The Prayer Box by Lisa Wingate

Author:Lisa Wingate
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781414388632
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2013-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

ROSS WAS TRYING TO TALK me into going down to Ocracoke Island for the night. There was a party brewing at one of his favorite dives, and then he was crashing overnight at the little saltbox house he seldom used.

His fingers toyed with the ends of my hair as he smiled down at me, his eyes twinkling. “Man, you haven’t seen a beach until you’ve seen the one by that house. You’ll like it. You can meet my dog. Mama said if I didn’t come get him out of her yard, she was gonna call the pound, so I put him at the Ocracoke house. Anyway, you’ll love the place, and the sunrise is awesome there.”

“Like you’ll be seeing the sunrise after playing pool all night.” I’d been out with Ross enough times to know how the evening would go. He would play pool, gather an audience, and entertain everyone with epic stories from his two-day bender in Salvo. In the morning I’d wake up on Ocracoke, a forty-minute ferry ride away from Hatteras and my new job at Sandy’s.

The strange thing was that not so long ago, I would’ve been jumping at the chance, a giddy feeling fluttering up, my body warm with the fact that Ross didn’t want to leave home without me. Being his arm candy had been a confidence booster like crazy, and I’d craved that. But today, all I could think about were the issues with Iola’s house and the fact that Sandy needed me to show up in the morning. The Ocracoke ferry had been closed due to shoaling more often than it had been open lately. What if I got stuck down there?

I heard J.T. talking to Zoey as they crossed the salt meadow, and I pushed away from Ross. “The kids are coming.”

Ross listened a moment. Then his lashes fell to half-mast, and he leaned close to me. “Sounds like both of them, so we’re good to go. Tell Big Sister she’s got to stay home and babysit tonight. We’ll head out, catch the ferry, and hit happy hour at Rob and Roy’s—get a bite before the round-robin pool tournament. You can watch me work my magic.”

“Ross, I should . . .”

“C’mon,” he teased. “You can have all the money. Everything I win. You’re my good luck charm. They’re all too busy looking at you to pay any attention to the table. We’ll hit one of the shops on the way, get you something really . . . distracting to wear. You need some new clothes, Tandi. You’re way too hot for jeans and junk T-shirts.”

The pull of old habits tugged hard. He made the evening sound a whole lot more fun than I’d pictured it.

“I can’t,” I said finally. On top of everything else, the clouds were rumbling somewhere off over the water. If more storms blew in tonight, I’d have to do my best to make sure the drip buckets were in all the right places in Iola’s house. I thought about telling Ross the truth, but instead, I settled for “I have to work in the morning.

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