“Is there an inn or bed and breakfast or something?”

It wasn’t particularly late, but it had gotten quite dark. I hated how it grew dark so early. My mother arrived home at that moment, pulling into the driveway and rolling down her window.

“Callie? Who is that?”

“A lost reporter on his way to Harrington,” I called out.

“Tell him to come in for coffee!”

Ugh, my mother. I looked at the man and gave a tight lipped smile and a shrug. He was grinning madly and turned off his engine.

We spent what I felt was an awkward time at the kitchen table sipping at mugs of coffee, mine with extra syrups and sugar, his black. He retold how we met, and that he was going to get a story in Harrington, but little else. Mom was mystified. She excused herself to get out the spare sheets and make up the couch as a bed. I was tired of scrutinizing him, so I excused myself to go to bed.

It was the hardest thing ever to go to sleep knowing that strange man was sleeping on the couch.