Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Bristol
The next night, Anson drops a pin and texts me to meet him there, back to his usual man-of-few-words self.
It’s in the middle of nowhere, and if it really was a stranger I was meeting, I’d be sure they were about to murder me.
But I trust Anson has a plan. Probably one that doesn’t exactly line up with the outfit I put on tonight.
When I get to the turnoff, it’s a dirt road that leads up to a gate.
A truck is already parked next to it, and I can see the silhouette of a man inside.
I recognize Anson by his cowboy hat. If he doesn’t have his trusty Briggs Construction baseball cap on, then it’s one of two cowboy hats.
Rarely, if ever, does he leave the house without one of them.
Which I’m grateful for because I might have otherwise been wondering if my theory about kidnap and murder by a stranger was back on the table as a possibility.
He hops out of the truck and comes to my window as I roll it down.
“Whose truck is that? Looks too shiny to be yours.” I tease him.
“Yours.”
“Ha. Very funny. Glad you had your hat on, or I would have kept driving. Assumed you were a serial killer who’d stolen Anson’s phone.”
“Might be. Anson’s not here tonight, remember?” He flashes me a smile. “I just gotta plug in the code for the gate. I’ll let us in, and then I have to shut it again.”
“Where are we?”
“Some land that Grant owns. Nothing serial killer-y to worry about.”
“I mean, if it’s Grant, that means it’s something untoward.
” Grant is Hazel’s brother-in-law and Dakota’s husband.
He runs the Avarice casino and resort along with one of his brothers.
It’s not exactly a secret in this town that he spends a lot of time with very rich folks with criminal underpinnings.
A few people even insist he’s in the mob.
I’ve never pried into the details. I’m a mind-my-own-business kind of person, but I’m also not completely clueless either.
“I thought you liked untoward?” Anson gives me another devilish grin and then heads for the gate.
I follow him through, and once he shuts it again, he takes me down a long and winding road through the forest that eventually brings us to a switchback just wide enough for the trucks.
The top of which is a rocky outcropping with one hell of a view that breaks over the trees.
With the sun setting in the distance, it looks practically magical up here.
“Wow,” I whisper to myself as I step out of my truck, neatly tucked in the spot next to his between two boulders.
“Nice, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think nice covers it. I’m normally not jealous of his kind of money, but sometimes it does seem to buy happiness.” I glance back at Anson.
“I don’t know if it buys happiness, but it can certainly make it easier to come by some peace of mind.” Something flashes across his face, and then he looks back at me, smiling. “I’ve got a couple of things for you.”
“For me?”
He nods, opening the passenger door of the shiny new truck, and pulls out a set of keys and a massive rock. He holds one out in each hand.
“What’s this?” I ask, puzzled by the offer he’s making.
“Keys and how we’re getting rid of that truck.” He nods over my shoulder.
“Getting rid of my truck?”
“Is it yours? Really yours? If you love it, I won’t argue with you about getting rid of it. But I feel like I can make some pretty compelling arguments for ditching it.”
“I’ve just started making some pretty decent memories in it though,” I tease him, a small smirk spreading on my lips as he looks me over. He answers it with one of his own.
“We can keep those and get rid of the rest.”
“How do you figure?”
He pulls a knife out of his back pocket, flicks the blade free, and walks toward the truck.
“Do I have your permission to retire it or do you really love it that much?” he asks before he opens the door.
I hesitate. It’s a piece of shit. It reminds me of another pile of it that’s currently locked behind bars. But it’s mine, and at the moment, I don’t have a lot to my name.
“I need a car to drive that isn’t Mom’s.”
“I’ve got you.”
“Then okay. I can let it go. I don’t love it. Not sure I ever did.”
Anson knows I’m talking about more than the truck now. He takes that permission and runs with it, stabbing the knife into the leather and cutting a rectangle out of the center of the bench, sawing away until he’s freed it from the seat. My eyes go wide as he pulls out his trophy.
“I figure we’d better frame that. For the memories, of course.”
“Anson.” I use an admonishing tone, but honestly, I like this side of him. I never knew he could be this much fun when he isn’t playing CEO and dad.
“Now, you should do the honors. You got your keys?” He picks the rock back up off the ground and waves me over.
“Yeah.” I hold up my keychain.
“Is it this one?” He points to the truck’s key, and I nod before he pulls it loose from the rest of the chain. He hands it back to me. “Get her started. I’ll get the rock wedged, and we’ll push it.”
“Push it? Push it where?” I’m confused, and then he jerks his head toward the cliff that’s down a slope from where we’re standing.
“Let her have one last flight. We can play ‘Freebird’ if we need to.” He’s amused by the idea, and for a second, I think it’s an elaborate joke. Until he starts to position the rock, and I realize he’s playing along with this far too long.
