Chapter 28 Summer
Summer
Iguide the rental car past the sign welcoming visitors to Devil’s Bend. The trip from the ranch into town is still as familiar to me as breathing. I could have made the twenty-minute drive with my eyes shut.
The center of town is one long street with a dozen shops lining it. There’s a pub, market, and a feed store on the right. On the left a bakery, hair stylist, and post office.
The violet awning and signage of Violet’s flower shop stand out against the older, faded fronts. Violet’s Flowers. Buckets of pretty flowers fill a couple of carts out front as Violet carries an armful of red and white roses from the van into the shop.
Which one of these Devil’s Bend assholes gave her that swollen cheek?
She drops her head and lets her hair swing forward, as though she can feel me watching her as I drive past.
How dark is the bruising under all that make up?
The diner on the corner is still exactly the same. Off Main Street there’s a police station and a doctor’s office. A few more blocks over there’s a car dealership and attached mechanic’s garage.
In the other direction is the high school, complete with a football field where the town gathers every Friday night in the fall.
I grip the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles whiten as I pass a couple women in their fifties having a conversation outside the feed store.
I see a familiar truck with a crew cab parked in the loading bay.
One of the workers drags bags of something across the space and hands them up to the man in the tray.
The man up top stops to strip off the red flannel he’s wearing over a sleeveless, stretched out tank.
A tattoo of a cow skull covers his sun bronzed shoulder.
Some things don’t change.
Back in high school, I often rode home in that same truck, my then boyfriend’s hand on my knee while we shared the back seat. His older brother, the man currently stacking burlap bags, was always in the driver’s seat, his girlfriend next to him.
I could never have imagined what my immediate future held. Or that the whole town would side against me. Blaming me for ruining the lives of their favorite sons.
A sign hangs over the street, the words scrawled across it celebrating the new mayor.
I almost run off the road. Duke Whitmore is mayor. Are you fucking kidding me? I knew that, unlike me, they got to go on as though they did nothing wrong at all. But Duke got voted in as mayor?
It feels like a slap in the face.
It’s funny... when I’m in Los Angeles, Devil’s Bend feels far away.
In another state, but also, another time.
But being back here feels like no time has passed.
I’m seventeen again, traumatized, and ashamed.
Keeping my head down in the hopes no one will notice me and call me names or accuse me of trying to ruin the boys’ lives.
And they’ve been thriving the whole time.
My phone rings through the car’s Bluetooth. I take a deep breath as I pick up the call. “Hey, I’m almost there.”
“Are you okay?” Rochelle’s earnest voice fills the car.
“Yes.” I check my mirrors as I turn right at the corner.
It’s stupid. No one’s going to notice me driving through town and follow me to tell me to leave, but my senses are heightened, and I can’t shake the ick.
It’s muscle memory. Ingrained into my psyche by previous experiences. “It’s too hard. Coming back here.”
“I’m sorry I’m the reason you had to leave the ranch,” she says sympathetically. “If I was forced to revisit the room where Alec assaulted me the way you’ve been forced to come here, I don’t know that I could do it. There are days I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move past what happened.”
“But you’re trying,” I say as the houses thin out into ranch land again.
“I’m,” she sighs, “cowering in the back seat while my bodyguard talks to the guy we crashed into and my heart is beating out of my chest because I’m certain any moment Alec is going to jump out like the boogey man and attack me. Remind me again why I left the safety of my home.”
“Because we’re celebrating a wedding of two of the people we love most.” I want to tell her that Alec isn’t a problem she’ll have to deal with again, but no one knows where he is.
He has money and connections. The police might not find him, and that means Ro might never feel safe despite Tex guarding her person twenty-four seven.
“I’m supposed to be stronger than this,” she says wistfully. “Braver. But I’m not.”
“You’re a work in progress.” We both are.
I survived the gauntlet just now, but I didn’t have to stop.
It would be a different story if I had to climb out of my car and go into any of those stores and face any of those people.
Even though I have nothing to be ashamed of I still want to hide from their judgemental eyes.
Up ahead I spot thick black skid marks burned onto the tar. Two vehicles sit on the side of the road. The white Mercedes is facing the road, the front of it crumpled. The other, a sensible blue sedan, doesn’t appear to be damaged from this angle but I can’t see the front of it. “I think I see Tex.”
“Good. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Ro’s bodyguard is talking with another man when I climb out of my vehicle. Ro waves at me through the back window as I start toward them.
Tex is a retired marine, a solid wall of lethal force in denim and a blue button down. He notices me immediately over the shoulder of the rancher. “We have a tow truck coming.”
I nod and continue toward the back of the car. I’m not stopping to make small talk with anyone local.
Ro climbs out of the back seat as I approach. Her gaze bounces off every tree and rock and ditch before she hugs me. “See, I’m a mess. Sorry to drag you away from the celebrations.”
“Let’s sit in my car while we wait.” I squeeze her hand. “You can tell me what happened.”
