Chapter 3
SIENNA
The truck sounded tired in a way I found deeply personal.
Every time I pushed past sixty-five, the engine rattled like it had legal grounds to file a workplace complaint.
The temperature gauge kept flirting with red, easing up, dipping back, then climbing again with the smug persistence of a man who said calm down while actively making things worse.
I’d been trying not to look at it every six seconds, which meant I was looking at it every five.
Bandit hated me. That much was scientifically observable.
He had spent the last hour glaring from his nest of towels in the passenger seat with the kind of sustained resentment usually reserved for dictators and bad veterinarians.
Maybe I had ruined his life. Maybe he was dramatic. Both things could be true.
The desert heat still clung to everything even though the sun was dropping lower, burning orange behind scrub and jagged rock.
My AC had stopped working two states ago, which meant I was driving with the windows down, inviting hot air, dust, and whatever agricultural smell had attached itself to the highway into the cab.
My hair felt gritty at the roots. My skin felt sticky.
My tank top had surrendered. I smelled like road, gas station bathrooms, and the kind of poor decision-making that usually came before a Dateline episode.
Bandit let out a sharp, furious noise.
My stomach answered with a growl.
I glanced over. He glared. I glared back.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
Another growl rolled through the cab, lower this time.
Mine. Apparently, my organs had joined the conversation.
I rubbed a hand over my face and checked the clock on the dash.
A few more hours until Santa Fe. I could almost see it—my new apartment, my new job, my new life, and hopefully a shower with water pressure strong enough to remove the top layer of my personality.
The truck coughed hard enough to jolt me forward.
The temperature gauge climbed another inch.
I stared at it. “You better not.”
Bandit sneezed.
“Traitor.”
At the next stop sign, I popped open the glove box, searching for napkins because my hands felt like I’d been dusted in flour and motor oil. My fingers hit folded paper instead. I pulled it out and found a twenty-dollar bill tucked behind the owner’s manual, folded so many times it looked ancient.
Emergency money.
I laughed, short and dry. “This qualifies.”
Bandit blinked at me.
“Food,” I clarified.
His ears twitched.
That got his attention.
I checked my phone. Weak signal. Battery lower than I liked because apparently my charger had developed commitment issues somewhere outside Amarillo.
A burger place popped up on the map eight minutes away.
Not ideal, but food. Grease. Salt. A bathroom sink.
A place to refill Bandit’s water and make sure my truck wasn’t actively dying under me.
Perfect.
Then the GPS rerouted.
Turn left.
Onto a dirt road.
I frowned as the pavement disappeared beneath my tires like a magic trick performed by someone with a grudge.
Cactus lined both sides of the road, mixed with tall weeds, pale dust, and dry brush that looked one cigarette away from disaster.
My truck bounced hard enough to rattle my teeth.
The tarps in the back snapped in the wind.
Bandit slammed himself against the crate and made a noise like a haunted accordion.
“This can’t be right,” I muttered.
The road narrowed.
The truck coughed again.
Then I saw it.
Lights.
Neon.
Music.
A bar.
Bar in the middle of nowhere. Literally that was its name.
I slowed, staring through the windshield at the crooked hand-painted sign swinging above the entrance.
The parking lot was all dirt and gravel, scattered with pickup trucks, motorcycles, and a few rusted-out cars that looked like they’d been abandoned by men named Earl.
The place had no business existing out here, which meant of course it did.
Humanity had a remarkable ability to place alcohol wherever common sense started thinning out.
“No,” I said, though I was already turning in.
The smell hit when I parked: grease, beer, cigarette smoke, hot dust, and bad choices steeped together until they became atmosphere.
My stomach twisted, and not only from hunger.
The last bar I’d walked into had rearranged my life in one ugly night.
Everett, the ring, the blonde, the whole public humiliation served with cheap beer and fluorescent neon.
At least no ghosts were waiting for me here.
I killed the engine. Silence dropped hard, followed by the sharp ticking of hot metal cooling under the hood.
That was not comforting. Bandit looked offended by the entire experience, which was fair because so was I.
I rolled the windows down farther, poured fresh water into his bowl, and pointed at him through the crate door.
“Be good.”
He hissed.
“Fair.”
I locked the doors anyway, as if that would stop him if he truly decided to choose violence.
Inside, cold air hit my face, and for one glorious second I considered marrying the building.
