I snorted. “God, no. He just got out of prison, for crying out loud. Back in high school he was the class freak. Spent time in the local mental ward.” I pointed a finger at my head and made circles in the air. It felt ugly as hell but I had to protect him.
Patty narrowed her eyes—the snakes zeroing in. “He’s awfully good-looking, don’t you think? For a loon?”
“Order up!” Hector called from the window.
I crossed to it, Patty on my heels. The smell of grease and ham was making me nauseous.
“A loon, exactly,” I said. “Not surprised he ended up in prison. I told him to move on and he is.”
I didn’t wait for a reply, but headed to my table, hoping I’d satisfied Patty’s curiosity. This dude wasn’t a threat and I was still loyal to her drug-addicted, woman-beating asshole of a son.
But Evan was here.
He came for me. I called out to him and he heard. He came for me.
I banished the ridiculous thought, along with the hopeful flutter of my stupid heart. He tracked me down the old-fashioned way: The Internet. It was silly to think something supernatural was at work. All that stuff he’d told me in high school about his prophetic dreams seemed distant and muted. Impossible stuff I’d believed because I was so wrapped up in him and desperate to be loved. He could have told me the sky was falling and I’d have believed him.
That’s bullshit and you know it, came a thought dressed in Del’s voice.
I pushed it away. In any case, it was too dangerous to meet with him. This town was too small. We’d be seen. Word would get back to Patty or worse, some of Lee’s asshole friends. If Lee got wind I’d so much as looked at another man, let alone met him behind a condemned hotel, I’d be dead meat.
So would Evan.
But when four o’clock came, I wanted to tear off my apron and nametag and run to Miller’s Inn. Fear slowed my steps. Fear wanted to turn me around and go home, not keep walking toward Miller’s Inn where Evan was waiting.
Evan…
I stopped and sagged against the wall of the corner drug store, slumped under the weight of time. Those days with Evan were a fading dream dimmed by the thousands of days making up four long years. The first week he was gone, I cried myself dry. Then survival demanded every ounce of my waking strength and I hadn’t wept since. I wanted to weep now. I felt great gusting howls well up in me, but I pushed them down.
It’s too late for me. Too late…
An echo of Evan’s words resounded in my mind. “You’re the bravest girl I’ve ever known…”
It took every shred of courage I had left to walk to the old inn. I made myself small and invisible. Shoulders hunched, arms crossed, head down.
I walked straight into Evan.
He gripped my shoulders as I rocked back, studying me. I looked up into the blue of his eyes. They were brimming with emotion and longing. So much longing. I felt it like a pull between us, drawing me to him, to fall against him and be held by him again, and make those four years between us vanish.
But he was too good and pure. Even more so when contrasted against Lee. Evan didn’t belong here and I didn’t belong with him. Not anymore.
“You can’t stay,” I said. “If they see you, they’ll hurt you.”
“Who?”
“Lee. And his friends.”
“His name is Lee.” It wasn’t a question.
I watched his gaze take me in, reading the story of the last few years written on my body. My cut lip. A scar above my eye that hadn’t been there in high school. The clothes hanging on my bones. I watched as he drew his own conclusions, pain darkening his sky blue eyes to gray.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “Right now.”
“Leaving? Wait…how did you find me?”
“Is that what you really want to ask right now? Get in the truck, Jo. I’m getting you out of here.”
I blinked, my throat dry. “You… You want me to drop everything and just skip town with you?”
“Yes.”
“Evan, I haven’t seen you in four years. I don’t know you…You don’t know me anymore.”
“I know you, Jo,” Evan said. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Where is safe? And I have no money,” I said, my voice cracking. “He takes my money. I work. I work so hard and he takes it all. I have nothing on hand. Just a little savings a friend is holding for me.”
Evan moved closer to me his voice soft and gentle. “I have the money I saved up to get out of Planerville after graduation. I have it and it’s our money now. Come with me, Jo. Or at least tell me what’s keeping you here.”
“Nothing,” I whispered. “I wish I could tell you someone needs me. But nobody needs me.”
“I need you.”
“I’m scared, Evan. And worn down. I’m so fucking exhausted I can’t see straight.”
“I know you are, Jo. You have to leave him. Enough. No more.”
“But then what? I’ve been out there before. You don’t know what I’ve been through. I can’t do it alone again with nothing…”