“What now?” Dane asked. “Turn around?”
Her head buzzed. She answered without thinking. “Jump it.”
Dane turned back to the creek, squinting. He could see the other side. “Two to a bike. Not sure we’d make it.”
“We’ll make it.”
“You jumped it before?”
“Nope.”
He hesitated, looking out. She knew they were both thinking of Bobby Ray, bleeding on the bar floor. Cheating death. He circled the bike around, going back as far as he could before the fork forced a turn.
The rush of it overwhelmed her. It felt good. Grandma Angie seemed suddenly close. She wondered if they would die after all, if fates were pushing them to risk themselves after what they’d just done.
The engine revved, a wild sound in the near-dark. The bike rumbled between her thighs, powerful and almost painful.
She clutched him, setting her feet firmly on the footrests. His body was tense, his arms stiff. She wondered why he did it, just because she asked. She wanted to ask for more, push him past every limit.
The bike took off, and she nearly lost her grip, but clamped down, her jaw tight. They raced along the path, limbs whipping at their knees, and the creek approached, closer, dim in the low light.
Dane kicked up the front end, and they were airborne, sailing through the night, over the creek. They descended too fast, and Stella knew they were lost. They’d go down into the rocky creek, bleeding into the current.
But one wheel touched down, then the other. They landed cleanly, and Dane eased back the power. The road curved suddenly, and he had to bank hard. Stella didn’t move with him, and he overcorrected, and now they were in a skid, the ground sawing into her leg and everything a rush as they halted in a bruising collision with dirt and brush.
Dane flung the bike away to avoid getting crushed and was no more on the ground then back up, tugging at her. “Are you hurt? How bad is it?” He had no concern for himself, although she could see skin through his jeans, jagged tears filled with dirt.
Her thigh screamed with agony, but she’d landed in pine needles, so the damage was minimal. The skin was abraded, but nothing that needed medical help. He carried her nearer the creek, where the moonlight was better without the canopy of trees. “We’ll live,” he said grimly, and she laughed, louder and harder than she’d ever before. He set her on the ground, and she pulled him down, heart pounding, thrilled that they had done it, crashed and survived.
He didn’t seem to get it, didn’t understand what she was after, so she dragged him to the ground and rolled on top. Her knee howled, but she ignored it, bending down, pressing her lips into his mouth. Then he did understand, and they rolled, tumbling into the brush, coated in pine needles, bleeding and messy but alive, so alive.
The situation didn’t call for romance, so she unbuckled him, exposed him just enough, and tugged off her panties beneath the short skirt, already near her waist. The forest stayed silent around them, the tree dwellers keeping their distance, until they rose again, stumbling back to the bike. “We can’t go back now,” Stella said.
Dane nodded. “Need to check the bike in daylight anyway.” He knelt to spread his jacket in the pine needles. “Might be a rough night.”
Stella shrugged and lay down, her head on the jacket. She was with Dane, and they were almost free. It would be enough.
*
Stella sat up and shook pine needles from her hair. Pretty much everything hurt. Her leg disgusted her, covered in bruises and scraped-up skin, blood encrusted in a few places. Her bangs hung in her eyes, and a quick swipe under her eyes yielded a finger covered in smudged mascara.
Dane nudged her with his knee. “Hey. You look beautiful.”
Stella slid back down onto his shoulder. “Thank God we broke all the mirrors.”
He pulled her in close, but she couldn’t relax, aching and itchy and aware of the heat of the day rising around them. She sat up again. “Do you think the motorcycle will work?”
Dane propped himself up on his elbows. “I guess it’s time to take a look.”
They shuffled through the leaves and needles and crossed the road to where the Harley still lay on its side. Dane circled it a moment, then grasped the handlebar and the seat and heaved it upright.
