by Devney Perry
But we had to get it open first.
A road trip with my best friend might save my sanity.
“So, um . . . what happened with Dany?” she asked, the car’s wheels crunching on the gravel road as we rolled past a green meadow on the way home.
“We got in the stupidest damn fight.” I shook my head, still unable to believe we’d gone from I adore you, Cash to I fucking hate you, asshole in a span of ten minutes.
“About what?”
“You.” I blew out a deep breath. “She didn’t like that we lived together.”
Kat looked over, her mouth falling open. “Why? Did she, uh, say something specific?”
“No. Just that she didn’t like that I had a female roommate.”
“Oh.”
“Whatever.” She wasn’t who I’d thought she was anyway. It was no loss.
I’d invited Dany over on Friday night but she’d muttered some comment about not being Kat’s biggest fan. How could anyone not like Kat? She was awesome. Funny and smart. She was kind to animals and people alike and as far as I knew, she’d been nothing but polite to Dany.
But what the fuck did I know about women? Our argument had escalated quickly. I’d taken Kat’s side. She’d gotten defensive. When Easton had called and told me about the mountain lion, I’d been more than happy to cut the night with Dany short. And I hadn’t minded seeing her taillights drive off my ranch.
If I was being honest with myself, I hadn’t liked her much. She was a bit shallow for my taste. Too soft. We would have eventually killed each other. But I hadn’t dated in a while—a long while—and she was pretty, on the outside. Thankfully, I’d dodged a bullet. Hell, we hadn’t even slept together.
“Sorry,” Katherine whispered. “You liked her.”
“Meh. We only went out twice.”
A crease formed between her eyebrows. “But you brought her to family dinner.”
“It was just dinner.” A dinner I didn’t have to cook.
“I thought . . . never mind.” She waved it off.
“Thought what?”
“Just that you were more serious if you’d bring her to family dinner.”
There was an unspoken rule that Friday dinners were for family members only. Why I’d thought bringing Dany would be a good idea, I wasn’t sure. Maybe I’d wanted to see if she could cut it. Stick out my grandmother’s scrutiny and laugh at the Greer family inside jokes.
Dany had survived that like a champ. It was my friendship with Kat that had sent her running. Women. My guy friends had no problem playing second fiddle to my female best friend. I wouldn’t tell Kat this, but Dany hadn’t been the first almost girlfriend intimidated by her position in my life.
But like I’d done before, I’d made the easy choice.
Kat.
She let me tease her and wasn’t afraid to throw it back. She listened without judgment. I’d take her friendship any day over a lousy lay and relationship drama.
“Oh.” Kat kept her eyes on the road, shaking her head.
“It’s no loss,” I said with a shrug.
Our house came into view down the road. The driveway was empty since both our trucks were at Easton’s. My bed was inside that house. My shower. Both were tempting.
But not as tempting as this trip. When was the last time either of us had taken a vacation?
“Let me come with you,” I said. “Please?”
She pulled into the driveway, parking in front of the garage. Then she shoved the Cadillac in park and looked over, studying my face.
Katherine’s long, dark hair was curled today. Normally she left it straight and tied in a ponytail, but this morning it swirled in soft waves past her shoulders. She’d forgotten sunglasses and the sun caught the blue in her eyes, turning them into sapphire jewels.
“Go take a shower,” she said. “You stink.”
“Are you going to be here when I come out?”
“Depends. You have to agree, right now, not to touch the radio.”
She hated music when we were driving. Something about wanting to hear the wheels on the road and enjoy the quiet. It had never bothered me because when we went on trips to Missoula or drove around the ranch, we talked. I didn’t need the radio when she was there to keep me company.
I grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Here.” I handed Kat a sunglasses case I’d swiped on my way out of the house.
She kept one hand on the wheel as she pried it open with the other, revealing a pair of mirrored Oakleys. “What are these for?”
“Just because.” The last time I’d been in Missoula, I’d stopped at the mall to buy myself a new pair. I’d grabbed those for Kat too, thinking she’d like them. The woman was always losing her sunglasses.
She ran her finger over the frames, staring at them for a long moment before turning to me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She looked almost sad as she said, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” I winked, hoping to cheer her up. “Should we take a bet on if you have those when we get home?”
Kat rolled her eyes and slid them on.
After my two-minute shower, I’d packed a bag of my own clothes and my own toothbrush for the trip. True to her word, Kat had been waiting for me in the car, her fingers flying over the screen of her phone, probably shooting off a string of last-minute emails.
I rolled down the window, letting the air dry my damp hair as Kat pulled onto the highway. “How’s this gonna go?”
She shrugged, speeding up to seventy. “I don’t know. I guess when we get to the next place we feel like flipping the coin, we’ll flip it.”
“But we need to end up in Oregon.”
“Yep. We’re taking the Cadillac to Heron Beach. To Aria.”
Aria. How did I know that name? I played it over and over, trying to place it, then it came to me. “She was one of the kids in the junkyard with you and Gemma, right?”
Kat nodded. “Yes.”
“There were six of you?”
“Aria and Clara, the twins. Karson, the only boy who lived there. Then Londyn and Gemma, who came here with me.”
