Chapter Two
Britt had asked herself what the hell she was doing at least a hundred times since following Chad Young out of the parking lot of the lumberyard. She was being stupid, she knew that, but she needed a break. The last few weeks had been horrible.
When she’d decided to move to Maine with Cole, she’d been full of hope.
Her job wasn’t anything she was emotionally attached to—she’d worked retail all her life, which was tough, but something she could do anywhere.
So when Cole brought up the idea of moving to Maine, she was more than all right with the idea of shaking things up in her life.
But during the few months while they’d prepared for the move ... she should’ve paid heed to the little voice inside her brain that told her she was making a mistake.
Cole was everything a boyfriend should be—on the surface. He was good looking and smart and funny. He came from a nice middle-class family and made decent money working as a car salesman.
The latter was what should’ve made her hesitate to move across the country with the guy. He could sell sand to someone dying of thirst in the desert. Thankfully, Britt had insisted on driving her own car instead of selling it and simply going with Cole, like he’d proposed.
Nothing had gone the way he’d expected once they’d arrived in Rockville.
He’d expected to walk into any car dealership of his choosing and have them begging him to accept a job.
Instead, he’d discovered jobs weren’t nearly as plentiful here.
And because he was a stranger, the local Mainers didn’t have a lot of trust in his abilities—or his will to stick around. And they were right.
Two short weeks. That’s all it took for Cole to call it quits ... and for his true colors to shine through. Everything she’d told Chad about why her ex had decided to go back to Georgia was true. He’d bitched about everything , all the time. Those two weeks were mentally exhausting.
Britt, however, was charmed by the small town of Rockville.
They could’ve settled in Portland or one of the other larger cities in the area, but for some reason, Cole was determined to be by the coast .
.. which was fine with Britt. The area was so freaking gorgeous.
Every morning when she woke up and saw all the trees and the beauty of the land around her, she was in awe.
The evening before Cole up and left, they’d had a huge fight.
He’d decided they were leaving, but Britt didn’t want to go.
She’d been looking hard for work but was having the same issues as Cole .
.. she was an outsider, and jobs weren’t exactly abundant, especially since it wasn’t officially tourist season yet.
She’d suggested that they stick it out a little longer. Argued that they hadn’t given the move a fair shot. That something would come up for them both, they just had to be patient.
Cole turned on her. Yelling at Britt in a way he’d never done before.
He called her a mooch, said she was lazy and pathetic.
Said that even if she did find a job, it wasn’t going to do much toward putting a roof over their heads, since her only skills were in retail.
He claimed it was his money that was keeping them afloat, and he was sick of carrying her “deadweight” around.
Britt had been stunned. True, things hadn’t been great between them since they’d arrived, but the vitriol in his tone was shocking.
He’d never once brought up the differences in their backgrounds or education or financial status.
He’d never made her feel “less than” for not making as much money as he did. Until that moment.
It was also total bullshit. She’d contributed her fair share to the move.
After rent on her apartment and other bills, she’d saved every dollar she could, and she’d had a few thousand dollars in cash when they’d left Georgia.
Even though Cole earned more money, he also loved to spend it, so in the end, he’d left the state with little more than Britt.
She wasn’t deadweight, and she deeply resented Cole trying to make her feel as if she was using him.
She’d been so pissed that night, she’d left the motel and taken a long walk, giving them both space and time to cool down. By the time she returned, Cole was already in bed. She’d wanted to wake him to talk, but she knew from experience that he was a grump when woken up.
So she decided to put off the discussion they obviously needed to have until morning. She’d fallen asleep shortly after.
And when she woke up early the next morning, Cole was gone.
He’d literally slunk off in the middle of the night.
And he’d taken all their cash with him.
Britt knew immediately he wasn’t coming back. All his things were gone from the motel room. It was as if he’d never been there. She’d tried to call him, only to find he’d blocked her number. The asshole had left her high and dry in Maine and gone home to Mommy and Daddy.
Britt thought about following him. About going back to Georgia herself .
.. but she didn’t really want to. The people she’d met around town had mostly been nice and pretty welcoming, except when it came to giving her a job.
They’d been a little standoffish in that regard, but that was understandable.
Most had lived in the area their entire lives and were probably used to tourists coming and going.
Then Britt discovered that Cole hadn’t paid for the motel.
After paying for gas to get to Maine, as well as other miscellaneous expenses—no matter what Cole said, she’d been contributing to their living expenses by picking things up at the big-box store and paying for groceries—she’d had just a couple of grand left in her account.
She had to use the bulk of it to settle the room bill.
With no luck finding a job, she’d resorted to sleeping in her car.
It was humiliating and humbling. She’d passed by homeless people time and time again back in Atlanta and hadn’t really thought too much about their circumstances.
Sure, she gave spare change to them when she had some, but she often assumed those people were mentally ill and couldn’t hold down a job, or drug addicts who’d use the money she gave them to buy their next hit.
She felt awful about that now. Every night for the last week, she’d had no choice but to sleep in her car.
Yup. Definitely humbling ... and it got more and more difficult.
Her back hurt, she was hungry more often than not because she had to be so careful with her remaining money, and she felt filthy.
It wasn’t as if there were free showers at the beach .
.. not that there were really any beaches at all.
Not like in the South. The waterfront was different up here.
More rugged. Stark. The water a lot colder.
And like she’d told Chad, even if she wanted to go back to Georgia, she was stuck. She didn’t have enough gas money for that trip.
She had half a tank of gas at the moment, and she needed to find a place to park that wasn’t too remote, so she’d be safe, but was within walking distance of somewhere she could use a bathroom.
She’d meant to wake up earlier than she had that morning and be gone before the lumberyard opened, but that hadn’t happened.
Instead, she’d been awakened by a man tapping angrily on her window, yelling at her to get the hell out of the lot or he’d call the police. She’d tried to start her car to leave the lot, and to her horror, nothing happened when she turned the key in the ignition.
So, on top of everything else, it seemed her car was apparently toast.
She’d tried to explain her predicament to the angry man yelling at her, but he wasn’t willing to listen. And then Chad had stepped in.
Britt had no idea why he was helping her, but she was grateful. She hadn’t been living in her car for all that long, not really, but she wasn’t too proud to accept help when it was offered.
Thinking about what he’d discovered about her car made her pissed at Cole all over again.
She could totally see him loosening her battery connections before sneaking off in the middle of the night, stranding her.
He probably thought it was hilarious. She didn’t know the first thing about vehicles or how to fix them when something went wrong.
He was a complete dick. And she was better off without him.
Her life had been turned upside down in the last month or so, and Britt simply needed a break.
Of course, she was well aware that following a man she’d just met to his home was incredibly stupid.
It would serve her right to end up on Dateline or some other true crime show.
The woman he’d claimed was his mother could be a psycho lying in wait for her to arrive.
For some reason, a picture of one of those Venus flytrap plants came to mind. The second she set foot in the house, the door would shut, and she’d end up the sex slave to a depraved couple who kidnapped unsuspecting tourists for kicks.
But she was tired. And hungry. And desperately needed a vacation from her life. If Chad Young and his mother, if that was who she was, were in cahoots and killed her ... well ... so be it.
Deep down, however, there was something about the man that made her want to trust him.
He’d seemed so earnest. And the way his voice changed when he was talking to his mom was kind of adorable.
And Evelyn Young talked a mile a minute, reassuring her that her son was a good man and that he’d take care of her and would she please come to the house so she could meet her?
She hadn’t been able to get much of a word in, and in the end had agreed because Evelyn just seemed so excited. When was the last time anyone had shown that kind of enthusiasm at the idea of meeting her?