Chapter 2
Hope
My pulse is pounding and my fingers feel singed as I grip the steering wheel and try to ignore how much I want to look back at the cowboy we’re leaving in our dust.
There’s something strangely magnetic about him. I shouldn’t have talked to him at all, because I felt my boundaries crumble as soon as he got out of his truck. Should have waved him on and stayed in the car, just ignoring him.
Instead I got sucked into a conversation with him. Zane. Big and kind, a trap.
The way he said my name sent my already on-edge insides into free fall.
I don’t want another man who will pretend to care about doing the right thing for us. I can’t want help, especially not from men like that.
I need to learn how to help myself.
I need to take care of my daughter. Just me. Nobody else.
I’m a foolish girl with foolish feelings, and I make terrible mistakes when I let hormones swirl inside me unchecked.
Well, that was a terrifying reminder of how quickly my instincts can go sideways because of a physical reaction to a man.
I wanted to stay. That's the thought that made me slam the car into drive. I wanted to take his offer for help with the car, with anything, I was so tempted by it, and the last time I wanted to stay with a man, I lost three years of my life.
I don't get to want things anymore.
“Mommy, I need to pee.”
If Bellamy didn’t say that just as we sail past the Welcome to Dragonfly Creek sign, I’d keep driving.
But she’s little, and I could use a coffee for the next part of our drive. I slow down, looking for something, and sure enough, there’s a diner called The Friendly Table.
It’s just down the street from the garage I won’t be going to.
Guilt churns in my gut as I think about keeping his two hundred dollars.
It’ll go a lot further on coffee than on car repairs, and we’ve made it this far. I think we’re going to be okay.
As I pull into the parking lot, I notice a sheriff’s car right out front. Painfully aware that my car’s registration is out of date, I park on the other side of the empty lot.
“We’re going to be quick inside,” I remind my daughter before I unbuckle her from her car seat. Then I put her baseball hat and sunglasses on. “Don’t take these off.”
They aren’t much as far as disguises go, but anything that makes it difficult for people to describe us—and harder for video cameras to capture our faces—is better than nothing.
As we approach the diner, the cop comes outside. He touches his fingers to his hat as we pass, but doesn’t say anything, and as I hold the door for Bellamy, I hear his car start up.
I listen for the crunch of his wheels on the gravel, and then let out a sigh of relief when I hear him steer onto the street.
I don’t see any security cameras inside, either, which makes me breathe easier. But I still keep my head down as we stop at the counter. “Can I get a black coffee to go, please? And is there a washroom my daughter can use?”
The woman at the counter points to the back. “Right through there.”
“Thanks.” Without looking up, I hurry Bellamy through to the private toilet.
Inside, she takes her time, so I read the posters on the wall.
Next month is a town fair, and at the end of the summer there’s an incredibly wholesome-sounding Raspberry Jamboree.
A help-wanted ad for a part-time bookkeeper is pinned on top of a crisis helpline poster, that makes me want to crawl out of my skin, so I try to hurry Bellamy along, and that only makes her go slower.
By the time we get back to the counter, a paper takeout cup is waiting for me by the cash register. I pull out one of the twenties that Zane gave me, my heart squeezing at his generosity. I know he wanted me to use that money to get the car looked at, but I can’t afford the time that would take.
“It’s on the house.”
I jerk my head up.
A pretty woman with shoulder-length brown hair and a heart-shaped face with apple cheeks smiles at me. “You don’t need to buy a coffee just so your little girl has a place to pee.”
“I really did want the coffee.”
“Black coffee? Nothing in it? That’s essentially a cup of water. We don’t charge for that, either.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Mercy.”
“Hope,” I hear myself saying. The lack of good sleep over the last four days is catching up to me.
“I’m Bellamy.” My daughter climbs up onto the stool beside me. “Can I have a cookie?”
“We’re not staying.” My heart starts to pound and my palms go sweaty. “Bella, we talked about this.”
“I want a cookie, Mommy.” Her lower lip sticks out.
Fuck me. “Yeah, okay.” I push the cash at Mercy. “Can we have a cookie to go, please?”
“Of course.” She lets Bellamy pick the biggest one from the display case and uses tongs to put it in a paper bag that says The Friendly Table.
But when she holds it out for Bellamy, my daughter lunges for it, the stool spinning under her feet, and she goes flying, clipping the edge of the counter.
I catch her before she hits the floor, and she’s stunned silent as she stares up at me, a nasty red mark already glowing on her chin.
Then she starts screaming, and something inside me cracks open.
Everything around us goes dark and I clutch her to me, panic rising as I whisper, “I’m so sorry, baby. Mommy’s here. I’m so sorry, you’re okay, it’s okay, I’m so—”
Mercy moves past us. There’s a distant tinkle of bells, then she’s back, crouching nearby. She has an ice pack, I realize slowly. And she’s talking to me, but I can’t hear her through the roar in my ears.
After a few minutes, she slides to the floor, just sitting across from me.
It’s only after Bellamy stops crying that I feel the wet course of tears on my own cheeks.
Mercy hands over the ice pack wrapped in a soft kitchen towel, and I try to put it on Bellamy’s chin, but she only wants the cookie now, eating it through sad little hiccups.
“I put up the closed sign and locked the front door,” the other woman says. “Nobody is going to come in.”
I glance around. I hadn’t noticed that the place was empty before, but we’re all alone. “I’m—”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” she hurries to add. “I always close for a couple of hours before dinner. You were going to be my last customer, anyway.”
My hands shake as I pull off my sunglasses. They’re spotted with tears, too messy to see through.
“Are you new in town, Hope?”
The shaking gets worse, and I drop my glasses.
“Just passing through,” I manage to say. I feel cold and clammy now, a gross feeling roiling low in my belly. Adrenaline always makes me feel like this, but now it’s even worse.
Maybe I can find a cheap motel to sleep in tonight. I need some rest. We both do.
“I have some prep work to do in the kitchen. But you’re welcome to stay as long as you want. You’re safe here.” Mercy stands up slowly. “And if you want something to eat, come back to find me.”
Right on cue, my stomach growls.
She pretends not to hear it.
Once we’re alone, I pull Bellamy close and press my face into her hair. Her hat went flying in the tumble.
I have lots of snacks for her in the car. Applesauce and granola bars. But we haven’t had a real meal in a day and a half. And the cookie she’s just demolished isn’t any better for her than those treats.
Maybe if we eat something here, she’ll fall asleep in the car and then I can drive through the night.
Get a motel room tomorrow once I’ve put another thousand kilometres between us and my worst nightmare.
I can sleep while she plays and watches TV, and then we’ll hit the road again.
Drive every night until monsters and mountains and kind-eyed, moustached cowboys with money in their wallets are firmly behind us.
I tentatively push open the swinging door to the kitchen and see Mercy wiping a stainless steel counter.
I take a deep breath. “Hi.”
“Come on in,” she says, smiling at me, then looking at Bellamy. “Do you like soup?”
After getting a nod, she serves up three bowls of soup and a bread basket that makes my stomach roar because it looks so good.
“We can eat at a booth,” she says.
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 a while, 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.”