Chapter Fifteen #2
“Oh good,” Gary called from the front of the cab. “You’re awake.”
Summer froze.
His voice sounded almost pleasant, like they were discussing the Wyoming weather.
She twisted on the mattress, blinking hard as the truck lurched.
More of the fog receded from her mind, replaced by terror that she was in Gary’s truck. And she was in the sleeping compartment. The curtain between the sleeper and the front was partly open, giving her a view of his shoulder and one hand on the wheel.
She shifted her gaze to the windshield and the long strip of highway in front of them.
From this angle, he looked normal. Just a trucker driving his route. Just a man she’d served burgers and coffee to at the Stockyard.
Not a man who drugged her and tricked her into his truck.
Her wrists seared as she strained against what must be a zip tie. Pain licked up her forearms, sharp enough to clear out more of the haze.
“Let me out.” Her voice wasn’t as strong as it usually was, but she couldn’t fix that.
He glanced back, the side of his face visible in the mirror. “Now, Summer, don’t start acting like that. You’re going to make this harder than it needs to be.”
“Pull over,” she gritted out.
“You’re not in charge here.” His tone remained calm, layered faintly with disappointment, like she’d failed a test he expected her to pass. “That’s the first thing you need to understand.”
She swallowed around the dryness in her throat, her mind racing despite the drugged heaviness dragging at every inch of her body.
She had to stay calm. Had to think. Had to survive long enough for Vander to find her, because he would know she was gone by now. He would be searching.
He would tear the whole world apart before he stopped looking for her.
She knew he wouldn’t leave her like Michael had.
Gary seemed to read the direction of her thoughts, and a faint smile tinged his voice. “You’ve got choices. Everybody does. Choose wisely, and maybe you see your friends and family again. You make this difficult, then things get unfortunate.”
Her stomach clenched so hard she thought she might throw up. “What do you want?”
“You.”
The answer was simple, without any hesitation or sign that he understood how wrong he sounded.
She shifted her legs, testing whether he’d bound her ankles too. They moved, but weakness rolled through her thighs when she tried to sit higher on the mattress.
She slipped her hands downward toward her back pockets, already knowing he’d taken her phone and it wasn’t there.
“Gary, listen to me. This is kidnapping.”
He made a small sound, almost amused. “That’s an ugly word.”
“It’s the right word,” she bit off.
“It’s rescue, if you really look at it. You were stuck there. Stuck in that town. Stuck in your low-paying job that couldn’t even buy you enough food or a new set of tires. Stuck waiting tables for customers who don’t see you like I do.” His gaze flicked to the mirror again.
Revulsion clawed up her throat.
She forced herself not to react. Not yet. Men like this got off on emotion—fear, tears and pleading. She refused to give him those things.
“My son,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I need my son.”
“I know about Ben.”
The floor dropped out beneath her, and her heart seemed to stop. “What?”
“He’s with the grandparents. RV trip. Grand Canyon, right?” He gave a small laugh. “Don’t look so scared. Your boy’s fine.”
Rage cut through the fear like a bullet slicing through flesh. “You stay away from my son!”
“I said he’s fine.” His tone hardened for the first time, and she stilled at the shift. “You don’t need to worry about him right now.”
“I always worry about him. I’m his mother!”
“You can have more kids.” Gary said it like he was offering comfort. “Don’t worry about your past.”
Summer stared at the back of his seat, unable to process the words for a heartbeat.
More kids.
With him.
A cold, crawling horror moved through her body, making the zip tie at her wrists feel tighter. She couldn’t let herself spiral. Couldn’t let the fear eat her alive before she found a way out. Vander would be coming. Black Heart Security would be coming.
But until then, she was the only person inside this truck who cared whether she lived.
“Gary,” she said carefully, modulating her voice the way she did with drunk customers at the bar, calm enough to slow them down before trouble started.
“You don’t want to do this. You’ve always been nice to me at the Stockyard.
