“I believe in music. I guess music is for me what numbers are for you. There’s power in music. There’s healing in it. God is there in it too, if you let him be. Growing up, in Grassley, everybody was so poor, Jesus was the only thing we had left . . . so I believe in him too. And God and music, once they are truly yours, are the two things people can’t take away from you.”

“I haven’t figured God out yet.”

“What’s there to figure? God is all the good stuff. God equals love.”

“Hmm. You just wrote an equation.”

“I did, didn’t I?” I felt kind of proud of that, like I’d said something smart . . . or “smat.” I smiled in the dark.

“So why is everyone so poor in Grassley?” Finn asked.

“Lots of reasons. It’s a tradition, I guess. A tradition of hopelessness. Drug addiction and alcoholism are high almost everywhere in Appalachia because people are hopeless, and when you’re hopeless you look for ways to feel something else . . . anything else. Drugs are good for that. So parents let their kids down because they are slaves to the pills. Politicians sell pills for votes, keeping them that way. The government gives us stuff but then when someone gets a job, they take it away, so everyone becomes afraid of work, not because they’re lazy, but because the job doesn’t cover what the handouts do, even if the handouts make you feel like trash and keep you poor. Being poor becomes the easiest thing to be . . . and the hardest too, because nobody really knows how to do something different.”

“You did something different.”

“Yeah. Look at me! Ain’t I somethin’?” I laughed softly, mocking myself. “I’m not poor, but I haven’t beat hopeless yet.” I tried to laugh again, but the truth wasn’t especially funny. My laugh didn’t sound very convincing. Time to talk about something else.

“How’s this for an equation: Bonnie plus Finn equals one big Popsicle,” I said and shivered for affect.

“Yeah. It’s damn cold.” Finn rose up onto one arm, the arm beneath my head, dislodging me and the blankets and making me squeal and burrow down even farther as he looked out the window. “It’s stopped snowing. Someone will come along eventually. And if they don’t, we’ll find a mile marker in the morning and make another call.”

“Come back down here, heat supply,” I commanded. “I’m going to close my eyes and you are going to tell me about math so I can fall asleep. Tell me some theorems. Is that what you called them? Tell me how Einstein knew e equals mc squared. And start with once upon a time . . . okay?”

“You’re a little bossy, you know that?”

“I know. I have to be. It’s to make up for not being born with a calculator. Now share your wisdom, Infinity.”

“Once upon a time—”

I giggled and Finn immediately shushed me, continuing on with his “story.” I closed my eyes, more content and less hopeless than I’d been in months.

“Once upon a time, there was a man named Galileo.”

“Galileo Figaro!” I sang, interrupting the story immediately. “Name that song.”

“‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen.” Clyde sighed with pretended long-suffering.

“Excellent. I just had to make sure you and I could be friends. Continue.” I nestled down again and prepared to be bored to sleep.

“Galileo isn’t usually considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. He was a physicist, a scientist, but it was people like Galileo that made me believe that math was magic.” Finn’s voice was a rumble in my ear, his breath tickling the hair against my forehead, and I closed my eyes as he began to expound on something he called Galileo’s Paradox—how there are just as many even numbers as even numbers and odd numbers combined, which should defy reason, Finn said, but which made perfect sense if you compared them in terms of infinite sets. My eyes started to feel heavy immediately, too tired to try to follow the concept for long. Who woulda thunk it? Big, blond, and beautiful also had a brain.

Chapter Seven

RUMORS CONTINUE TO swirl about the reported disappearance of country superstar, Bonnie Rae Shelby. Police are now involved after several sightings of the star with an unknown male have been reported. One sighting resulted in an assault against a salon worker, another sighting led to an altercation outside a Motel 6 just east of Buffalo, New York, where Shelby attempted to use a credit card that had been reported as stolen and was later seen arguing outside the establishment with the same, still unidentified, man. The desk clerk at the motel was concerned for Shelby’s safety after the man grabbed Miss Shelby, at which point the desk clerk called the police. The clerk, in an interview with police, said she had talked to the singer before the altercation and claimed Miss Shelby seemed frightened and under duress. The singer asked to make a phone call when her credit card was declined but was unable to reach whomever she was trying to call. Shelby’s family has issued a statement that they are very concerned for Bonnie Rae and will cooperate with police to ensure her safe return.

IT WASN’T SUNLIGHT that woke him. It was brighter than that. The world around the Blazer was so white he wouldn’t have been surprised if a chorus of angels had surrounded the partially buried vehicle and pointed him toward the pearly gates. But heaven couldn’t possibly be this cold. And the girl in his arms was no angel, though she looked pretty damn sweet with her short brown hair sticking up at her crown and her bow-shaped lips parted on a soft snore. Her hat had come off in the night, and her face was buried where his armpit met his chest.