The Runaways

Chapter 28

Caleb

Women are strange things.

Even soaked through her shoes and muddier than a country kid, Hailey looked real pretty in the Manassas rain. But she hadn’t looked my way in at least ten miles or said two words since we left the tree house.

Any other morning I wouldn’t have minded the quiet, but today the silence was getting under my skin. I tried to pretend that the whole kissing thing had nothing to do with it, that maybe she was itching to get on the road or something. But I wasn’t much of a liar so fooling myself didn’t work out too well.

Every other time I’d kissed her, she had something to say about it. Whether she screamed at me or had some kind of punch, kick, or five-star ready to put me in my place, I’d gotten used to her way of dealing with things.

But this time, it felt like she might have been alright with me doing what I did. That, or she was real pissed. Either way, she had me scared half to death, enough to keep me a good couple steps behind her.

        "Slow down, Hailey. You won’t get to where you’re going walking off trail like that.”

She stayed quiet, like she hadn’t heard a thing I’d said, and kept trudging on through the mud ‘til it got too thick for her to walk through. She stood there huffing and cursing worse than any girl should, trying to pull her legs out of wet Virginia clay on her own. City girls.

        “Need help?”

        “I’m fine, Caleb.”

        “Guess that’s why you’re stuck up to your ankles.”

I didn’t mean to laugh at her, honest, but seeing her sticking outta the mud like an angry twig was too much. She whipped her head around and shot me dead with those spitfire eyes of hers.

Staring at the rain cutting rivers through the dirt felt safer than picking a fight with that girl. I would’ve warned her to watch her step earlier if she’d let me, but up until she got stuck, she seemed more interested in pretending I didn’t exist than asking for help.

If it were up to me, I would’ve carried her to Charlottesville from my dad’s, but I hardly had it in me to keep steady on my feet. It wasn’t like she would’ve let me tell her what to do anyway.

Hailey did what she wanted, whether I was happy about it or not. She could crack walnuts with that head if she wanted to.

The rain came slicing through the trees on the heels of a gust from the south. Soon as we left the tree house, all that pretty light we woke up died away. The woods went quiet about five miles into the trek. Trees talk, and I should’ve known to listen the second they stopped whispering.

But with Hailey being how she was, I had a hard time focusing on too much of anything. Liam might’ve been right about what he’d said after all, paying too much attention to this girl probably was gonna get me killed. If flood rains were on the way, he’d win that bet sooner than he thought.

The skies started growling, low enough for me to know a bad storm was coming. Everything from dead leaves, to oak branches whipped to life around the both of us. If Hailey knew what was good for her, she’d let me pull her out of that mud before we ended up swimming to Charlottesville.

        “Just say the word and I’ll get you out, Hailey.”

        “I said I was fine.”

She went right back to trying to yank herself free, shoes and all. She would’ve lied to me ten times over so long as it kept me from touching her.