I carry my bowl and Bellamy’s, and follow the kind stranger.
It’s delicious, and the conversation is surprisingly easy and light. It’s hard not to linger, but we really need to hit the road again.
So when we finish eating, I help her clean up even though I find myself reluctant to leave.
“We should go.”
Mercy searches my face. The second person in this small town to look for more in me than I’m able to give, and it makes my chest ache. “You’re welcome back any time.”
Part of me wishes I could take her up on that invitation.
Which really is a blaring alarm that I need to leave. Immediately.
Outside, my hands tremble as I buckle Bellamy into her carseat again. “We’re going to drive for awhile, baby. Will you be a good girl and rest for Mommy?”
She makes a face at me, but her eyelids are heavy all the same. Hopefully she’ll nap for a few hours.
But when I turn the key, there's nothing. No growl of the engine to lull my daughter to sleep, not even the starter clicking over. Just painful silence.
No.
I try again. And again.
Somewhere in the near distance, a truck roars to life, and I flinch so hard I bang my elbow on the door.
Fuck.
I can’t go to the garage down the street. I just can’t. I know it’ll cost more than two hundred dollars, and if the mechanic says my car isn’t road worthy, I’m screwed. But the other option is going back into the diner. My stomach roils at the thought of looking Mercy in the eye and explaining any part of this. Why I don’t have a phone, that I need help with my car, that I’m not sure I can afford to repair whatever is wrong with it.
Derek’s voice snakes into the back of my mind.You can get yourself in a lot of trouble by not being smart enough.
But I was smart enough to leave the compound when I did. I got us onto the ferry and across to the mainland without being caught, and that was the most dangerous part of my escape.
I’m smart enough to figure out an explanation.
I don’t owe anyone the painful truth of the mistakes I’ve made.
A pulse of fury drives me out of the car. I’m smart enough to talk my way through this setback.I wrench open the back door. “Come on, Bellamy. We’re going back inside.”
“More cookies!”
Cold fear tries to grip me by the throat. My pulse pounds as I force myself to nod. “Yes, baby. More cookies.”
Chapter 3
Zane
I sleep like shit, finally admitting at dawn that I’m not going to get more rest. Dragging myself out of bed, I pull on yesterday's jeans and head upstairs.
It’s only after I get coffee started that I realize I didn’t wake up with a throbbing hard-on, and I didn’t have my confusingly murky, annoyingly horny dreams, either.
I don’t know if I like the trade-off. And apparently I’m just as irritated if I wake up with an nonresponsive dick.
Nobody else is around, although I see a light on in the barn, so Ridge is doing chores. I pull out my phone to let him know I’m putting breakfast on if he wants some, and I’m surprised to see that it’s not him out with the horses.
Cash
Morning all, woke up early so I came to help with the morning feed and give Mom a hand with the kale harvest
