I wedged my last box into the back of my old Ford and closed the tailgate, standing back to look at it. The truck was a few years old and needed a little some work, but it wasn't bad for my first car. It was supposedly a going-away present from my mother, but to me its message was: Go away.

That was okay, though. Being allowed to leave was enough of a gift in itself.

Irene, Mom's girlfriend, came out of the house carrying a grocery bag, "I brought you some contraband, Anna," she grinned, "Animal crackers, licorice, M&Ms, and I even put some fruit in there." I took the bag gratefully, "Chewing will help keep you alert," she smirked from behind her glasses.

"Thanks Irene," I smiled, I would probably miss her more than my mom, and I'd only known her for a couple of years.

"You have any problems this side of Denver, you call me," she said sternly, "I know your father is looking out for you, but he's not the only one."

I give her a hug as my mother appeared in the doorway, "Thanks, I will," she released me and I went to Mom, giving a less enthusiastic hug.

"Drive safe," she said giving me a smile, and I was surprised. I hadn't gotten a lot of smiles from her lately. My teenage years were taking a toll on our already strained relationship.

"I will," I promised.

She kissed my cheek, before walking me out to the truck. There were boxes and suitcases crammed into every free space except the driver's seat, though; Irene had at least reminded me to load them so that they didn't block my rearview mirror. I appreciated that.

"Check in when you get to Wichita," Irene said as I buckled up, and I promised I would.

I waited until I was out of view from the house before pulling over and fishing my father's care package out from under my seat. I hadn't wanted my mother to see it, because I knew she'd feel like Logan was trying to out do her, but really, he was just a worrier.

I opened the box and pulled out the things Logan had sent me for the trip: a GPS navigator, a cell phone, an emergency credit card, and receipts for motel reservations in Wichita and Salt Lake City. The gift had brought a lump to my throat when it had arrived in the mail. A lot of money had gone into it, but it was more than that. Logan was concerned about me.

I typed the address for the motel in Wichita into the GPS and got on the road again, heading northwest.

The drive from Jackson, Mississippi to Bayville takes somewhere around forty hours, if you don't stop and don't get lost. A very determined person could make it in just over a day and a half, and a normal person could make it in two. The fact that my dad had made me motel reservations in two different places along the route showed just how well he understood me. He knew that the GPS wouldn't keep me from getting lost, but that it would help me get back on track again when I did and he knew that I was the kind to stay under the speed limit, particularly since I wasn't used to driving in the mountains.

I fished out my new cell phone and scrolled through the numbers he had programmed in for me. The Highway Patrols for all the states I was going through, AAA, and of course, ICE. It stood for "In Case of Emergency," and Logan said paramedics sometimes checked a person's cell phone for an ICE listing so they would know who to call if there was a problem. His own cell number was my ICE contact, and I scrolled down to it and hit the call button.

I knew he wouldn't answer, since he was at work, but when his voice mail picked up, "Hey Logan, I just wanted to let you know that I'm on my way. I'm getting an early start and I've had plenty of coffee, so you don't have to worry. I love you. See you soon." I clicked my phone closed and gripped the steering wheel.

I should have been more upset about this move than I was. People tended to be sad when they moved away from home, but I wasn't. I had a few friends I figured I would keep in touch, but my boyfriend Cody and I had decided the long-distance thing would never work for us; and that was sort of hard, but I wasn't feeling terrible about it.

It was time to move on.

The hardest thing about this move was going to be school. In Jackson, it was relatively easy to hide in the crowd and avoid the spotlight. When more than three thousand people attended your school, nobody noticed the girl who sat in the corner and read a book or skipped assemblies. Bayville would be different, though. According to the registration packet Logan sent me, there were a mere two-hundred fifty-one other students who would be attending my high school.

People were bound to notice me.

I sighed, trying to push that depressing thought out of my head. I wanted this, I reminded myself. I wanted a relationship with my dad that was more than just every other holiday and a month in the summer, and more then that I wanted to put more then two thousand miles between my mother and me.

I stopped a couple of times for food and a stretch, and only got lost once. God bless the people who invented the GPS. With that in the truck, I didn't freak out so much about losing my way. The computer-generated voice guided me calmly back onto the freeway, and I was on my way again.

