Chapter One #4
Dex got behind the wheel and started the pickup. The engine turned over low and deep. He shifted into reverse, backed us around in the tight clearing with clean movements, then eased past my disabled sedan.
I looked at it as we rolled by.
Dusty blue paint, one flat tire, and my escape route sitting dead behind a locked gate. My purse was gone from the seat and stowed somewhere behind me.
“You going to tow it?” I asked.
“Not tonight.”
“So you’re littering.”
“I’ll arrange it after you’re secured.”
“I feel so prioritized.”
“You’ve been a full-time job for three days.”
“Only three?” I turned my head toward him. “I’m slipping.”
Dex kept his eyes on the road. “You’re not as funny as you think.”
“That’s rude. I’m much funnier.”
“You’re also in my truck.”
“Temporary setback.”
He gave me a sidelong look then, quick but direct. “You believe that?”
I leaned back against the seat and looked through the windshield as the pickup nosed onto Old Quarry Road. The sun had dropped lower, turning the dust ahead of us copper. Shadows stretched across the ruts. The forest closed behind my car like it had never been there.
“I believe a lot of things,” I said.
“Try one that’ll help you.”
I thought of Crystal’s fingers denting the plastic water bottle.
I thought of the bruise-purple shadows under her eyes and the way she’d flinched at every engine outside the window.
I thought of the folder she’d shoved into my hands, then pulled back, then shoved at me again like trust was heavier than fear.
I looked at Dex’s profile. Strong nose, dark stubble, and both hands steady on the wheel. He looked like a man built for roads, pursuit, and bad news delivered calmly.
“I believe you’ve got the wrong problem,” I said.
His jaw shifted. “You want to explain that?”
“Not especially.”
“Then I’ll stick with the problem I can solve.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“That’s adorable. I’ve disappointed better men than you.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Careful,” I said. “That almost sounded like you were enjoying yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You sure?”
“This is me doing my job.”
“Then your job needs better boundaries.”
His gaze stayed on the road, but his hand tightened on the wheel. “My boundaries are fine.”
The air in the cab thickened around that. Around his voice. Around my wrists. Around the fact that he had me, and he knew it, and some reckless part of me still wanted to push hard enough to see what he’d do when control stopped being easy.
I turned toward the side window and watched the trees blur past.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
The pickup descended toward the paved county road. Insects flashed gold in the headlight beam. The mountain air began to cool, sliding through the vents with dust and pine and the faint scent of Dex from the driver’s seat. My stomach growled once, loud enough to betray me.
Dex reached behind the console without looking and pulled out a sealed bottle of water. He set it in the cup holder closest to me.
My cuffed hands rested in my lap.
I looked at the bottle. Then at him.
He exhaled through his nose and twisted the cap loose before handing it over.
“I’m still not telling you my birthday,” I said.
“I’ll struggle through.”
I drank because refusing water to prove a point was amateur hour. The water was warm, but it hit my throat like grace. I took three swallows, capped it awkwardly, and set it back.
“Thank you,” I said.
Dex nodded once.
Kindness from the wrong man could still get under the skin.
The paved road appeared through the trees, a pale stripe cutting across the mountain.
Left led back toward Whispering Pines, with its storefronts and people and the illusion of safety.
Right led toward the larger towns, court schedules, bonds offices, locked rooms, and men asking questions Crystal couldn’t survive.
Dex slowed at the intersection.
A reckless thought flashed through me: throwing myself across the console and grabbing the wheel. The cuffs would make it clumsy. He’d stop me before I got both hands on it. We’d crash if he didn’t. Crystal didn’t need me dead in a ditch. She needed me mean, breathing, and patient.
Dex turned right.
Away from town.
My cuffs clicked softly as I shifted my wrists.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
“Wildly. I’m thinking of asking for your supervisor so I can compliment the accommodations.”
“You do that.”
“I’m still taking off points for the cuffs.”
“You tried to run.”
“And you took that personally.”
“I took it literally.”
Despite myself, I huffed out one small laugh.
Dex’s gaze cut to me, then back to the road.
The truck picked up speed.
The seat belt held me to the passenger seat. The cuffs linked my wrists in my lap. Dex drove with one hand on the wheel and the other near the gearshift, close enough that I remembered his grip around my wrist.
I turned toward the window before he saw my face.
The pines flashed past in strips of gold and dark. My dead car was gone behind us. Crystal wasn’t in his truck.
Dex caught me.
I stayed still, watched the road ahead, and waited for my next chance.