Chapter 3 Rose
Outside, the sun is blinding. My legs are shaky as I move, but I push on anyway because the alternative—staying trapped in that death machine with Satan—is far worse.
I clutch my backpack like it’s my lifeline, and Logan follows as we make our way over to Henry, Hillary, and three men in various shades of plaid shirts and jean coveralls, standing at the edge of what used to be their cornfield.
They’re all talking at once. The sound of it pulses between my temples, making my headache worse. Low grade when I got on the plane for having to spend three hours with Logan Wells, made worse by his insults, then a fucking plane crash. Forced landing, I mean.
“Nearest hospital is about ninety minutes,” one of the farmers explains to Henry and Logan while they discuss logistics.
Logan goes quiet for a second. “Ninety minutes. What happens when someone out here actually needs emergency care?” He keeps glancing at me, like I’m about to keel over.
“I’ll call the local doc,” the farmer says easily. “He’ll come by, check you folks out if it makes you feel better. Biggest victim here, far as I’m concerned, is my corn.”
We all look in unison toward the dirt-drive-turned-runway, and the few hundred feet where the wing of the plane flattened the cornfield.
“No need for a doctor,” I insist, since a cardiovascular surgeon just bandaged the small cut on my forehead. I think I’ll be fine.
Aside from my knees shaking, my stomach turning, and the way my words sound more like a whisper—physically, I’m fine.
Hillary steps closer to Henry, and they start talking next steps.
The farmers have their own side conversation about what to do with their crops, which pulls Henry in, nodding along about insurance and billing.
I have to get out of here. I turn on my heel, hike my backpack up my shoulder, and start walking toward the barn.
“Where are you going?” Logan’s voice is right behind me.
“Georgia.” I don’t slow down. “Dad’s wedding.”
“Rose,” he huffs, just as red and blue lights strobe up the drive from the barn, accompanied by the annoying whoop of a siren. The cop rolls to a stop beside us in an old brown Suburban, lights fixed to the roof.
“Heard y’all were in a plane crash.” The man tilts his oversized brown sheriff’s hat. Logan looks at him, then at the plane, then back at him.
I snort. Then I start laughing. Logan’s hand finds my shoulder.
“Henry is the pilot. He’s the one you want to talk to.” Logan turns and points toward the group gathered a dozen yards away. As if the fucking Gulfstream among all this open land is hard to miss.
The cop tilts his hat, then continues along toward the group.
“I need to get out of here,” I say. I can still feel the rumbling of the plane, like the earth beneath my feet is still shaking.
I turn to walk away again, and he snaps, “Stop walking away!”
“I need to get out of here!”
“I heard you the first time. Stop being so stubborn and let’s just figure this out. Wait a fucking minute.”
“Let me freak out, okay? We were just in a plane crash!”
“Forced landing,” he says wryly. And I want to scream. I shoot him a withering glare.
“Alright,” he cajoles, like I’m a rabid animal. “Wait here, I’ll see if I can get us a ride out of here.”
He hurries back toward the group, his suit and dress shoes absurd against the dust, cornfield, and ruined plane.
He’s too fancy for all this chaos—though the suit fits him well.
On the plane, I kept stealing glances of his white button-up beneath the dark jacket, top two buttons undone, like he’d made one small concession to the fact that was supposed to be on vacation.
I caught peeks of smooth, hard muscle and tan skin, and I hated how much I noticed.
I turn and head down the drive toward the barn. I don’t have a plan, but the urgency to move helps keep my nerves from taking over my brain.
The breeze smells like cut grass and fertilizer. The air is warm, and the sky is wide open in a way that feels oppressive. I always think I want nature when I’m in the city. But this is too much of it, all at once—enormous and indifferent, like it doesn’t matter that I’m here.
That I just survived a fucking plane crash.
A crow lands on a fence post and stares at me. I don’t even know what state we’re in. My head is starting to spiral, just as a red truck rumbles up beside me.
“Get in,” Logan snaps impatiently from the passenger seat. The driver is a lanky guy, maybe a few years younger than me, wearing a wide, worn cowboy hat. He eyes me curiously.
My brain is still coming back online, so I stand there for a moment, not computing.
“You need assistance getting in this fucking truck?” Logan asks in an annoyed tone.
I shake my head. When I’m feeling better, I’ll yell right back at him. It’s what we do. But right now, the normalcy of him being an asshole is actually the only thing that helps keep me stable.
