Rolling Thunder

Chapter 15

The filming setup wasn’t new to him anymore. He never realized how much shit was hidden behind the camera until they started the show. There were huge, expensive lighting apparatuses with weird names. There were reflective panels to lighten the shadow on the off side of a person’s face. Everything was filmed with multiple camera angles. The amount of thought that was put into the background of where a person sat while being filmed was shocking. Now, he just waited for them to pose him like a strange display. They had to test everything and be sure it looked right through their lens.

An attractive woman strutted into the room with an air of importance. Her hair barely moved when she walked, her face heavily painted. She regarded him with a polite greeting, as if he were beneath her consideration. To her, he was just another prop for her shoot.

“Emily Keller,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand. He indulged her, sensing her expectation of a reaction from him. He was completely focused on the task at hand. He vaguely listened to her remind him of the list of questions that had been emailed to him. She wanted to know what his answers would be.

At long last, the cameras rolled.

“I came here to tell it my way,” he said gruffly. A lot of faces in the room popped up from their equipment, surprised and looking at Emily Keller. She gestured briefly over her shoulder for them to keep rolling.

“The truth is, someone I loved got themselves into a bad spot. I was trying to protect that person, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and became a fall guy for a dirty cop. That is exactly how I wound up in prison. I’ve been tryin’ to start a new life ever since. I’ve been tryin’ like hell to start over. Just when I finally did, you people dig up this story and try to make a buck off it.”

The woman’s eyes widened, but again, she held up a hand to signal the crew to keep filming.

“I’ve never been involved with drugs in my life. I’ll be damned if I let somebody who doesn’t know me take away something good I’ve done. I’ll be damned if I let someone take something good and make it look bad again.

“So, I came here to tell the truth.”

Kayla never would have thoughtit possible, but Canyon Bill had saved her ass. She’d been struggling and trying with all her might and still falling behind. The farm was old and in disrepair. She’d neither the skills nor the money to fix it. Canyon Bill fixed the roof over the stalls at the back of the barn, and she was able to fill them with boarding horses. These horses belonged to other people who just paid her a monthly fee to keep them on her farm. It was good, steady, predictable money.

She’d just deposited their first month’s board checks. Now she sat checking and rechecking her bank balance in disbelief. There was enough to pay all her bills without having to call Trent this month. She wouldn’t have to make her miserable pilgrimage back to the city. She could finally make her break—the break she’d meant to have when she left Fort Myers and came here in the first place. With the new calls she was getting after Miranda and Rocket’s winning rodeo run, she might never have to go back to Trent again.

Canyon Bill was restoring the old trailer across the pasture. Even if he didn’t stay, he might leave it in good enough shape to be rented for income and it was a step closer to righting the mess she’d made by paying for her mother’s failed rehab.

Canyon Bill was still here. Evan was still here.

Her phone dinged. Presumably because she’d googled Evan, she now seemed to get notifications whenever he was in the gossip news. This ding notified her of a breaking interview about his past. Too curious not to watch it, she clicked on the video that popped up.

He was dressed in a tight black shirt that outlined his muscles, but with long sleeves that hid his tattoos. His dark lashes outlined his blue eyes, making them look as intense as she’d ever seen them. They nearly took her breath away.

“The court records speak for themselves,” he said.

“But you did serve three years in prison,” the interviewer pressed. A flash of irritation crossed his face.

“Before I was exonerated and released, yes.”

“And for our viewers who don’t know, all this came up when Evan and his partner, Dan Pelletier, became popular on a new Home Improvement show, Beachfront Salvage, where they restore houses in Florida that were damaged by Hurricane Ian. If you had nothing to hide, Evan, why did you change your name?”

He leveled a piercing stare at her. Kayla clicked off the video. She felt torn. She knew liars, and when Evan talked, she felt it was the truth. Somehow, though, watching this interview felt like spying. She wanted him to tell her to her face what had happened. She didn’t want to see the polished, edited version of it on YouTube.

So she texted him, asking if he would take her for a ride that evening. She waited for him to pick her up feeling hopeful, feeling almost…peaceful. A text dinged on her phone, and she glanced at it, expecting Evan’s reply.

We need you tomorrow night.Trent.

She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly scratchy. Her skin prickled with sweat as she texted her reply.

Sorry, I can’t.

It was now or never.

EVAN

She stood waitingfor him outside her gate, but as Evan rolled up, she looked up from her phone, startled.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, trying to shake it off. “Yeah, let’s go,” she replied tightly, swinging onto the back of his bike.

What the hell? Why was this girl still keeping secrets from him? Her smile at the rodeo had stolen his heart. She was happy, even carefree. Now, she was haunted once again.

He rode her out to the same spot where they’d watched the sunset before.

“I saw a little of your interview,” she confessed. He glanced at her. “Why relocate out to the swamp?”