I know you think this makes sense right now, but we can fix it if you pull over. ”
His chuckle sent dread sliding down her spine. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The negotiation.” He tapped a finger against the steering wheel. “You all do that at first.”
Summer’s mouth went dry all over again. “All?”
“There was Marcy outside Boise. She promised she understood me, then tried to jump out at a fuel stop.” He shook his head. “Broke her ankle. Screamed like I did it to her.”
Summer pressed her shoulder into the sleeper wall, wishing she could disappear through the metal.
“Then there was Denise in Oklahoma. She cried for about three hours straight. Said she had a sister waiting on her.” His voice flattened. “Everybody has somebody waiting when they don’t want to listen.”
Her pulse thundered in her ears, but she forced the question out because she needed information, even if every word cost her. “What happened to them?”
Gary didn’t answer right away.
The road hummed beneath them.
Summer’s breathing turned shallow.
“Where are we going?” she asked instead, because maybe that question was safer. Maybe keeping him talking bought her time. Maybe if she learned a route, a direction, anything, she could use it.
“Open road,” he said, sounding almost peaceful now. “That’s what you need. You and me. No landlord. No bar. No rich ranch people pretending they’re better than everyone else. No man in a cowboy hat playing hero because he got handed a second chance he didn’t earn.”
Oh god. He was talking about Vander.
The resentment in Gary’s voice sharpened.
Summer’s fear shifted, rearranging around another awful truth. Gary hadn’t just noticed her. He’d noticed Vander.
The attention he showered on her, the protection in every move he made, and the way he stayed close to her. Maybe Gary had watched them at the bar. At the ranch. At the auction.
He’d seen enough to hate what they were building before she’d even fully trusted herself to believe in it.
“I don’t want that,” she said, unable to stop the words.
The truck cab went strangely quiet.
Gary’s hands tightened on the wheel. “You don’t know what you want yet.”
“Yes, I do.” Her voice trembled now, but she kept going because anger was easier to hold than terror. “I want my son. I want my home. I want Vander.”
The second his name left her mouth, she knew it was a mistake.
Gary’s head turned slightly, not enough to look back at her but enough to show the hard line of his jaw. “That’s unfortunate.”
Her stomach dropped. “Why?”
“Sarah decided she didn’t want the road either.”
Summer’s heart began to pound so hard each beat hurt.
Gary’s voice remained steady, almost conversational. “Sarah kept talking about going home. Her friends. Her family. Her job at the grocery store, like scanning cans was some big life she needed to get back to.”
Summer’s throat closed.
“She never saw them again.”
The words moved through the truck like toxic gas.
For a moment, Summer couldn’t breathe. Her wrists burned. Her head spun. The truck kept barreling down the highway, carrying her farther from the auction grounds, farther from Vander, farther from the life she’d fought so hard to build.
Ben’s face flashed in her mind. His missing tooth. His sticky ice cream smile. The way he’d said he wasn’t sad leaving for spring break because Vander would be with her.
A sob tried to climb out of her chest, but she tamped it down with everything she had.
No.
She would not disappear from her son’s life.
She would not let this man turn her into a story people whispered about later. Poor Summer. Single mom. Waitress. Taken by some trucker who thought wanting equaled ownership.
She rolled slightly onto her side, working her fingers despite the bite of the zip tie. Pain flared through her nerves, but she welcomed it. Pain meant she was awake. Pain meant she could still fight.
Gary glanced at her in the mirror. “Don’t make bad choices, Summer.”
Her gaze locked on his reflection.
For the first time since waking, her fear burned hot enough to become fury.
“You already made the bad choice.” Her voice shook with rage now. “You took me from Vander Pope.”
Gary’s smile faded.
Summer held his stare in the mirror even as her wrists throbbed and the cab blurred at the edges from whatever he’d put in that lemonade.
“And he’s going to come for me.”
Something shifted in Gary’s expression then. Not fear.
Recognition.
Like he understood Vander Pope wasn’t a man anyone wanted hunting them.