She fished through the wads of cash and change in her tiny apron pocket, finding her key ring. Once inside the Miata, she locked the doors and then counted through the day’s tips. Some ones, but mostly fives, tens, even a few twenties from the most desperate of truckers who thought if they tipped high, they’d eventually earn some alone time with her.
With her tips from yesterday, she had enough cash for her car payment with twenty-three dollars left over. Not enough for another motel room. She shoved the money back into her apron pocket and set it on the floor.
The bow on the door fluttered on the breeze, its movement more effective than a neon sign flashing Sex In Progress. Heat scorched her cheeks. She felt like a slow-witted Peeping Tom staring at the ribbon, knowing all manner of sexual acrobatics were occurring inside the room.
Evanee started her car. The motor turned over with a quiet hum that instantly lifted her mood. No matter how impractical or how flashy, she loved her Miata.
With no particular destination in mind, she pulled out of Morty’s and headed toward the country, away from semis and people. She took one winding, hilly road after another until she found an isolated spot.
The road passed through a serpentine valley encircled by low, undulating hills. A barbed-wire fence ran parallel with the pavement. Cows probably grazed there in the summer, but this late in the fall, the grass had shriveled to spikes of straw. The lonesome beauty of the land, the way the hills folded around her, soothed something inside her she hadn’t realized needed comfort until that moment.
See, there was always a bright side. She would never have found this place if Brittany hadn’t confiscated their room for a conjugal visit with a horny trucker.
She pulled over and cut the ignition.
She could spend the night here. It’d be like camping out. Sort of.
Leaning back against the headrest, she let her eyes slide shut. Sometimes she forgot a world existed beyond Sweet Buns, Morty’s, and the constant rumble of semis.
Silence. Pure and perfect. The best thing she’d heard in weeks. The quiet lulled her into relaxation, into sleep.
*
Evanee startled awake with a full-body lurch. Her heart ping-ponged off the walls of her chest. Breath choked in and out of her lungs.
She’d had a nightmare.
Another nightmare in the infinite string of bad dreams she could never remember. But this time fear walked up her spine while she was awake, like the nightmare was just beginning.
“I thought you might be in trouble.” The words, muffled and muted through the closed driver’s window, didn’t disguise the voice’s sinister chocolaty smoothness.
Junior Malone.
Fight or flight or freeze? She froze, solid as an ice sculpture.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. Junior’s tow truck was parked behind her car. Confirmation. It really was him. She couldn’t remain paralyzed. Fight and flight stood on either side of her, better friends to her than frozen ever would be. She turned her head toward the window to face her stepbrother.
Her molester.
Her rapist.
Junior’s straight nose, his plump lips, his sharp, handsome features captured the best of Zac Efron, Tom Cruise, and a young Robert Redford in a body that everyone in Sundew was irresistibly drawn to. Women fought for his attention, men wanted to be him, and everyone adored him for his wholesome nice-guy personality.
No one saw the real him, except for her. Junior Malone was nothing more than a beautifully wrapped package. Gorgeous on the outside, but inside he was something more vile than maggots squirming and writhing on rotting roadkill.
“Fuck off.” Anger and a childhood full of pain—caused by him—dictated her volume.
“Darlin’, I was worried about you. You’ve been out here awhile.” Sincerity, kindness, concern all sounded in his voice—all bullshit. His voice might be the sweetest siren’s song to everyone else, but she knew the real him. He didn’t have any feelings, except for the sadistic kind.
“How do you know how long I’ve been out here?”
He raised his palms in the air. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my idea. I swear. Tiffany at Sundew National wanted me to make sure you didn’t skip town with their car.”
Their car? What kind of bank freaked if the payment was only a few days late? The kind in Sundew where the loan officer knew every mistake Evanee had ever made and expected her to dive headfirst into the shallow end of stupid. Again.
But what if Junior’s words were chock-full of lies and designed to manipulate her behavior?
Had he been tracking her? Had Tiffany told him to? Tomorrow, she’d get answers when she went to make her payment.
Evanee started the car, shifted into gear, and then slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. Her hip punched off the seat from the force. The Miata’s tires spun, she heard gravel flying, imagined the stones hitting Junior’s perfect face. Ha!
The engine sputtered. Died. The car coasted forward only a few feet.
Her heart sank down, down, down, until it rested on the pavement beneath the Miata.
Damn her and her genius idea to save money by canceling her cell phone service.
Hands in his coverall pockets as if he were out on a nature jaunt, Junior strolled the ten feet—all the further her Miata had gotten—to her. Each step closer squeezed the air from her lungs until the only sound was her wheezing.
“You got a leak in your fuel tank.”
“You did it.” She knew that as well as she knew his name.
“I’ll patch it for you. But I need you to get out of the car so I can jack it up.”
“I’m not getting out of this car.” She wasn’t going to give him what he wanted. Her.
“Aw…now don’t be that way. Come on out here. We can chat—you know, catch up on things—while I fix your car.” He paused, waiting for her to capitulate to his wishes.
She had never given in passively or politely, and she wasn’t going to start now.