I climb into the backseat of the truck, breathing in the scent of motor oil and hay.
“Where are we going?” I ask. Out the window, I watch as we pass a farmhouse, then another long dirt drive. We turn right into a valley cut between mountainous hills, then there’s nothing ahead but more fields.
Logan says, “There’s a small motel in town. We’re going to regroup while I figure out how to get us out of here.”
“Oh. Okay.”
At that, Logan turns in his seat, assessing me with his brows furrowed.
“What?”
His eyes narrow further. “You’re not arguing with me.”
I shrug. “It’s a good plan.”
He waits a beat, then turns back in his seat. The drive into town turns out to be forty-five minutes.
“Where are we?” I eventually ask. The frayed nerves from the crash have finally started to quiet.
“Winnie,” Tanner, our driver, answers, glancing back at me in the rearview. I must look confused, because he adds, “West Virginia.”
“Oh.”
Logan turns in his seat again, but after another narrow-eyed perusal, he faces forward. Finally, we pull up to a squat building with a covered-wagon wheel out front, the spokes flat pieces of wood painted with the words The Appalachian Abode. Four rooms, maybe, plus the main office.
“We’re not that close to the AT, but we still get some tourists,” Tanner explains.
He parks the truck and kills the engine.
Tanner hops out first, eager to get us sorted, but the office door is locked.
He cups his hands against the glass and peers inside.
“No worries. Maybelle’s just gone for lunch.
” He straightens up and points down the road.
“Diner’s right down there. Better’n Cracker Barrel, good eatin’ if you’re hungry.
She’ll be back soon, or I can bring you down there to meet her. ”
I trail out of the truck last, my backpack dragging by my fingertips.
Logan agrees while I interject, “No, I don’t want to interrupt her lunch. We can wait.” Logan shoots me an irritated look, but Tanner just smiles, then we say our goodbyes.
I take a seat on a small, weathered bench outside the office.
Logan reluctantly joins me. The silence between us isn’t like the charged, tension-filled one on the plane—it’s more like the silence you share with a stranger in an elevator, both of you staring at the doors.
We don’t really know each other. But he’s already decided he does, based on whatever Pearl has told him. I shouldn’t be surprised.
I keep turning over what he said on the plane.
None of it was true, and I should have defended myself.
But the part that hurt the most wasn’t what Logan said about me—it’s the reminder that my sister still hates me that much.
Of course, she talks about me like that.
I knew she had. I just forget sometimes until something reminds me.
Dad believing her is one thing. But Logan doesn’t even know me.
“They better have two rooms,” I mutter after a moment of silence.
“We’re not staying here,” he grumbles, tapping furiously into his phone. “It’s barely noon. I just need to get us a ride, or, worse case scenario, a rental car delivered. The drive to the nearest airport is only—”
“You cannot be serious right now.”
He stops typing but doesn’t look up. “What’s the problem?”
“I am not getting on another plane.”
“What happened was a fluke,” he sighs, as if I’m being unreasonable.
“Logan, you might be an unfeeling robot, but there is no way in hell I am getting on another plane. I will drive to Georgia. I’ll hitchhike.
I’ll ride a goddamn horse. Do I know how to ride a horse?
No. But I will learn, and I will chafe my thighs raw, and I will eat beans from a can and camp my way to this wedding before I ever set foot on an airplane again. ”
Finally, he looks up from his phone. His brown hair, usually so artfully styled, falls loose across his forehead, over his dark eyes. His full lips part in amusement.
“You’re being dramatic.”
There are times I’ve wanted to smack this man. But right now I want to push him into traffic.
“Dramatic?” I gasp, clutching my hand to my chest. His eyes drop down, then flick back to his phone. “You cannot seriously be looking into flights right now. We were just in a crash.”
“Statistically—”
“Fuck statistics!” I shriek. He groans, but his eyes don’t leave his phone.
I stare at the side of his face, waiting for something—anger, annoyance, anything.
Nothing. Just the soft tap of his thumbs.
My mouth opens and closes. I don’t even know what I want him to do.
Yell back at me, maybe. Acknowledge that we almost died.
I need a shower. I need a nap. And then I need to figure out how to get myself to Georgia without setting foot on a plane or in a car with this man.
“There had better be two rooms,” I growl again.
“There will be,” he says with the confidence of a billionaire.