Chapter 4

The rest of the day was a blur, as was the rest of the week. I worked, ate, slept, ran every morning with Shiloh. She'd become her chipper usual self the day following our talk about her and her mom's situation. During the week I worked out the dates for Kaitlyn's month-long visit. Oh boy, was that an adventure in aggravation—her mother, my ex, had damned near every excuse under the sun for why such and such dates wouldn't work. I finally called her on her bullshit and she caved.

Shiloh had a week left until districts and was getting very close to keeping pace with me during our early morning runs. It was a fact that she made well-known to an "old geezer"—me—that she ran with—again me. I would just laugh and tell her that until she beat this old geezer she was talking about, she couldn't brag. She'd just giggle and wink at me. Her laughter was contagious, so every time I'd join in her laughter.

During the week there wasn't a recurrence of Sunday's events. Oh, sure, there were days where Rudy would do his yelling, but none were like Sunday. And sadly, but gratefully, there weren't any recurrences of Shiloh and I sharing body space. Sadly because my little buddy down below loved the feel of a feminine body up close and personal. Gratefully because, one, she was underage and, two, because I just wasn't ready to get emotionally attached to anyone.

We grew closer in our friendship and I thought I sensed that Shiloh wouldn't mind more. If I were younger and in another place and time, I'd have gladly sought more myself. As it was, I couldn't, had I wanted to, not if I didn't want to spend ten-to-twenty with some big fella named Bubba who wanted to try and make me his bitch. No way, thank you very much, I value my freedom and anal virginity.

The weekend came and went, both days finding Shiloh enjoying my refreshing pool. Now, I'll admit, she filled out her bikini well, very well. And I'll also admit, grudgingly, that I looked. More than I should have. Who in their right mind wouldn't look at the curves of a young woman in a bikini. Sure, once or twice she caught me looking; she'd just smile enigmatically, wink and then disappear under the water. And lemme tell you something, friend, the feel of her cool, wet and oh, so soft skin when we'd be horse-playing, well, a few times that left me questioning my relationship/underage hang-ups, and more importantly, my sanity. I kept our relationship at a friends-only level, albeit stubbornly. Yup. That's me—as stubborn as, to quote the ex, "a damned, stupid jackass".

The following week flew along: me working, me sleeping, my morning jogs with Shiloh. She invited me to the district cross country meet, but I couldn't get time off from work. I had brushed the dust off the mechanical engineering degree I'd earned at the Academy, and was finally putting it to work putting in long hours over at the Micron plant on the east end of Boise working an ambitious expansion project. The pay was good, the benefits better and the location was the best part of the whole deal; you could take in the foothills to the south of Boise and the Sawtooths to the north with the city in between and sloping gently away towards the Boise River.

That night—I'd put in a good 14-hour day at the job site—I'd no sooner walked into my house than I heard a knock on my door. I answered the door, still dressed in my grungy work clothes, to see Shiloh standing there in my doorway dressed in her school's track outfit.

She was standing there looking at her feet dejectedly. Captain Oblivious, I asked her how she did. She looked up at me, sighed deeply, shoulders drooping and said, "I didn't do as good as I thought I did..." and trailed off watching my reaction. The shock must've shown on my face because she giggled and continued. " ... I did better than I dreamed I did!" She did this funny little happy-dance and pulled out her gold medal. "I beat, no, creamed the district record by almost three minutes! The second place girl was, like, almost four minutes behind me and she was the one favored to win; she's the defending state champ! OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod! Thank you Gary, thank you so much for helping me and pushing me to get better, to be better!" She suddenly threw her arms around my neck, planted a somewhat lingering kiss on my lips and hugged me like a boa constrictor. Yeah, she was excited alright. I hadn't heard her talk this fast for this long since I'd met her two weeks prior. That gulp you heard? That was the result of the kiss. It felt good. Really good. And that scared the crap out of me.

