The Sooner the Better by Debbie Macomber Read Free Book Online Page A

pages. Mentioning the name of the town apparently wasn’t enough to achieve the result she wanted, so she attempted more than once to ask for a ticket. Each time, the agent merely shrugged and looked blank.
    Then he tried speaking to her. First he spoke slowly, then louder as if that would make her understand. After five minutes of this, she was ready to scream with frustration.
    â€œPerhaps I can help.”
    Lorraine turned to find a smiling clean-cut man standing next to her.
    â€œJason Applebee,” he said.
    â€œLorraine Dancy.” She held out her hand, noting that his was bandaged. “You’re American?”
    â€œSure am.” He grinned. “I guess that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it?”
    â€œAnd you speak Spanish?”
    â€œFluently.” Then, as if to prove it, he spoke to the man behind the counter. The clerk grinned, nodded and said something in return. His eyes moved to Lorraine; she couldn’t miss the relief in his expression.
    Lorraine didn’t understand what either of them had said. By this point she was beyond translating even the simplest verbs. Jason turned to her. “Now, what were you trying to ask?”
    â€œI need a ticket to El Mirador.”
    â€œYou’re joking,” Jason said, his face lighting up. “I’m heading that way myself.”
    â€œReally? I thought it was just a small town.”
    â€œActually, I’m going to a place not far from there. I was planning to spend the night in El Mirador.”
    â€œYou mean there’s a hotel?” If things didn’t work outwith her father, it was reassuring to know she’d have someplace to sleep that night.
    â€œI guess you could call it that,” Jason said, and they both laughed.
    Lorraine paid for her ticket, and Jason bought his, as well. When they’d finished, they sat in the shade outside and waited for the bus, which was due to arrive, Jason said, in thirty minutes.
    â€œWill you be staying at the hotel, too?” her newfound friend asked as he arranged his backpack at his feet.
    â€œI don’t know yet,” Lorraine said. It had been a long day already, with a plane change in Atlanta and a two-hour delay. “How long will it take to reach El Mirador?”
    â€œA couple of hours, possibly more—if the bus doesn’t break down, that is.”
    â€œOh, great.” She sighed loudly, wondering if anything else could possibly go wrong.
    â€œHey, it isn’t so bad,” Jason said. “At least there aren’t any bandidos. Not like the dig I was on last week.” He explained that he was a part-time archaeology lecturer at a small college in Missouri; she didn’t recognize the name. He was here doing research for his doctoral thesis. He’d been in Mexico a month now, he told her, although this wasn’t his first trip. Lorraine guessed him to be in his mid-thirties. He had short dark hair and the ubiquitous sunglasses, and wore a short-sleeved cotton shirt tucked neatly into khaki pants. The freshness of his clothes made Lorraine feel even more despairing about the condition of her own.
    â€œSo you were working on this dig? And…and there were bandits?”
    â€œYeah,” he said, lifting his bandaged hand. Jason entertained her for the next hour—the bus was late, of course—with tales of his adventures, including aharrowing description of the incident during which he’d injured his hand. He’d rescued one of the Mexican assistants on the dig from a knife-wielding pair of thieves. She shuddered at his dramatic telling.
    Lorraine liked Jason. It was impossible not to. He was witty and cheerful, not to mention generous with his help. He bought some melon slices from a street vendor and shared them with her. Lorraine hadn’t really been hungry, but the fruit quenched her growing thirst.
    She’d never made friends with anyone so quickly. She suspected that everyone responded to