I’d been in college when Kat and her friends had arrived, but I’d met them on a trip home for spring break. Grandma had introduced them to me as her girls. She’d also warned me to stay away from her girls if I wanted to keep breathing.
Carol Greer didn’t make idle threats, so I’d stayed away, and after graduation, when I’d returned to the ranch to work, Katherine had been the only girl left. By that point, she’d been all but adopted by Grandma and Mom. She was the daughter both of them had always wanted.
Any plans I’d had about hitting on her, asking her out, had flown out the window. And I’d definitely wanted to ask her out.
But it had been for the best. A relationship on the ranch would only lead to disaster. We saw enough of that with the staffers. There’d be flings and hookups, and inevitably, one or both of the involved parties would quit.
I’d resented my family some at first for dictating the type of relationship I had with Kat, limiting my options. Over the years, I’d become grateful. We were too good of friends to risk losing it all. My family had been right to discourage me from pursuing her.
Look how quickly things had fizzled with Dany. Or the women who’d come before. Quality boyfriend material I was not. Friend, I could manage.
And maybe without the other family members around, Kat would finally open up about her past. The two of us talked about anything to do with the ranch. The only topic of conversation Kat ever shied away from was her past.
Years ago, she’d confided in Grandma about her childhood, that she’d run away from home to live in a junkyard, of all the fucking places. The thought made my skin crawl. My Kat, tiny, beautiful, loving Kat, living in trash.
She’d never trusted me with the story and I’d only heard it secondhand.
Grandma and Mom had warned me specifically not to push, that it was Kat’s business and not to p
ry. So I hadn’t for years. We’d had plenty of other things to talk about, work and whatever drama was happening with my family or guests at the resort.
But Kat had opened up more since Gemma had returned and it had piqued my curiosity. Kat wasn’t forthcoming with details about the life she’d lived before Montana, but she also wasn’t running away from the topic like she used to. She must have sprinted from her childhood like a horse bolted from a rattlesnake.
Maybe on this trip she’d feel safe airing some demons.
Maybe I’d finally confess my own secret.
“What’s Aria like?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since the day we left the junkyard.”
“You’re sure she’s in Oregon?”
“According to Gemma’s investigator, she works at a hotel there.” Kat shifted to dig a sticky note from her pocket. “The Gallaway.”
“And why exactly are we going to see Aria?”
“Because eventually, this car needs to get to Karson in California.”
“Then let’s go to California.”
“No.”
I stared at her profile, waiting for an explanation. “Just, no?”
“No, I’d like to find Aria.”
“Okay.” There was more behind her reasoning than reconnecting with an old friend, but I knew Kat’s tones well enough to recognize when a door was about to be slammed in my face. Time to try sneaking through a window. “This was Londyn’s car, right?”
“Yeah. She lived in it with Karson. He was the first one at Lou’s and kind of made it our place.”
“Wait. Who’s Lou?”
“The owner of the junkyard. I told you about him, remember?”
No, she hadn’t. Maybe she’d told Grandma but not me. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Lou Miley. He was this grumpy old recluse who lived there. One day, Lou came out of the shack where he lived and found Karson sleeping on an old car seat. Lou brought him a blanket. Karson had been sneaking in and sleeping there for a month by that point. I’m not sure if Lou knew the whole time or what, but he didn’t make Karson leave.”
It baffled me that an adult wouldn’t have called the authorities and rescued those kids. The few times she and Gemma had spoken about the junkyard, they’d made it seem like it was paradise. They’d preferred it to an actual home in the foster care system.
I didn’t get it, but I’d stopped trying to make sense of it.
Kat had done what she’d had to do at too young an age to make the best of a shitty situation. She was good at finding the bright side. Whenever we watched a bad movie, she’d spout three things she liked about it during the credits.
Once, we’d run out of coffee in the middle of a blizzard. The roads had been too snowy to traverse so she’d set up a tea station and tried to get me to like tea. I’d sampled every flavor from a variety pack that day, then lied and told her tea wasn’t so bad. It was shit compared to coffee, but she’d tried.
“Gemma was the second one to move to the junkyard. Her home was . . .” Kat shook her head. “It was awful. Has she ever talked to you about it?”
“No, and I never asked.” In the past six months, I’d gotten to know Gemma fairly well. The two of us worked side by side nearly every day and I couldn’t have dreamed up a better partner for Easton, not just because she adored my brother but because she was a damn riot. Feisty and sarcastic, confident and bold, Gemma hadn’t been born with the last name Greer, but she would wear it well. You’d never know her childhood had been hell.
“She doesn’t tell many people the story,” Katherine said.
Kind of like you.
I’d earned Kat’s trust in so many other areas. With horses, when I’d taught her to ride. With the stress from work, when she was the one who needed to vent. Hell, she trusted me to cook dinner every Wednesday without backup. So why wouldn’t she trust me with her past?
“Anyway,” Kat continued, “after Gemma moved to the junkyard, Londyn came next. Actually, Gemma hauled her there after she found Londyn trying to eat a sandwich from a garbage can.”
