Beyond Ordinary

“And yet, you just needed two of us.”

Framed as she was by the streetlight, Timm saw her cheeks fill with color.

“That guy was typical of Chester’s clientele.”

“I can take care of myself.”

His jaw ached where he swore he could feel bruises forming already. “I don’t doubt it, Angel, but why would you put yourself in a situation in which you would have to?”

“That’s my business.” She strode away and turned down a side street.

She got under his skin, made him angry, but he trailed her home. He hadn’t liked seeing her hurt. No woman deserved that.

She spun to face him. “Why are you following me?”

“Seeing that you get home safely.”

“I told you, I can take care of myself. Stop following me.”

“No.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Tough. That biker could circle back, looking for you.”

He trailed her to her old neighborhood. The landscape changed from well-to-do to not on the flip of a dime. Heads, you’re rich. Tails, you’re poor. Heads, you live on pretty, tree-lined streets. Tails, you live behind the ugly, industrial feed store.

She stopped at the trailer she’d grown up in. After Missy and Angel had moved to Harold’s house, no one else had taken up residence. It stood lonesome, threadbare, neglected. Even so, it didn’t look much worse than the other trailers on the dead-end street.

What are you thinking, Angel?

He’d had so much room in the four-bedroom brick house where he’d been raised, yet it hadn’t been enough to separate him from his father on the nights he drank. On those occasions, the house had been claustrophobic. So, how had Angel felt in this little tin can while her mother’s boyfriends cycled through Missy’s revolving door?

Had those men ever bothered Angel once she became a teenager? God, he hoped not.

“How did it feel to grow up in there?”

She stared at him for a protracted minute. Then swearing, she picked up a stone and tossed it at the trailer, where it pinged off the metal loudly enough to awaken a nearby dog.

After a couple of barks, someone yelled and the barking stopped. The night turned quiet again, still and hot.

Breathless and waiting.

In front of the trailer at the end of the short street, Timm spotted the red tip of a burning cigarette. Was that a man? Was he watching Angel?

Timm’s muscles bunched and tightened, waiting for trouble.

He stepped closer to protect Angel if he had to, but at that moment she moved on, cutting through the trees and someone’s backyard to access the next street.

He followed her until she reached the short sidewalk to her mother’s house.

“Good night, Angel,” he called softly.

Nothing but the gentle click of her front door closing behind her answered him.

ON TUESDAY MORNING, Timm finished proofreading a hard copy of the Wednesday issue of the paper, then sat at his desk in the storefront to input the changes he’d made.

Megan and Mason, a pair of his reporters, had written excellent articles. He had to remember to tell them so.

As soon as he finished, he sent the file off to the printer in Billings.

They would print twelve thousand copies overnight and deliver them to Ordinary and other small towns throughout the county early tomorrow morning.

On page one was the announcement for the meeting he planned to hold on Thursday night. The town had a problem with Chester’s bar and it was time they organized and did something about it.

As important as the issue was, Timm’s mind had only been half on the job. The other half had been thinking about Angel.

He was a fool. He didn’t rate even a second thought from her, while he fell right back into his old crush the second she came to town.

As if his mind had conjured her, Angel walked into the newspaper office wearing dark jeans and a white T-shirt, the sun behind her skimming her body with loving hands. On anyone else the clothes would look normal, but on Angel? Well…wow.

“What can I do for you?” With her in his space, Timm was surprised that his brain functioned well enough to string together a whole sentence.

“Hey,” she said, her eyes hard, as though she thought he’d kick her out or something. “Do you have any copies of the latest issue?”

“Sure,” he answered. “That would be last Saturday’s. Here.”

He pulled one from a pile under the counter.

“Or you can wait for tomorrow for the next edition.”

“This will do.” Angel reached into her pocket. “How much?”

“Nothing. The next issue comes out tomorrow, so this one’s dated.”

Slow to pull out her hand, she stared at him as though he were a liar.

“Honest,” he said. “Anyone who walks in here on a Tuesday gets Saturday’s paper free.” Not that anyone ever did come in on Tuesday for last week’s paper, but Angel didn’t need to know that.

“Thanks,” she said. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

He handed her both. Without a word, she approached the small tables he provided for people to use when filling out ads or obits.

When she sat, her low-riding jeans gaped away from her back, just far enough to bare a tiny fraction of skin. Timm’s hands recalled the feel of holding her last night when he stopped her from burning her bike.

He tried not to pay attention to Angel, but couldn’t stop himself from counting the pages she turned too quickly before finally stopping.

Reaching under the counter, he unfolded the paper and thumbed through the same number of pages. She’d stopped at the want ads.