Stella rubbed her arms and stared into the canopy of trees. Pale light filtered through, low and weak. Had to be early. Birds flitted among the trees, sitting on limbs and cocking their heads at her. She felt like she was in church, not that stuffy old building with all the biddies like Vivian, but pure, close to God Almighty himself. She wondered if she should pray, and for whom. Herself, or Dane. Or Bobby Ray.
She wondered if they’d taken him to a bigger hospital or if he was in town. They should probably stay clear of Holly for a bit. She could go to Grandma Angie’s that night, after dark, when the town wouldn’t be watching.
Her car. She’d have to find a pay phone and call Janine.
Dane sat astride the Harley and jumped on the starter. It roared and went out a couple of times, then finally fired up steady. He lurched forward, and stopped, then backed up to make a tight circle.
Stella wanted to cover her ears. The motor seemed so loud and painful at this hour, in such a quiet place.
“You okay, Stell?” Dane had to yell over the engine.
She nodded. “Is it okay?”
“Seems to be.”
Stella looked around for her purse. It lay at the base of a tree, its contents scattered. She tried to kneel, but when pain shot through her, she plunked down on her butt and began tossing everything into the bag. Dane killed the bike to help her.
She spotted the bracelet a foot away the same time as Dane. He reached over and plucked it from the leaves. “It survived.” He passed it to her.
Stella laid the triple strands on her wrist and slid the slide lock into place. She wouldn’t take it off again. “I think I have everything,” she said. “Where should we go?”
“Not to your grandmother’s?” he asked.
“I don’t think we should go to Holly today.”
He brushed caked mud from his jeans. “Why not?”
“I’m pretty sure some people are going to have sore feelings over Bobby Ray.”
“They should. He’s hurt pretty bad.” Dane stood and stared up into the trees, dots of light crossing his face. “I should have stopped it sooner.”
Stella knew this was coming. “He started it.”
“I shouldn’t have let it go anywhere.”
She heaved herself up from the ground. “It happened. We can’t change it. All we can do is decide where we go and what we do from here.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“Let’s drive into Branson. I’ll take out some money, and we can pick up something to wear.” She looked down at their tattered outfits. “If any place will let us in.”
“Sure you don’t want to go home and clean up?” He picked a pine needle from her hair.
“I don’t have a home, remember?” Stella shook her head, sending dirt and leaves flying.
“We can go to the duplex.”
“No. Not Holly. I can’t go there. Branson isn’t far.”
Dane straddled the bike. “Branson it is.”
“And I’ll call Janine.”
“Sounds like we have a plan.”
He fired up the motor again, and Stella climbed on behind him. They took the long way around the creek on the road. By the time they hit the highway, Stella felt better. The wind tore the trash from her hair, and she held on to Dane. As long as she was putting miles between herself and Holly, she’d be all right.
Dane pulled up to a truck stop a few miles south of Branson. “We can clean up here,” he said after cutting the motor.
Stella watched a burly bush-bearded man in a gimme cap limp out of the diner and climb up into his eighteen-wheeler. “We definitely won’t scare the regulars.”
Dane laughed. “Nope. And they have showers plus a l
ittle shop in the back. We can pick up something to wear, as long as you like your overalls loose.” He wrapped an arm around her. “We could get a matching set.”
She punched his shoulder as they crossed the parking lot. The place was immense. The glass doors opened to a diner on the right and a big open shop on the left. Dane led her to the back corner, where pay-phone booths lined one wall. “You can call Janine here.” He tried to fix the torn sleeve to her shirt. “I’ll grab you a T-shirt or something.”
Stella opened the door to a booth and flipped on the light. The air was stale and muggy, smelling faintly of beer. She dug a quarter out of her purse. She was asking a lot from Janine, who was no doubt still upset about the bar. “Please be my friend still,” she whispered and dialed her home number.
Janine’s mother answered. Not a good thing. She already borderline hated Stella.
“Is Janine around?”
“Stella? Where are you? And that boy?”
“I really need to talk to Janine.”
“I don’t want her mixed up in all this.”
“It was just a fight.”
