Page 56 of Love in Overdrive

She squinted at her alarm clock. Nine-fifteen in the morning. Not too late, she thought, considering she hadn’t returned home from the police station until almost one in the morning. Laney rolled over and looked up at her mother’s sunny face.

“Did you forget that you were going with me to my eye doctor appointment? You know I don’t like to drive when they dilate my eyes.” She dropped down on Laney’s bed with a bounce.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Laney knew the driving excuse was only a ruse to spend time with her. But jeez, why was her mom so chipper this morning?

Some of the fog on her brain cleared. That’s right. Laura didn’t watch the news, and Sawyer hadn’t told her about Laney’s abduction. It was dumb luck the town gossip hadn’t reached her mother yet. If she knew, Laura Hunt would be all over Laney for the details and hovering like a mama bird.

Laney should tell her, and she would, but not before she got out of bed.

“No, of course. I didn’t forget. I thought it was at ten-thirty.” Not a complete lie. She had thought that, once she remembered the appointment.

“It is, but we had decided you were picking me up at nine and we’d grab breakfast first. Oh well, we’ll do lunch after. I’ll go start the coffee.” Her mom’s cheery voice ground on Laney’s barely awake nerves.

“Coffee?” Didn’t her mom even know her? Then again, this day, if any, was the day she could use a kick-start with caffeine. Even if it was from bean juice.

Laney rolled to the side of the bed, sliding her feet into her red, fluffy Elmo slippers the kids at the daycare had given her last Christmas. Every muscle in her body ached as she pushed off from the mattress. Even her earlobes hurt. Stretching, she moseyed into the bathroom.

Laney only needed a half-hour most days to get ready, but not today. An hour later, her mother handed her a to-go cup.

“Thanks.” Laney mumbled, then snagged a can of pop from the fridge and shoved it into her pocket before following her mom out to the car.

Laura Hunt babbled as she drove this morning. She went on about church and the upcoming spring dinner.

Didn’t they just have a dinner at church not that long ago? They always seemed to have something social going on. She half listened to her mother’s happy chatter as they drove across town.

Tell her.

“Shh,” she whispered. The voice in her head’s harping wasn’t welcome today.

“Did you say something, dear?”

Laney glanced at her mother and shook her head. No. Not now. Her mom all but glowed this morning. If Laney told her about the carjacking, she’d freak and skip her appointment, causing Laney to ask for another morning off to take her. She’d tell her after.

“Anyway. My friend Sara and her husband are coming. You should come. I’ll buy you a ticket.” Even with a half a cup of coffee in her system, Laney couldn’t shake this grogginess. She nodded and hoped her mom wouldn’t notice if she dozed on the ride.

“Good! Because her son I was telling you about is going to be there.”

“What?” Well, fudge nuggets. Laney knew better than to agree with her mother without fully listening. “Mom, I told you, I don’t want you playing matchmaker. Stop trying to set me up on blind dates.” Did she just whine? Her tone was reminiscent of the two-year-olds at the daycare.

“Don’t look at it as a blind date, honey. Think of it as meeting someone new. A new friend. We will all be there for you,” Laura said with an encouraging smile. She took her hand off the steering wheel to pat Laney’s arm.

Oh yeah, having both our parents there as we meet will make it all better. Not!

Laney was tired of going along with these dates. She was a new woman, she reminded herself. A woman who survived being abducted at gunpoint—the new independent Laney. She needed to stand up to her mother and tell her how it was going to be.

“Mom, I don’t need you to fix me up with men. I can find a man on my own.” And she had. “I will go to the dinner, but I will not have some guy pushed at me like I’m a hopeless, helpless female who can’t live without a man.”

There, she did it. She told her mom to back off, and that she didn’t need her help. She only caved a little by agreeing to go to the dinner. Baby steps.

Laura was either accepting her daughter’s ultimatum or she had figured she won the battle and was strategizing for the next one—either way, it made the remainder of the car ride quiet and peaceful.

Sadly, Laney didn’t sleep the last few minutes of the ride. She was too worked up to sleep. Good thing. She used the time to figure out how to tell her mother about the abduction and robbery. Laney had the whole day off for her mom. At lunch. She internally nodded. That’s when she’d tell her mom about the events of the last two days—the edited version.

They parked in front of the eye clinic on the edge of town. She had an hour to kill. Might as well catch up on her social media. She reached for her purse. Monkey balls. No purse. It was probably in the police impound lot with Cade’s car. And her phone was in a ditch somewhere.

“Mom, I need to run an errand. I’ll be back by the time you’re done.” At least she could get into the house using her garage opener code. She’d go home, call the bank about her debit card, grab her emergency credit card from the desk, and head to the phone store. Then she’d call the police and see when she could get her things back. Good thing she only had her license and her debit card in her wallet.

“Sounds good.” She handed her daughter the keys and climbed out of the car.

She put the car in gear and headed home. Adulting sucked. All she wanted to do was curl up in bed for a week, but life didn’t work that way.