“Did you do that?” My stomach rolled. I hated this for her. “Eat garbage?”
“No, we never ate garbage. There was always food around. We’d have peanut butter and honey sandwiches. The trunk to the Cadillac was a great pantry. But if I never eat another banana, I’ll die happy. Same with green beans.”
“That’s why you don’t like Grandma’s green bean casserole at Thanksgiving or Christmas.” Mom would always send us home with some leftovers but Katherine wouldn’t touch it. I’d always thought she was just leaving it for me because it was my favorite holiday side dish.
Kat’s face puckered. “That’s a no on the green beans. It’s a miracle I can stand to eat pizza. Londyn waitressed at a pizza place and she’d bring us back pizza most nights she worked.”
“Heaven,” I teased.
She laughed. “Even you would have gotten sick of pizza.”
“Never.”
We didn’t get a lot of pizza at the ranch. Delivery to the boonies wasn’t an option, which was probably why I insisted on it whenever we visited a town with a Domino’s.
“Okay, keep going.” Please, keep going. “Tell me more about Aria.”
“She and Clara were a year younger than the rest of us. I think they might have come to Montana with us if we would have waited but . . . we had to get out of there.”
“Understandable. Were they mad?”
“No, I don’t think so. And it was better they stayed where it was safe until they turned eighteen. Karson promised to stay with them at the junkyard until their birthday. I assume he lived in this car until he left.”
It made sense now, why the car was supposed to get to California. “Londyn wants Karson to have the Cadillac.”
Katherine nodded. “Londyn and Karson dated. They lived in this car together. After she got it restored and left Boston, she wanted him to have it.”
“Why didn’t she take it to him?”
“That was the plan, but she got a flat tire in West Virginia, fell in love with her mechanic and never made it to California. Instead, she let Gemma take it.”
“And Gemma got waylaid by Easton.”
“Exactly.” Katherine laughed. “This trip was Gemma’s idea. Londyn passed the car to Gemma. Gemma passed it to me. And I’ll, hopefully, pass it to Aria, who might take it to Karson.”
This wasn’t just a vacation for Kat. It was a sentimental trip. “Thanks for letting me come along.”
She arched an eyebrow over the brim of her new shades. “Did I have a choice?”
“Nope.”
She smiled.
“This is cool. The handoff thing. I guess the only difference is that you’re coming back home when it’s all done.”
Kat shifted in her seat and the smile fell from her face. Her fingers flexed around the wheel. She kept her eyes aimed straight ahead and the sudden stiffness in her shoulders made me pause.
She was coming home, right? This wasn’t the same type of trip her friends had taken. Kat had a life in Montana. A job. A family. With the mountains and the open range and the clean air, she’d always told me that Montana was where her heart had found home.
She was coming home. That’s why she didn’t answer. It was a given.
She was coming home.
“Whose idea was it to come to Montana?” I asked.
“Mine.” Her smile reappeared. “I thought it sounded like an adventure. I saved up some change to buy a map, then I marked the biggest towns. Every day, I’d walk to a pay phone and call the local newspapers in Bozeman, Billings, Missoula and Great Falls, asking for any new classifieds.”
“And they read them to you?”
She nodded. “The receptionists took pity on me. The paper in Great Falls only did twice so I stopped calling them. After a couple of weeks, I heard about the ad Carol had placed for housekeepers. I called her that day and inquired about it. She told me that if we
could get to Montana, there’d be a job waiting. So we waited until I turned eighteen, because I was younger than Londyn and Gemma, then we left. We saved up for bus tickets and . . . you know the rest.”
Yes, I knew the rest. There wasn’t much I didn’t know about Katherine’s life since she’d come to Montana. “I’m glad you found that ad.”
“Me too.”
I twisted to the backseat, where I’d tossed a baseball cap, and pulled it on, trapping the strands of my mostly dry hair. Then I relaxed in my seat.
There were more questions I wanted to ask. Why was she so insistent about not returning to California? Why had she arranged this last-minute trip and not told me about it? But Kat had confided in me more today than she had in years. When I was training a young horse, I didn’t push my luck. I wasn’t going to with Kat either.
So I flipped Grandma’s quarter a couple of times above my lap. “Oregon, here we come.”
Chapter Four
Katherine
No.
No, Cash.
No, you may not come on this trip with me.
Why was it so easy to say no to Cash in my head but not in person? So much for my trip alone. Damn it. When he’d told me about dumping Dany for me, my resolve to take this solo vacation had disintegrated like wet toilet paper.
Except he hadn’t broken it off with her for me. Because of me. The distinction was essential.
Cash snored in the passenger seat. He’d tipped his hat over his eyes and straight nose. His beard looked soft, like a dog’s fur, and I was tempted to sneak a touch.
He grew a beard every November, calling it his winter hide, much like what his horses grew. And like the animals, he’d lose it once the tulips bloomed. Cash would pick a random day to shave and waltz into the kitchen with a grin on his face, proudly displaying that razor-sharp jaw.
I’d miss that annual ritual. I’d miss seeing him every day. But over the last fifty miles, as he’d slept, I’d come to a decision. I couldn’t live with Cash. It was time for me to move out.