“When I got out, I wasn’t in the Pirates’ good graces. I was couch-surfing at Dan’s beach house. So, I came out to start over.” She watched him solemnly, but, most importantly, like she understood.

“I get it. Sometimes I think I could use a new identity too,” she said cryptically. She didn’t ask him about the money. She never asked him how much settlement money he’d gotten, like the gold-digger biker tramps who hounded him when he got released. She just understood why he needed to start over. She didn’t ask how much he made from the TV show. She didn’t even let him pay for her drinks when he took her out.

Her phone dinged for the third time, and she paled a little more each time she silenced it. “Let’s go get a drink,” she suggested. He obliged her, and they cruised over to the Sleepy Tiki at the edge of the bridge, where she proceeded to slam several shots in a row.

“What are you trying to drink your way out of?” he asked her quietly, sipping his beer. Her eyes cut at him, exposed, caught. But she quickly glanced away as if she thought he could read the answers there. She stared at the empty shot glass in front of her and shook her head slightly. Instead of answering, she ordered another.

“I saw your stuff,” she said suddenly, abruptly trying to steer the conversation away from herself.

“What stuff?”

“The day you sent me to get Abbey at your house. She dragged me into your barn to get a chew toy she’d left in there and I saw all your bikes and cars.”

She looked at him sideways, guilty, wary. “I was afraid it was dirty money.”

Nice subject change, he thought.

“I did buy myself some toys with the settlement money the state gave me. Most of it, Dan and I used for seed money to start flipping houses.”

She nodded.

“Smart,” she commented, throwing back another gulp from her glass.

And suddenly he realized he could love this girl. She was afraid his bikes came from dirty money. Still, she didn’t seem to have the slightest inclination to want to know how much money he had. She only worried he was into something dirty, not what he could buy her or give her. He was good at reading people. Plenty of girls pretended they didn’t care about money. Kayla really didn’t. She was absolutely smokin’ hot, but she didn’t ever seem to want to draw attention to herself for it. She was a dream girl except for one thing.

She was holding her phone in a death grip, even though he’d seen her flinch and silence it after the last notification. She appeared to be trying to drown out her phone with booze. Whatever was going on, she wasn’t going to tell him.

He begged off early from the bar, amazed that she didn’t act drunk after the amount of whiskey she’d ingested. She’d become solemn and quiet. He thought of the dirtbag in her driveway threatening her.

When they rolled to a stop at her place, she swung off. Her face was slightly illuminated by the newly working porch light. She glanced nervously at her otherwise dark house.

“Want me to check your place, seeing as you’re out here all alone?” The relief on her face was obvious, so he killed the engine, swung off and walked her to the door. She hung back in the doorway as he methodically walked from room to room.

“All clear,” he announced as he returned to her.

She nodded. “Thanks.”

“You okay?”

Again, her eyes darted up at him and then quickly away, her face strained.

“Yep,” she blurted, and he was sure it was just what she thought he wanted to hear. He was also sure it was bullshit.

“I don’t believe you. You’ve been looking at your phone all night like someone’s about to jump out of it. What’s going on?” he asked softly.

A flash of desperation crossed her face. There was so much more unsaid. He could see it, sense it, plain as day. As if some other person were standing in the room with them. And for some reason, it was driving her away from him.

“I’m sorry if I ruined our date. I didn’t mean to. My old boss started texting me right before you picked me up.” Her voice was so shallow, it sounded like she could barely get a breath.

“The guy who was here before?”

She nodded slightly. His instincts bloomed brightly, and he shifted toward her. She recoiled slightly, fidgeting and scrubbing her hands on her jeans.

“What does he want?” he demanded, a little more forcefully than he probably should have based on her reaction. She’d wrapped an arm around her waist as if she could hold herself together and was pensively chewing a nail, sneaking glances at him.

“He wanted me to come back down to cover a shift, and he was pissed I said no,” she finally admitted in a small voice.

“I don’t like this. Do you want me to stay?”

“No, it’s fine, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” She moved away from the door as if to suggest he should leave. Every male instinct he had was blasting at him that she was in big trouble and he needed to protect her. But she was shutting him out, and he didn’t know why. He took a step toward her, and again he saw an almost imperceptible wary glance and a tiny motion, as if she had the impulse to cower from him, but was forcing herself not to. He breathed out his tension deliberately, stepping again slowly enough that he could reach her without scaring her. He leaned in and kissed her cheek, holding her face for a moment in his hands. She grabbed his wrists, and he felt for a moment like she was clinging to him. At last, she removed his hands from her face, playfully spun him toward the door, and stepped back with a thin smile. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m right down the road if you need me,” he said impulsively. She nodded a little, blinking quickly as she turned away from him.

“Thanks,” she murmured as she closed the door, then locked it behind her. He shook his head, feeling like he was no closer to understanding her now than when he first met her.