Well, she was already in over her head, so there was no help for it.
Vern was waiting at one of the picnic tables. He sat backward on the bench, leaning against the table, his legs stretching out forever to rest on the bench of the next table over. His short hair was still slick from his shower, curling as it dried. He was so lost in his book that he didn’t notice her until she shadowed the pages.
“What are you reading?”
Vern didn’t have a clue what he was reading, so he turned the book cover to Denise in answer. He’d been surreptitiously watching her across the field—had purposely sat so that he would appear to be reading from behind his sunglasses but had a good field of view.
Despite the time he’d had to sit here, he still couldn’t figure out quite how he’d asked MHA’s chief mechani