“You’re serious.”
“Dead fucking serious. You don’t want to see her fly?”
“I’m questioning whether I know you at all right now.” I laugh as I feel my heart rate pick up. This is extreme. Are we seriously going to run a truck off a cliff? Just for fun?
“You don’t know me. We just met in a whiskey room, remember?” he teases me.
“I mean, it got a little more complicated than that last night.”
“That was the least complicated I’ve felt in a while.” He shrugs and then turns to the truck. “I bet you’ll feel a lot less complicated when you take out the rest of the trash.”
I look between the cliff and the truck for a long minute before I finally take a deep breath and march forward, determined to take on the challenge he’s given me.
I know he’s good for giving me a ride to borrow in the meantime, and if that shiny, new truck is any indication, his regular ride will be available for loan.
It’s about ten times as nice as this and with none of the bad memories.
In fact, seeing Anson’s truck come around the corner or sitting out in the parking lot always makes me feel a little better.
Not that I’m ready to admit that to him just yet.
“Ready?” he asks when I get close.
“Yep.”
“Put her in gear and start the engine. Let me put it in drive though. If she starts to move, you don’t want to get caught on the door.”
“You sound like you’ve done this before.” I give him a suspicious look and only get a barely audible grunt in reply. Some things have changed. Others haven’t.
I follow his instructions, and he swaps places with me.
Putting the truck in drive and then letting her roll down the hill.
She picks up speed, and by the time she hits the cliff, she’s flying.
Just like he said she would. She catapults into the sky and then takes a dramatic turn toward the ground, nose tipping down as she disappears over the horizon.
A couple seconds pass, and there’s a loud crash that echoes through the woods around us.
I just stand there staring in awe the entire time. My heart racing and my mouth hanging open as it all unfolds. We flew a truck over a cliff. I ran his truck over a cliff.
Anson was right. The relief I feel is palpable. It’s one less reminder of him. One less thing of his I’m still responsible for taking care of. Another step closer to real freedom from Chris and his memory.
When I turn to see Anson’s reaction, I notice he’s at the truck.
His new, shiny one, pulling something from a cooler in the back.
He makes his way toward me with a long neck in each hand.
The adrenaline is still pumping through my veins as he hands me the beer and then holds out the neck of his to toast.
“To taking out the trash.” He gives a tip of his chin that sends a skittering rush of want down my spine. He’s hot as hell, and I think this made him even hotter. I tap my bottle against his and take a long swig off it.
“Thank you. I think that actually really cured some of the rage in my heart.” It’s not quite the stranger meetup that I expected tonight, but this might be more fun.
“Happy to help.” He grins. “Now you just gotta do one last thing.”
“Get in your new truck. See if you like it or we need to take it back for another.” He tilts his head back to look at it over his shoulder, and the movement has the late-day sun highlighting the sharp curve of his cheekbone. He looks even more handsome in the stark relief.
How did I never notice things like this before? Was I that oblivious? Or just this in need of something to make me surface from the drowning waters Chris had slowly been pulling me down into? I can’t believe I missed it for so long.
“Mine? You mean to borrow.”
“Nah.” He tosses me the keys and grins when I catch them. “I mean to keep.”
“You can’t be serious, Anson. I thought you meant maybe you’d loan me your old one until I could get a new lease on one. I didn’t think you really meant this was mine.” I argue with him.
“I’m serious. I should have done it a long time ago. You put a fuckton of miles on your old truck driving Ford around. The least I can do is get you a truck to haul him around in. Plus, this one won’t have me worrying it’s gonna strand you somewhere.”
“Anson.” I stare down at the keys for a second and then back up at him.
“Bristol.” He echoes my tone, making it clear he’s not gonna change his mind.
“So that’s how you get women, then. Buy them new trucks and lure them in,” I tease him.
“I mean, if that’s what it takes."
We both laugh for a long minute until it fades into the sounds of the forest humming beyond where we’re standing.
“Thank you. Truly.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He shakes his head. “You ready for dinner?”
“Starving actually.” This is the thing about being around Anson.
I don’t have to pretend to be accommodating or demure the way I was before.
I can just be honest because that’s what we’ve always been to each other.
Which I’m beginning to think is why this feels so much easier than everything else in my life right now. Maybe it always has.
“Good because I’ve got a picnic basket and blanket calling our name in the bed.” He grins as he pulls the gate down and holds out his hand to help me up.
The second I see the set up he’s got stacked neatly in the corner, I’m certain I should have gone to that beach with him last year.
But I’m not about to cry over what I should have done or what could have been if I hadn’t been so stubborn before.
I just intend to fully enjoy every second I get with him now.