It was around eight in the evening when I pulled into the motel in Wichita, which meant I made a twelve-hour drive in roughly fourteen hours. That wasn't bad for me.

Logan hadn't called me back yet, and probably wouldn't for a couple of hours. He was the police chief in Bayville, and was something of a workaholic. He had never really had set working hours before, but when I called him and told him I wanted to move in with him, he had standardized his schedule. He gave himself a Tuesday-through-Saturday week, working from nine in the morning to nine in the evening. It seemed like long hours to me, but he seemed happy with the fact that he'd be able to see me off to school in the mornings and spend Sundays with me and I guess I was happy too. Logan and I didn't have much in common, but it was nice that he wanted to try to find something to do together.

I added Irene to my contacts list and sent her a quick voice mail, letting her know I was at the motel in Wichita. I ordered some pizza for dinner and dug out a book to kill some time. Just after nine o'clock, my cell phone rang, showing "ICE" on the caller ID. I smiled and flipped it open.

"Hey Logan."

"Hey Half pint" he replied enthusiastically. "Did you find the motel okay?"

"Yep, safe and sound."

"Is it a good one?" he asked, "The website looked nice."

Laughing a little, "You know, Pool, Weight room; the bare minimums,"

"Weight room," I could hear him smiling, "Very important."

"Oh yeah, I'm bulking up," I joked lamely. I was probably the weakest human being on earth.

I chatted with Logan for a few more minutes, until he seemed satisfied that I was no worse for the wear because of my drive. He wished me luck for the mountainous part of my trip and said goodnight.

The next day went pretty much the same. I got on the road a little before nine, so I actually talked to Logan before he went to work, but when I stopped at the motel that night it was well before he was home. I read some more, talked with him again for a few minutes once he got off work, and then went to bed. I started the process over in the morning, very much looking forward to finishing my drive.

Logan had been adamant that I plan my trip to arrive on Sunday, so that he could be there to welcome me home. He called me several times throughout the day to check on my progress, and I could hear the anticipation building in his voice. It was flattering, but I wondered how much longer this eagerness to spend time with me would last. Logan wasn't exactly used to parenting, and I worried he would feel like I was in the way, just like Mom did, before too long. His long working hours would keep him out of the house a lot, though, so I hoped that would keep him from getting too sick of me too soon.

When I entered Bayville city limits, I called him again, "I'm in the glamorous heart of downtown Bayville," I told Logan cheerfully maneuvering my way through the streets, "Which means it'll be about twelve seconds until I hit the suburbs and another three or so before I pull up in front of your house."

"This place isn't that small," Logan chuckled.

"Please, Logan, my sophomore class in Jackson had as many people as this entire town."

"It's quaint," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice, "and charming. I'm telling you, Anna, you're going to like small town life. People are nicer here."

"I don't buy it," I teased him; "I think people move to small towns because there are more places to hide the bodies."

"Is that why you're moving here?" he joked back.

"Of course! You didn't think it was because I wanted to look at your wrinkly old face everyday, did you?"

"Hey," he said sternly. "I am not wrinkly, I'm weathered. That's what having kids right out of high school gets you, so don't forget that."

"Yes father," I grinned. "Anyway, I'm almost there, but I should probably pay attention to the roads so I don't get lost."

He laughed. "Only you could get lost in a town this small."

"Yeah, but I really could, so I'm going to hang up now," I smiled, "See you in a few seconds."

My very helpful GPS guided me through the suburbs of Bayville to the small white house where Logan was pacing the porch. I pulled up in front of the house, and before I could even turn off the truck he was in the street beside me, trying to open my door.

I killed the engine and unlocked the door, climbing out so he could grab me up in a hug. "When did my baby girl get so big?" he growled, squeezing me tightly.

"You know Logan, at a certain age, it stops being a compliment to call a girl big," I teased reproachfully.

He laughed and stepped back, "Well, you're the prettiest big girl I've ever seen in my life," he grinned, "But Ann, who locks their car door while they're inside the car?"

