Damon:A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel(47)

Once the trooper was out of sight, I tapped out a quick reply to Jeremy's text.

Good idea baby, I'll be home around 7, want me to make lasagna? I needed  him to think it was all a normal day, a normal night, for as long as  possible. I waited, agitation increasing, for him to text me back. I  wanted to turn my phone off. He could be tracking me right then, for all  I knew. Deciding to beat him to the punch, I tapped out another  message.

Phone dying and I think the car charger is broken, wasn't working this  morning, I'll see you at home, I'll buy pasta in case you want me to  make the lasagna but we can also do take-out. Love you, have a good rest  of the day!

And with that, I shut my phone off. Remembering something I'd seen once  on Law and Order, I struggled with the case while trying to keep my car  straight on the road. Finally, violently, the back of my phone popped  off and I took the battery out, tossing all the parts of the phone back  onto the passenger seat. Now, I was totally screwed if I needed to find  out where the hell I was, but at least I didn't have to worry about  being tracked.

Unless he could track the car.

Fuck.

Just get to Utah, for now, Gabby, I thought, surprising myself once more  by referring to myself by my childhood nickname. Jeremy didn't like  that name, and I'd stopped going by it after we started dating. It's a  wonder what a car full of cash can do for you. What sorts of changes  impulsivity can breed. How one little decision  –  regardless of whether  or not you were even thinking when you made it  –  can change every single  thing about you, about your life, your future.

And then, on the flipside, how easy it can be to barrel sideways into  someone's life when you're riding high on that decision. How someone  will let you in, only to find out later that you're bringing a heap of  trouble with you. And how amazing it can be when you find out they don't  care, that they think you just might be worth it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?

The farther and farther I got from the mountains that had been my home  (and, now that I look back on it, my prison) for three years, I started  to feel more and more wild and invincible. Each mile I put between me  and Jeremy seemed to take away an hour that I'd spent under his spell.  The bruise above my eye throbbed. I looked at it in the rearview, and  started to forget why, exactly, I had let him do it to me. Why I'd  covered it up.

Well, I'd known why I'd covered it up. I couldn't exactly go to the  cops. He was the cops. The whole force was friends with him, and I knew  that going to the police would just get me in deeper trouble than ever.

But how could I have stayed through all those nights of crying, all  those empty bottles of concealer, all those warning signs that it wasn't  going to get better?

Because, really, I'd believed for a long time that things "were going to  get better". Either I'd figure out just what it was Jeremy wanted from  me, who he wanted me to be, and be able to do it and become that person  and we'd both be happy, or he'd realize I wasn't ever going to be who he  wanted me to be and give me a break. For three years I'd really, truly  believed that, even though everything was screaming at me that it wasn't  the case.         

     



 

Love is stupid. Love is stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'm not saying that I went from Rihanna to Beyonce in a matter of an  hour and a half, but there was definitely a shift inside me. I wasn't  the same beat-up little girl that had left the house that morning. I was  one part mad, one part panicked, one part elated, and one part numb.

And, if things went perfectly, I'd be 100% rich and living free in Argentina  –  or wherever  –  by the end of the week.

I just had to get to Utah first.





4





Once the sun started setting, a lot of my confidence and the anger that  had driven me so far began to wane. It was hotter down here, though the  night air still had a bite to it. The Rockies loomed behind me, the  desert stretching out in front. I'd passed Moab, home of Arches national  park, and started heading south. All I knew was that if I kept heading  south, I'd hit the border eventually, and have some semblance of safety.

It was around 9pm; if Jeremy had thought I'd been running late, he  probably knew something was up by now. I hoped, prayed, that his first  instinct was that something had happened to me, not that I'd run off. I  hoped that he still thought I was too stupid and weak to leave.

