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Her hands tangle together, fingers fiddling and twisting in her lap. This whole thing has her agitated in ways I’ve never seen.
“They’ll make me disappear.” Her eyes dart around, watching the night outside the truck. She expects phantoms to materialize out of the night mist, like her worst nightmares wait for her in the dark. “No one will ever find me again. No one will ever know I existed. That’s what they do. That’s what they’re paid to do.” Her round eyes lock on mine, looking every bit like a scared animal caught in a hunter’s snare. “You’ll never find me again if they get to me first. I’ll cease to exist.”
Whether it’s the truth or not, she believes it, like she’s seen it happen. The terror in her eyes speaks to it. Turning her over to them would be like making her face down a firing squad. No one deserves that fate.
“I’ll ask you this again. And I want a real answer.” I focus on her eyes, needing to know if she’s lying to me. “Are you a criminal, Sunny? Did you hurt someone?”
It’s the last thing in the world she wants me to ask, but it’s like our time together makes her want to answer me truthfully. Her features contort with worry and panic. Without saying the words, she’s begging me not to ask her that way.
“I don’t know. I can tell you, if I did, I didn’t mean to. It had to be an accident. I would never—” Her words cut short by tears choking out her throat. She clamps a hand over her mouth, sealing the emotion inside. She falls forward, weakening under the strain of her past. I know the feeling. I understand facing things alone. I remember too many nights grieving the deaths of my parents, silently crying into a pillow so my foster family wouldn’t wake up. No one should have to face that sort of pain alone. It’s unbearable.
It’s plausible that Whitlock and Stolls told Dean she was a murder suspect because they knew people would be more likely to rat her out. No one wants a murderer in their town. But if this is their crime they’re covering, then Sunny deserves a place to hide. I loop my hand around her shoulders, secure my grip, and pull her close. Sobbing against me, she sure doesn’t feel like a cold-hearted murderer. I smooth my hand down her hair, tucking my face in close to hers. Her fingers curl around my shirt, clenching the flannel tight. She’s managed to keep this at bay, hidden from even herself for weeks. I would say it isn’t possible, but traumatic events have a way of breaking us down, reducing a person to a shell and it becomes about survival. I was in the car. I saw their bodies lifeless and covered in blood, but I’ve removed myself from the memory. I tell myself I wasn’t there. I was at home. I didn’t feel the collision. I didn’t hear my mom scream or the sickening crunch of metal and shattering glass. I tighten my grip on Sunny, needing her as badly as she needs me.
“You don’t have to leave,” I whisper against her hair. “I believe you. I’ll protect you.”
Other than a soft nod, she gives no indication that she heard me. Her nose brushes my collarbone as she burrows a little deeper and pulls me tighter. She acts like she has no one left in the world. For whatever reason, she can’t reach out to her father or stepmom, not even her stepbrothers. Whatever happened burned those bridges.
“It’ll be okay,” I say, but only because that’s what everyone told me when my world collapsed. It gave me something to hang on to, and I know how that feels when you’re caught in a freefall. If cookie or one of my parents walked out right now and saw us like this, I can’t imagine the rumors that would fly. But this isn’t about romance or holding a gorgeous woman in a secluded truck. This is one person guiding another one down a path they’ve walked before. I understand her pain at least a little, and I know how to make it through. This is about surviving whatever happened to her and keeping a promise I made to protect her from any harm.
She doesn’t need a lover.
She needs a friend.
Chapter 14
Rhett
T
The next morning, I he next morning, I send Getty out with the rest of them to take hay to the cattle. I’d normally go, but after last night, I want to stay close to Sunny. If Dean made the call despite my lies, she could be in danger. Considering how little I know about her, it’s time to do a little investigating myself.
Stepping into the main house for the first time in weeks, it feels weird, like the day they brought me here as a kid and I didn’t know how to belong.
“Mom,” I call out, but it feels wrong, like I should call her Clara. As though moving out to the bunkhouse was my way of pulling away from them. Am I family or staff now? “Mom, are you in here?”
No answer, not from her or anyone else. I make my way to my bedroom at the end of the hall, pausing once to peek into Carl’s room. Two guitars rest against the wall, papers scatter the floor, all covered in notes and words. I’m not sure why he never left for college. He seems just as stuck as I am, only more so because at least I’m doing what I love. What does he have? Karaoke and the coffee shop open mic nights? I don’t see a way to break into the music business from the middle of nowhere, but then, I don’t know music.
My room rests as I left it, pant drawer still open from the last time I came to get more clothes. I pull my laptop from the desk and sprawl across the bed. A groan slips out of me at the softness of my mattress. I forgot what it felt like. Pulling one of Mom’s quilts over me, I know I could fall asleep for at least a week. But I have things to do, something well overdue.
I start with a search for stories about a missing person. An alarming number of children pop up, so I adjust it to be blonde women between twenty-one and twenty-five. It still feels like a needle in a hay field, but I start filtering through the pages anyway. I stick to the west side of the country. It seems like she couldn’t have gotten too far in that VW Bug and she doesn’t have an accent. I sort through stories and pictures, but no one looks like Sunny. As much as I hate to, I need to search with different parameters. After all, whether she did it or not, someone seems to think Sunny is a criminal.
I sift through gruesome stories one by one. My stomach churns with anxiety each time I open a new article. Killed with a cleaver, killed with an axe, shot six times, stabbed fourteen times, the stories speak of unbelievable cruelty and malevolence. That sort of thing doesn’t sound like the Sunny I’ve come to know.
“Hey sweetheart,” Mom stops in my doorway, “I didn’t expect you in here today.”
“I need a computer.” I wonder if the guilt is written across my face. “I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
She smiles and it melts away my feelings of inadequacy. “Don’t be silly. I love having you in here. Makes the place feel whole again. How about some lunch? I made that pasta dish you like with the meatballs. We could eat together.”
Where I have issues in my relationship with Carl and Dad, Mom has never treated me like anyone but her son. It’s hard to ever deny her anything.
“Where’s Dad and Carl today?”
“Your Dad had some errands, and he dragged Carl out of bed to join him.” She pretends to roll her eyes. “Lots of grumbling from both of them. But that means it’s just you and me.”
I drop my head, smiling at the way she sees through my insecurities to put them at ease.
“Yeah, okay. That sounds great.”