She stepped back, practically floating and literally bouncing out of sheer excitement. She grinned, thanked me again and excused herself so she could go tell her mom the news. Hmmm ... I was the first to hear the news? Almost troubling. I ran my fingers through the stubble of my hair—some old military habits are almost impossible to break—and went and showered.

I went to bed a man with a troubled mind and sad thoughts. It appeared that I would have to be up front with Shiloh about what I was perceiving as her possibly romantic feelings towards me. If it was, as I was guessing, it'd probably crush her and quite probably end ruin our friendship to put a halt to her pursuit of one Gary Ashton. Don't get me wrong; I didn't love, nor even liked, being single. I hated it with a passion, if we're being honest here. For me, the thought of being single the rest of my life terrified me. Yet ... I'd been burned by the ex. Badly. I didn't want to go through that again. And with the PTSD that I had from my Afghanistan incident, I wasn't mentally ready for anything more than friendship. I finally fell asleep thinking of Shakespeare and comparing his age-old question to my views on relationships—to be or not to be, relationship or no relationship. That truly was the question.

Another day during the next week found Shiloh spending most of an evening with me working on Carol. We managed to get the engine pulled and bolted to an engine stand. By the time she left for the evening—we hadn't heard Rudy's belligerent hollering for around an hour—we'd managed to clean up the engine compartment, pulled the carburetor, and the header pipes.

We were in the washroom just off the garage cleaning up when out of the blue she bumped my hip with hers. I looked at her. Her old tank top was streaked with oil and she had a smudge on her left cheek. She smiled at me. Boy, even all dirty like she was, she was still a looker.

"So when do you think we'll be done with the Shelby?" she asked.

"Hold still," I said as I wet a washcloth and cleaned the smudge off her cheek. "Well, it has to be done in the next three weeks. I can't exactly teach Kaitlyn how to drive a stick if I don't have one for her to use. So ... that means ol' Carol's gotta be done before she gets here. I figure we'll get the rest of the engine broke down tomorrow night. Sometime this week I'll get the engine block dropped off at the machine shop. It'll probably take a week, roughly, before I'll be able to pick it up. Another two evenings to get everything bolted back together and, at most another two days to get it all put back in the car."

"So two weeks?"

"Yeah, give or take. That'll give me enough time to ensure it's running right and enough leeway should we run into a problem or two."

"So you don't mind if I'm over a lot these next two weeks then?"

I got this "are you serious?" look on my face. "Shiloh, I don't mind at all. You know your stuff, mechanically speaking, and I definitely appreciate the help." We were in the kitchen now and I'd pulled out two Cokes from the fridge for us. "Plus, it'll keep my mind at ease knowing you're not under Rudy's thumb. I worry about you." And added as almost an afterthought, "And your mom, too."

Shiloh grabbed my hand and squeezed gently. "Thanks for looking out for us, Gary. I know it's gotta be hard knowing what you know but not doing anything because I asked you not to. It's for the best, though. Honestly."

She let my hand go. "I doubt it's for the best, Shiloh. But ... I'll do as you ask. For now." She was right, it was hard knowing that Rudy, at any moment, could blow a gasket and lay into one or the both of them for no reason whatsoever.

I'd talked to my brother, Sam, and he told me that there wasn't much they, and especially I, could do. I'd have to actually witness Rudy beating on Mattie or Shiloh before the Sheriff's Department could intervene.

He also read me the laundry list of Rudy's rap sheet—DUI three times, drunk and disorderly twice, public intoxication a half-dozen time, and countless visits to the address next door. Sam even mentioned that it was his belief that he might be into meth dealing, but that they hadn't found anything outright and couldn't get a warrant without probably cause. Each and every time, he paid his due or his time and that was that. When I asked how it was that an obvious alcoholic could afford all those fines and court costs, Sam said that Rudy's folks were somewhat well-off and always bailed his fat ass out of whatever jam he was in. Wonderful. Enablers. I wondered how they'd react when Rudy finally did what the odds say would eventually happen—kill someone. Neither Sam nor I could come to a definitive conclusion on that question.