyssa looked around in horror.

“What do people even do around here?” Alyssa breathed.

“Cow tipping?” Matt suggested. “I never believed that was a thing until now.”

“Hey,” Sam said, surprising Ty, who’d just opened his mouth to reprimand them. “Show a little respect. You don’t know anything about these people.”

Matt grumbled something like, “I know enough” as he looked out of the window and purposelynotat his father.

“We’re about to eat their food and get gas from them, and you are not allowed to take out your anger at me on them,” Sam insisted. Ty had to admire her ability to know what his teenage son was thinking. Julia would never have gotten that subtlety.

“I wasn’t gonna!” Matt protested. Sam pulled into a parking space at the diner, and the noise of the engine died, leaving a grumpy, awkward silence in the car.

“I’ll take Cairo!” Alyssa finally said, hopping out of the car before Ty could warn her about traffic. Matt got out of the other side and left him alone with Sam for the first time today.

“Thanks,” he said. “I was going to say it.”

She shrugged. Why did her shoulders always have a kind of golden sheen to them? And why did she have to wear tank tops so he couldn’t ignore them? “I didn’t plan on saying anything. It just came out. People are interesting all over.”

“Have you been here before?”

Sam nodded. “They let Cairo into the diner. That’s why I came back.”

And he’d thought she’d just made a random decision on the road. He was beginning to learn that Sam didn’t do anything randomly. Anomalies like meeting him and his kids, and this trip, did not please her.

“Lunch is on me,” he said. Pathetic gesture, but it was all he had.

“Okay.” And Sam unfolded herself from the car and stretched her arms above her head before bending at the waist until her hair brushed the ground and her arms stuck out behind. Effortlessly, blood-boilingly beautiful.

Maybe it was a good thing they were all supposed to be cranky and taciturn with each other, because Ty’s mouth was filled with cotton and his head with contradictory thoughts.

“Hey!” the waitress who approached them at the silver entrance door said. “You coming back through?”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said.

The waitress immediately bent to scratch Cairo’s head without being asked. “I remember you, honey,” she cooed at him. “But who else did you bring with you?” She gave Ty a look he remembered from a dim and distant past, before he’d started dating Julia. Interest. Maybe even a little admiration.

“This is Ty and his kids, Matt and Alyssa.”

“Hi, Ty!” the waitress said. “Hi, kids. Ooh, honey. That’s a real shiner. You want a bag of ice for it?” Matt opened and closed his mouth and nodded. “Go ahead and find a seat. I’ll be right with you. Y’all want coffee?”

Sam gave an enthusiastic yes, and Ty wasn’t going to contradict her. Maybe coffee would help keep his focus on his kids and less on Sam’s shorts.