I see a familiar truck with a crew cab parked in the loading bay. One of the workers drags bags of something across the space and hands them up to the man in the tray. The man up top stops to strip off the red flannel he’s wearing over a sleeveless, stretched out tank. A tattoo of a cow skull covers his sun bronzed shoulder.
Some things don’t change.
Back in high school, I often rode home in that same truck, my then boyfriend’s hand on my knee while we shared the back seat. His older brother, the man currently stacking burlap bags, was always in the driver’s seat, his girlfriend next to him.
I could never have imagined what my immediate future held. Or that the whole town would side against me. Blaming me for ruining the lives of their favorite sons.
A sign hangs over the street, the words scrawled across it celebrating the new mayor.
I almost run off the road. Duke Whitmore is mayor. Are you fucking kidding me? I knew that, unlike me, they got to go on as though they did nothing wrong at all. But Duke got voted in as mayor?
It feels like a slap in the face.
It’s funny... when I’m in Los Angeles, Devil’s Bend feels far away. In another state, but also, another time. But beingback here feels like no time has passed. I’m seventeen again, traumatized, and ashamed. Keeping my head down in the hopes no one will notice me and call me names or accuse me of trying to ruin the boys’ lives.
And they’ve been thriving the whole time.
My phone rings through the car’s Bluetooth. I take a deep breath as I pick up the call. “Hey, I’m almost there.”
“Are you okay?” Rochelle’s earnest voice fills the car.
“Yes.” I check my mirrors as I turn right at the corner. It’s stupid. No one’s going to notice me driving through town and follow me to tell me to leave, but my senses are heightened, and I can’t shake the ick. It’s muscle memory. Ingrained into my psyche by previous experiences. “It’s too hard. Coming back here.”
“I’m sorry I’m the reason you had to leave the ranch,” she says sympathetically. “If I was forced to revisit the room where Alec assaulted me the way you’ve been forced to come here, I don’t know that I could do it. There are days I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move past what happened.”
“But you’re trying,” I say as the houses thin out into ranch land again.
“I’m,” she sighs, “cowering in the back seat while my bodyguard talks to the guy we crashed into and my heart is beating out of my chest because I’m certain any moment Alec is going to jump out like the boogey man and attack me. Remind me again why I left the safety of my home.”
“Because we’re celebrating a wedding of two of the people we love most.” I want to tell her that Alec isn’t a problem she’ll have to deal with again, but no one knows where he is. He has money and connections. The police might not find him, and that means Ro might never feel safe despite Tex guarding her person twenty-four seven.
“I’m supposed to be stronger than this,” she says wistfully. “Braver. But I’m not.”
“You’re a work in progress.” We both are. I survived the gauntlet just now, but I didn’t have to stop. It would be a different story if I had to climb out of my car and go into any of those stores and face any of those people. Even though I have nothing to be ashamed of I still want to hide from their judgemental eyes.
Up ahead I spot thick black skid marks burned onto the tar. Two vehicles sit on the side of the road. The white Mercedes is facing the road, the front of it crumpled. The other, a sensible blue sedan, doesn’t appear to be damaged from this angle but I can’t see the front of it. “I think I see Tex.”
“Good. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Ro’s bodyguard is talking with another man when I climb out of my vehicle. Ro waves at me through the back window as I start toward them.
Tex is a retired marine, a solid wall of lethal force in denim and a blue button down. He notices me immediately over the shoulder of the rancher. “We have a tow truck coming.”
I nod and continue toward the back of the car. I’m not stopping to make small talk with anyone local.
Ro climbs out of the back seat as I approach. Her gaze bounces off every tree and rock and ditch before she hugs me. “See, I’m a mess. Sorry to drag you away from the celebrations.”
“Let’s sit in my car while we wait.” I squeeze her hand. “You can tell me what happened.”
“There was another vehicle. We had to swerve. They sped off when we hit the man Tex is talking to.”
The tow truck comes rumbling down the road as we walk toward my vehicle. The closer it gets the faster my pulse races. The ick is back in full, turning my stomach to ice. I recognize thedriver, and by the way his lip curls as the truck rattles to a stop, stirring dust beneath the tires, he recognizes me too.
“We should move quicker.” I grip her arm and duck my head as I hurry toward the car. Kurt’s one of the reasons I never want to come home. What they did... I hate them.
“Why?” She cranes her neck to check out the driver. “Oh, God, is he one of them?”
Boots thump the ground and the truck door slams. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