“Then you haven’t heard.”
Stella stomach lurched. “Heard what?”
“That boyfriend of yours really hurt Bobby Ray bad. They had to fly him to County in a helicopter.”
Stella almost fainted with relief. She’d just known Bobby Ray was dead. “How is he?”
“Bad. Getting surgery. More than one, from what I hear.”
“Mrs. Thomas—Bobby Ray started that fight.”
Silence.
Stella twisted the cord around her fingers. “And most people don’t seem to realize Bobby Ray cut Dane up with a knife a few days ago.”
“You were always into trouble, Stella. I need you to stay away from my daughter.”
The line went dead.
Stella held the receiver in her hands. What would she do now? Janine had her car and everything in it.
Dane pressed his face against the window, smashing his nose. Stella wanted to laugh at him, her beautiful Dane. He had no idea how bad things were. Stella couldn’t get her car. They couldn’t go home. What would they do?
He noticed her distress and popped open the door.
“Stell? You okay?”
She could see on his face the same worry, that something worse had happened.
“Oh, Janine’s mother wouldn’t let me talk to her.”
He exhaled slowly, and Stella knew he’d been worried she’d tell him Bobby Ray was dead.
“You got any other way to get in touch with her? Her boyfriend?”
“Yeah, I can call Nick.” She smiled up at him. “You’re the brains of this getaway.”
He held up a bright green “Show-Me State” T-shirt. “Still feel the same?”
She snatched the shirt from his hands. “I never said you had good taste.”
“It said ‘show me,’ and I thought of you.” He scooted her over on the booth and closed the door. “I knew the words would give me an excuse to look exactly where I wanted to all the time.”
She dropped the shirt and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He pulled her close. “It’s a rough day. We’ll get through this.”
“You make me want to slow things down.”
“Well, today, we will do that.”
Stella looked down at the shirt. She didn’t want to tell him about Bobby Ray. Maybe she just wouldn’t. He’d probably be fine. Just some recovery before going back to his ugly self. It was an unfortunate thing, but not something that ruined their lives. Today, they’d play. They’d have each other.
She whipped off her pink halter. “That perked you up, now, didn’t it?”
Dane glanced at the window to the booth. He hung the shirt from a little hook made for coats, then stretched it over the window, opening the door and closing it to catch the sleeve so it stayed in place. “I’m feeling quite perky now.”
And despite the tight quarters and a bevy of bruises, she found they could escape no matter where they were or what might wait for them in the next hour. Even so, Stella worried. Something this good had to have a downside. Just how far it might slide, she didn’t know.
25
Night at Angie’s
––––––––
DANE throttled the bike down as they entered Holly from a back street around midnight. He didn’t know all the alleyways and cut-throughs as well as Stella, but she’d shown him the way. Once they arrived at the end of her grandmother’s street, he killed the Harley and they walked it along the sidewalk.
“House looks dark,” Dane said.
“Yeah. I think we’ll be all right,” Stella said. “Let’s go in from the back. Bring the bike around.”
They cut across the yard and pushed through a broken-down gate. Stella dug through her purse and pulled out her keys. Dane leaned the bike against the house. The moon slid behind a cloud, pitching them into near-blackness. Stella dropped the keys and cursed. He felt his way along the house, tripping over a coil of garden hose.
The landscape brightened again, and Stella fumbled with the door. “I don’t get it,” she said.
He came up behind her on the stoop. “Get what?”
“The key. It isn’t working.”
“Here.” He fished his own keys from his pocket and squeezed a tiny light hanging on the chain. He took the key from her. It wouldn’t go in the lock.
“Sure it’s the right one?”
“I’ve been going in this door all my life.”
He shone the light on the lock. “It’s new.”
“What?”
Stella crowded in. “Holy shit. She changed the locks. My mother changed the locks.”
Dane squeezed her arm. “She’s upset, Stell, that’s all.”