If he called work, well … no one from housekeeping would be there to tell  him I'd left early, and even if he heard about it the next day or  someone at the front desk told him, the timeline would be way too close  for him to know whether I'd texted him before or after "getting sick". I  was happy I hadn't clocked out. The less of a paper trail, the better.  They'd only be able to say it was "4-ish" or "around 4", and "4-ish" is  when I texted him that my phone was dying.

And if they told him I'd gotten sick …

But my mind was just racing around in circles, chasing the same  thoughts, the same possible-but-unpredictable scenarios. It wasn't  getting me anywhere but tired. I had put some serious mileage in between  Jeremy and I; thank God for deserted country roads, where speed limits  are more like suggestions than hard-and-fast rules.

I began to look for somewhere I could get a bite to eat, maybe even a  room for the night. The thought of staying in one place for the next  eight hours made me a little extra panicky, but I'd worked all day and  was exhausted from the adrenaline rush and constant anxiety. All those  greenbacks wouldn't mean a damn thing if I fell asleep at the wheel and  drove myself into a canyon.

As I rode along, the desert lay on either side of me, and in front of  me, like a great, big blanket of nothing. Distant, strange shapes of  arches and rocky outcroppings faded into the dark sky. I sat forward,  straining my eyes. Finally, after what felt like forever of nothing but  the same-old-same-old, I saw a sign for the next exit.

Ditcher's Valley, 5 mi.

Ditcher's Valley: if that doesn't sound like the kind of place that was  made for wives on the run, I don't know what does. I knew it couldn't  have been a very big town, but I also needed to get gas and assumed that  there would be a Texaco or something else there where I could get  directions to a bigger town with a hotel, or at least a plate of  microwave nachos.

Damn, but gas station microwave nachos sounded like a meal from paradise  in that moment. Jeremy didn't like when I indulged in "crap". Jeremy  didn't like when I did a lot of things.

Screw him, stuff your face with that gross, melty cheese, I thought with a smile, still testing out these waters.

Ditcher's Valley had a population just under 2,000, if you believed the  highway sign that welcomed you in. The first place I saw that looked  open had everything I needed: motel, bar, restaurant. The whole kit and  caboodle.

I still didn't feel that great about the idea of stopping on my journey  for the night, but logic won out in the end. I needed to get some sleep.  I really did. I could feel my brain doing that thing where I'd realize  ten minutes had passed and I couldn't tell you a damn thing about what  I'd been thinking about. That, plus a dark highway, did not bode well  for my personal safety.

I pulled into the parking lot, noting with some surprise the abundance  of motorcycles outside. It seemed like this place catered to exactly one  sort of person: bikers. Oh well, what did I care? I was just there to  get a room and a meal, not make a bunch of friends and do karaoke.

I checked myself in the rearview before opening my car door; the  concealer had mostly worn off by then, my face slightly streaked from  the sweat that had poured down my face during the ride. I looked, to be  honest, like shit. First stop would be the bathroom, for sure. Just  because I didn't have anyone to impress didn't mean I wanted to walk  around like a slob, either.         

     



 

As I was about to shut the car door, I remembered the duffel bag under  the seat. I mean, I hadn't really forgotten it (how could I?), but I  realized that I probably shouldn't leave an indiscriminate amount of  cash in a bag in my car outside of a biker bar. Hoisting it out and  clutching it tight to my chest, I crossed the wide front porch outside  the bar and ducked inside, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

I didn't have to try very hard. The bar was full, wall-to-wall, with  loud, rowdy, boisterous bikers of both genders. It wasn't so loud that I  couldn't hear myself talk, but it was definitely loud enough to make me  feel splendidly anonymous. I spotted the ladies' room and made a  beeline for it; it was a single-person bathroom, for which I was  thankful.

After splashing some water in my face, washing away the concealer, I  went back into the bar. I didn't see any place that specifically seemed  to deal with the motel portion of the bar/restaurant, so I went straight  to the bar, where a few bartenders were making chitchat with the  clientele. No one seemed in much of a rush to get their drinks, and  money never seemed to pass any hands as I waited for someone to spot me.