Page 5 of Open Road

“Pop the hood?” he says.

I do. He looks at the engine with his phone light for about forty-five seconds, then stands back.

“Fuel pump,” he says. “It’s not going anywhere tonight.”

The words land flat and factual. He doesn’t soften them, and I find that I appreciate him not softening them. I’ve had enough of men who manage how information reaches me.

“Okay,” I say.

“You got someone to call?”

I think about Aunt Patty and her absent cell phone, preferring the old landline in her kitchen. I think about the location trail. I think about the fifty-seven dollars in cash in my jacket pocket, which is every dollar I managed to extract from places Craig didn’t monitor, saved in increments of five and ten over six months.

“I’m working on it,” I say.

He looks at me for a moment, but not the way men usually look at women on the side of a highway at three in the morning. He looks at me the way no one has looked at me in a long time, as though he’s reading everything I’m trying to hide instead of the version of myself I show the world.

His eyes briefly drop. To the left side of my face, where I know, because I checked in the visor mirror outside of Tampa, the bruising along my jaw has gone the particular yellow-green that means old enough to be fading, recent enough to still be there.

He looks back up.

His expression doesn’t change. Whatever he logs, he does it internally and keeps it there.

“I’m Roam,” he says. “Royal Bastards MC, Jacksonville.”

I wait for the fear. Two years of Craig’s business associates taught me the Royal Bastards patch means something specific, and none of it is good for women on the side of a highway.

My heart rate should be climbing.

It doesn’t.

I don’t know what to do with that, so I set it aside.

“Janie,” I say. Then, because she’s pulling on my jacket, “This is Rose.”

“Hi, Roam,” Rose says, very seriously. “Our car is broken.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I heard.” He looks at me. “How far are you going?”

“Valdosta.”

“Georgia.” He says it like he’s placing it on a map. “That’s a ways.”

“I know.”

“I’ve got a place,” he says. “If you need somewhere to be while you figure out next steps.” He pauses. “A club compound. Jacksonville, forty minutes back the way I came.” Anotherpause. “My president’s wife is there. Good woman. She’ll see you right.”

I study him. He lets me. He doesn’t fill the silence, press the offer, or explain why I should trust him. Instead, he stands there in the warm dark, waiting. I’ve spent two years learning to read men, and what I’m reading right now is someone who has decided this is my call.

Rose tugs my jacket again. “Mama, can we see the clubhouse?”

I look at my broken car, the empty highway, this silver-haired man with his steady eyes and hands that have stayed exactly where I can see them since the moment he pulled over.

“How far did you say?” I ask.

“Forty minutes.”

I look down at Rose. She looks up at me with absolute confidence because she is three years old, and the world has not yet taught her to be afraid of it.