The place was dim and cooler than outside, crowded enough to feel safer but not so packed I had to press through bodies.
Music rolled low through old speakers. Pool balls cracked in the back.
Men laughed too loudly. Boots scraped over wood.
Glasses clinked. Somewhere behind the kitchen door, something fried in oil that had probably seen several presidential administrations.
I went straight to the bathroom.
The mirror was spotted, the sink stained, and the paper towel dispenser required aggression, but there was running water and a lock on the door.
Luxury. I washed my hands, splashed cold water on my face, rinsed road dust from my mouth, and spat into the sink with no dignity whatsoever.
I ran wet fingers through my hair, tried fluffing it, gave up, then swiped on lip gloss because apparently my survival instincts included cosmetic delusion.
I looked less like roadkill.
Barely.
Back at the bar, I took the far corner seat.
Quiet. Out of the way. Strategically positioned near the bartender, within sight of the door, and far enough from the pool table to avoid whatever masculine tragedy was unfolding over there.
I wanted food, caffeine, maybe thirty minutes of air-conditioning, and no human interaction beyond payment processing.
That lasted three seconds.
A guy in a Carhartt jacket slid up beside me with the confidence of a man who had never once questioned whether his presence was welcome.
Big belt buckle. Too much cologne. Hair slicked back like he was auditioning to sell trucks on local television.
He leaned an elbow on the bar and smiled as if I’d been waiting all day for the privilege.
“Lemme buy you a beer.”
I looked at him. “I’m good, thanks.”
His smile held, but something behind it sharpened. “What, you don’t drink?”
“I’m driving.” I turned to the bartender. “Diet Coke, please.”
The bartender nodded and reached for a glass.
Carhartt stayed put. Too close. Not touching, but close enough that his elbow nearly brushed mine, which meant he was either bad at spatial awareness or very good at ignoring it. I already knew which one my money was on.
He leaned in. “Long drive?”
I gave him a polite smile, the kind women learn before we learn algebra. “Yep.”
No elaboration. No invitation. No conversational runway.
The bartender dropped my soda in front of me. Bless him. Carhartt waved him down before he walked away.
“Put a beer on me.”
A cold bottle landed near my glass.
I slid it back without touching it. “I said no.”
His face shifted, subtle but immediate, as if rejection was a language he’d heard before but refused to study. “What, you too good for a free drink?”
I took a slow sip of my Diet Coke. The carbonation burned beautifully. “No. I just don’t want one.”
His jaw tightened. The alcohol on his breath reached me then, sharp and sour, already deep in his bloodstream even though it wasn’t six. That explained some things. Not enough to excuse them, but enough to identify the species.
“What’s wrong with you?” he snapped. “Too stuck-up for a beer?”
My eyes lifted to the bartender. Steady. Calm. Witness, please. “I don’t want trouble. I just want food.”
Carhartt leaned closer, close enough now that I smelled sweat underneath the cologne. “Then eat with me.”
Absolutely not.
My fingers tightened around the cold soda. I picked up the laminated menu like it was a shield and looked past him to the bartender. “What’s good?”
The bartender wiped the counter with a rag that had once been white. “Burgers.”
“Then make it a double cheeseburger.”
Carhartt smirked like my appetite had become his business.
The bartender pulled out his pad. “Want anything on it?”
“Everything.”
He lifted a brow. “Everything?”
“Bacon, onion, fried mushrooms if you’ve got them, extra fries, and whatever sauce makes it taste less like highway despair.”
The bartender scribbled. Carhartt’s nose wrinkled like I’d insulted him personally. His gaze dropped, doing the familiar inventory. Waist. Hips. Thighs. The quiet little calorie calculation men made when women failed to perform dainty hunger in public.
I smiled sweetly at him. “Yeah, I eat.”
His eyes flicked back to mine.
I took a long drink of my soda. “Ever since I got off that GLP-1 stuff, I’ve been starving.”
His forehead creased.
I leaned in like we were sharing something intimate. “Tore my stomach up.”
His face tightened.
Oops.
I gave him a little shrug. “Sorry. Too much information.”
The bartender’s mouth twitched.
I kept going because apparently road fatigue had dissolved whatever filter my mother had tried to install. “I dropped a hundred pounds.”
Carhartt blinked. “Really?”
I nodded with solemn regret. “Loose skin’s a nightmare.”