Stella turned and leaned her back on the door. “She locked me out of the only place I ever called home.”
Dane could feel the trembling in her legs. “I’ll get you in. Not like a little lock can stop someone like me.”
He shone the light on the lock again. He could break it, but he’d rather try another way first. Something quicker and easier. “What are the windows on the back side?”
They stepped off the porch just as the moon faded out again. They waited, and Dane pulled Stella against him, nice and tight, so she wouldn’t get any worse off. They’d had a pretty good day, riding through the Ozarks and eating fried fish in paper trays near Table Rock. Stella looked different after showering at the truck stop, all fresh and shiny, no hair spray or makeup. He liked her just fine that way. Better, even, though she kept fussing over it.
She’d wanted to toss the pink halter, but he’d torn a strip from it, a swath of hot pink he’d tied in a knot on the metal chain he kept on his hip. Something about the shirt was important to him, like it marked a big moment. He couldn’t explain it, just went with it.
“When is Nick bringing the car?” he whispered. Stella had arranged for Janine’s boyfriend to leave the Mustang with her stuff in it in front of Angie’s house.
“Anytime now. I had planned to hide it in the garage.”
The moon appeared, and Dane surveyed the back. A high bathroom window was no good, but all the other rooms had nice low sashes. He quickly pushed up on them all. Locked.
“You okay with me breaking one?” he asked her. “I can do it quiet-like.”
“Yes. I’d do the living-room one. It has a sofa beneath it.”
They walked along the house. Dane bent and snatched one of the big stones that bordered the flower garden, now overgrown and beset with weeds. He thought of Joe and the roses. He wouldn’t get a chance to say good-bye to him. The old man might not even want to see him again, after all that happened. Stella had finally told him about Bobby Ray after dinner. He hoped for all their sakes that the boy would pull it out.
Dane pulled his shirt over his head and wrapped the stone in it. He checked the panes and tapped the corner of the rock against it. The window didn’t yield at first,
so he finally reared back and smashed it through. The noise wasn’t as tremendous as they thought it might be, but still, they waited.
A few dogs barked. A neighbor somewhere along the line shouted at one to be quiet. After a few minutes, all settled down again.
Dane picked carefully at the glass, pulling out shards rather than letting them fall through. He used the shirt not just to protect his hands, but to avoid obvious fingerprints. He was quite sure Vivian and the sheriff would be glad to implicate him on as many crimes as possible.
“Let me go in,” Stella said. “I can find my way around more easily.”
He reached in and unlatched the window, shoving it wide. He grasped Stella’s waist and lifted, flashing back to the same moment in the bar. He couldn’t change things, no sense thinking about it. She clutched the window and wiggled through.
She popped her head back out. “I’ll let you in the back door.”
Crazy mission they were on. Glass tinkled from his shirt as he shook it. He crossed the yard, pulling it over his head. He looked forward to when they could leave. He still had all his stuff over at Ryker’s. They’d go for that once he had the car. At this point, he was sure he wanted to leave Holly, and he knew that going with Stella was the right thing.
Stella opened the back door and stepped aside. They came into the kitchen, where he’d seen her with all the women and their food. It seemed a lifetime ago.
“Let’s just sit a minute.” Stella collapsed on the sofa. “I have to think about what I want to get.”
“Everything looks in place still,” Dane said.
“Yeah, I half expected the house to be empty.”
“Not even your mother could accomplish that in a day.”
“Don’t be sure. She got the locks changed.” Stella jumped back up and headed to the entryway.
Dane followed, arriving just as she bent before the front door to examine the lock. “Yep. Every last one. Why would she want to keep me out?”
“You left her.”
“Did she think I’d steal everything? It’s more mine than hers anyway.” Stella leaned wearily against the wall. “I guess we don’t have time to sleep.”
He pulled her to him. “We have time to do anything we want.”
Tangled: A New Adult Romance Boxed Set (12 Book Bundle of Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Royalty) Page 126