“There was another vehicle. We had to swerve. They sped off when we hit the man Tex is talking to.”
The tow truck comes rumbling down the road as we walk toward my vehicle.
The closer it gets the faster my pulse races.
The ick is back in full, turning my stomach to ice.
I recognize the driver, and by the way his lip curls as the truck rattles to a stop, stirring dust beneath the tires, he recognizes me too.
“We should move quicker.” I grip her arm and duck my head as I hurry toward the car. Kurt’s one of the reasons I never want to come home. What they did... I hate them.
“Why?” She cranes her neck to check out the driver. “Oh, God, is he one of them?”
Boots thump the ground and the truck door slams. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
My shoulders jump to my ears before I can stop them.
The other truck door shuts.
Who else was in the truck? Who didn’t I see?
The other man whistles. “It’s the slut.”
“Travis,” I mutter under my breath.
My ex’s best friend’s nasally voice grates like nails on a chalk board. I’d know it anywhere with how much it starred in my nightmares back then.
Rochelle’s nails dig into my skin.
The sharp bite keeps me grounded. I face them head on.
Kurt leers as his gaze wanders over me. “More of a slut than ever, I see. Fatter too.”
I was in such a hurry when I left, I didn’t think about what I was wearing. I took the jacket off earlier, so I have nothing to cinch shut to block out their disgusting stares.
I cross my arms over my chest, but it doesn’t help. I still feel naked. But I’m not going to let them in on that secret. “We all know the truth.”
“Everyone knows you’re a fat slut who begged for it.” Travis smirks. “We were obliging you. And then you tried to ruin our good names by spreading lies about us.”
“What are you doing back here, slut?” Kurt asks as Tex ends his conversation with the rancher, his posture alert.
The rancher looks down his nose at me—or it feels that way—as he climbs into his truck and drives away.
Tex thrusts himself between the two men and us. “I’m going to need you to take a step back.”
Kurt and Travis stop and assess the man who is at least a foot taller than both of them; who seems somehow to be wider than the two of them combined.
“Get in the car, ladies,” Tex orders with a gentle tone, but underneath it’s steely.
“We’re not towing shit for you.” Kurt holds my gaze as he spits a slug of tobacco-stained saliva in the dust. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re not wanted, slut. This is our town. Thought you would have got the message the first time, but we’ll be glad to teach you that lesson again.”
My lungs seize. I can’t breathe. The whole world becomes a pinpoint through which I can see one moment—one memory. And then it expands and everything disappears. These people are too much. The adrenaline surging through me is too much. My heartbeat is too loud.
Tex takes another step toward the two men.
They fall back.
“I’ll arrange a tow truck from the next town.” He takes my elbow, not waiting for an answer. Ro still has hold of me on the other side.
Together they guide me to the back seat of the Range Rover. Tex shuts me in, creating a bubble where those bastards can’t get to me.
Ro climbs in on the other side while Tex returns to the other car to transfer their luggage. He doesn’t say a single word to the two men as he stalks toward them, not adjusting his path. They’re forced to jump out of his way when they realize he’s not stopping.
She takes my hand in both of hers. “It’s hard, but don’t let them get to you. They hurt you because they’re assholes. That’s on them. The fact that people believed them means those people are idiots.”
“Mmhmm.” I don’t trust myself to speak, as watery as my throat is.
“You didn’t deserve it then. You don’t deserve it now.” Her gaze is watery too, like I’m not alone in still needing to hear that from time to time.
The trunk thuds and Tex climbs into the driver seat. His kind gaze meets mine and flicks to Ro’s as he starts the car.
“G-give me more details. About the accident, I mean,” I stammer. Talking about anything other than that fresh hell sounds like a good idea.
Another gaze flicked from the bodyguard to Ro. “I was distracted.”
“It was my fault.” Rochelle drops her gaze to her where her hands rest in her lap.
“It won’t happen again,” he says, and he sounds almost regretful.
“No, it won’t.” She smooths her skirt over her lap and settles against the back of the seat.
We fall into silence.
We pass the florist and the feed store and the grocery store again as the sun lowers toward the horizon. Mom loved sunsets and this town almost as much as she loved rom coms. She wanted me to get out and explore the world, but she wanted me to come home too.
Like my brothers.
How am I supposed to do that when it means facing my past like this? When the people my mom thought of as friends and neighbors ran me out of town to protect a group of snakes.
I wish I could do something to make them see who’s to blame.
“Can I ask you something?” Rochelle asks as we pass through the gates of Heart Ranch.
Anything is better than dealing with my thoughts. I push them aside and tell myself I can relax now. The house and the barn come into view. I’m surrounded by my family and friends here. “Yeah, sure. What is it?”
She fiddles with the dainty antique ring on her right hand. “Did Riot come with anyone?”
How much does she know? How much should I tell her? “He came with Kelsey.”
“Perfect.” She smiles. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m going to ask him if he wants to rekindle things.”
Oh shit. “You are?”