"What, you want me to get car-jacked?" I asked him, "us city girls know to lock the door as soon as you get in the car."

"Your mother corrupted you, dragging you off to that place," he said gruffly, walking back to the box and pulled the tailgate open and grabbed a box, "Come on, let's get your stuff upstairs."

A door opened across the street, and I heard someone yell my name. I glanced back to see one of my dad's neighbors, but I couldn't remember her name. She hurried across the street as fast as her long legs could carry her and ran to give me a hug. "Anna Marie, it's so good to have you here!" she bubbled. "We've all been so excited about you moving to town. Your father hasn't been able to talk about anything else for weeks!"

"I'm . . . really excited to be here," I said, trying not to be aggravated with the older woman calling me by my real name.

"I know your father works late," the woman went on, "but you can always call me if you need anything or come over after school any time."

"Um, thanks," I said, surprised.

"See?" Logan said. "What did I tell you? Small town folks are nicer." He nodded to his neighbor. "Thanks for looking out for my girl, Emma."

"Any time, any time," she said, waving his words away. "You know I'd help you with the boxes–"

"No," Logan cut her off, "You've got that back problem, and you shouldn't be carrying things."

She nodded her apologies to him.

"Anna and I can handle this," he said sweetly, "You go get off your feet."

Emma patted my arm and told me again to come over any time, then crossed the street to her house again.

Logan helped me load my boxes inside to the bedroom at the top of the stairs. The one bathroom separated my room from Logan's, but I had a feeling he'd be able to hear every noise I made in my room anyway. I had discovered years ago that the walls in this house were thin, "I bolted a ladder onto the front of the house under your window," he told me as we hauled my things inside, "So if there's a fire or anything, you know, you'll be able to get out without hurting yourself."

I couldn't help but smile. Logan lived his whole life in a war against all of the horrible things that might happen. It was a product of his time in the Bayville Police Department that did it, but he worried about everything.

"And I didn't quite get to it, but I'll move out some shelves in the garage tomorrow so you can park your truck in there."

"Oh no, don't worry about it," I told him. "I parked on the street at Mom's all the time."

"It gets a lot colder here," he grunted.

I shrugged. "I don't mind. I'd rather do that than make you move your stuff." I didn't want to be a bother.

"We'll try it out," Logan conceded, "If it gets to be a pain, I'll move the shelves."

We finished moving my things into my room, and Logan almost helped me unpack. He started to, but the first box he opened happened to have my underwear in the top, and that was the end of that. He escaped to the den to watch TV while I got myself settled in.

It looked exactly the same way it always did when I came to visit. There was a double bed with a faded wooden headboard pushed against one wall, a dresser opposite that, and a desk sat underneath the window that looked out on the front yard.

I unpacked the same way I did everything else- between chapters. I flopped down on the bed and read for a while before unpacking a box. Work was more palatable when I broke it up with a bit of Dracula, which made me more likely to actually do it. It used to drive my mom crazy when she would tell me to clean my room and then walk in later to see me reading, but it was just how I got through my chores, not to mention homework, and just about everything else.

I got about half of my things unpacked, before calling it a night and spent the rest of the evening reading in front of the TV while Logan watched. It maybe wasn't classic father-daughter bonding, but honestly, I had never really known how to relate to Logan when I came to visit. He drank beer and watched sports, something that never happened back home even when she had, had boyfriends my mom was more the wine and Soap Operas type.

Around ten o'clock, I gave up on the TV and stretching I told Logan goodnight.

He smiled up at me, the tan skin around his eyes crinkling; Logan was always tanned, even in the middle of winter, he took full advantage of the great outdoors. "Big day tomorrow, starting the new semester."

I sighed, "Yeah, big day. Listen, maybe we should talk about home schooling? You're a smart guy right, you could teach me."

He laughed, shaking his head, "You'll do fine, Anna. It's a small town, remember? People are welcoming in small towns."

"Maybe adults are welcoming in small towns," I shook my head, "But high school will always be high school, and that never changes."

He chuckled softly, "I have complete faith in you."

I sighed. "Well that makes one of us," I leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. "Goodnight Logan."