A Beautiful Mess

Chapter 12

Cole looked over at Sydney who was fast asleep in the seat next to him. It had amazed him that as soon as the truck had hit the highway, she had gone out like a light. He had thought that she would wake when they got to the diner, but she hadn't.

Not wanting to wake her, and knowing he couldn't return to the hotel and eat there, he decided to drive out to the old house a few miles past the dig site. He had discovered it years ago, when he had been with his first group of students, scouting for a dig site. It had caught his imagination, so he had done some research to learn the history. Now, he just liked to come and look at it, trying to picture it as it would have looked over a hundred years before when it was newly built.

He had parked and Sydney slept on as he unwrapped his burger and started to eat.

It was a full moon, and there was plenty of light in the cab as Cole looked over at her sleeping form, with her head lolling to one side she looked like a trusting child, and he wondered for the millionth time what made her tick. She wasn't turning out to be what he expected her to be, what he wanted her to be if he was honest. He wanted her to be like all the others, after his money or an illicit affair with the older man. He wanted that because that was what he knew, he could handle that, but he was quickly discovering that she was different.

Sydney wasn't like Bridget. Bridget had been a hard lesson that he had learned too young.

There was something about Sydney that tugged at his heart and made him want to care, and he hadn't cared about anyone but his family and a few close friends in ten years. If he was honest, he had noticed her when she was in his classes four years earlier, but he had ignored his interest. As a newly minted instructor at the University, he was too focused on trying to prove himself in the world of academia to pay attention to a plain little girl, not that he had been that much older.

That had changed the night of her parent's anniversary party. That night he had seen her as something other than a student, and it had scared him. He had wanted her then, and he wanted her now, but there was something else there too. It was something that had taken him by surprise, he was concerned for her safety and wellbeing. He had been livid when he had seen her that night on the highway. She could have been seriously hurt, and the last thing he needed to report back to the school was that one of his students had been injured. At least that was the reason he had given himself when he took her to get his aunt's car.

When Cole had caught her under a bush giggling with his mother, something had tugged at his gut. His mother was usually a shy woman, but she had taken to Sydney as most people did. Her natural ability to draw people out amazed him. How could she be who he thought she was when there were so many people who fell for her? Even Aunt Viola had liked her, and she hated everyone.

Cole had been upset that he had had to ask her to go down the well, he would have preferred to do it himself, but he wouldn't fit. It was apparent that she had been afraid, but she had done it anyway. She had done it because he had asked her to and because the little dog had needed help. None of the women he knew, Bridget included, would have done that. He was full of guilt that she had gotten hurt, and he was confused once more when she didn't complain about her wounds. It was her right to grumble and give him a hard time, but she had hidden the scratches, not wanting to tell him.

He looked over at her sleeping form again. She was a tough little thing, and he couldn't help but wonder what had made her that way.

Maybe he should take the time to find out, after all, he wasn't her teacher.

*******

Sydney must have fallen asleep on the short drive to the diner, and it must have been a deep sleep because she awoke in the dark with the smell of French fries surrounding her. It took her a minute to gather her wits, and she realized she was in the truck with Cole.