Page 56 of Battle Scars

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hedge.

“Adrienne Malone, I did not raise you to lie to your mother,” she says sternly.

“Like I said, it’s messy,” I say, dropping my half-eaten sandwich to my plate and pushing it away.

“What’s a mess?”

“My life,” I reply.

“Now, it can’t be all that bad.”

My mom thinks there is nothing I can’t do. I love her for it, but right now, I just want her to tell me how to unfuck my life. And doesn’t that just make me feel even worse because at twenty-seven years old, I should not need my mom to fix my problems. Right now, they just seem so… overwhelming.

“It is. It really is,” I say, and then I tell her all about Dad’s plans to retire and about Bobby wanting me to give up everything for him and to get out of his way. I tell her about Gabe and how he makes me feel both so good and so very bad, and I tell her about the mysterious letter writer who wants to kill me.

“So, what am I going to do? I should break everything off with him, right?”

“Oh, my darling girl, you haven’t got a prayer.”

TWENTY-TWO

DOGS

Gabe

My whole tour around the perimeter of the estate, I think on the way she laughed when the giant dog took her to the ground.

When I thought Adrienne’s place was huge, I was sorely mistaken because her mother’s place is massive. My place in Texas is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s more of a compound now than it was a ranch.

It’s nothing like it was when I bought it—a rambling old horse farm with a ramshackle farmhouse on the property. The house is still there but I haven’t slept there in years. Not since my wife died. Now I can’t help but wonder what this woman would think of it.

When I met Adrienne, I was convinced we couldn’t be more different, but now I wonder if we’re far more alike. I’m older than her but not by as much as it seems. We’ve both worked hard to build our businesses, and we both found each other in the middle of heartbreak, in one way or another.

In another lifetime, I bought horses for the woman I loved with all my heart, but now I can’t help but think about what it would be like to give Adrienne a puppy of her own.

When I make it back to the patio, I let her mother feed me a mountain of some kind of chicken salad filled with mayo even though I’ll have to run all night to work it off.

But the way she smiled when I shoveled that delicious food down, and the pointed looks she shot to her gorgeous daughter, is worth every minute I’ll spend on the treadmill.

TWENTY-THREE

LIGHTNING

Adrienne

Ineed to go faster. It’s the only way to clear my head.

I press down on the accelerator going into the next curve. I keep pushing and keep pushing and I don’t let up. I’m not allowed to drive myself around town, so I can’t be alone. That means I can’t focus in so that I can win the next race and work my way to the head of DHR.

But here on the track, I can just drive laps. I can push myself and let everything in my brain just… go. Just flit away.

Yesterday, after Gabe checked the perimeter of my mom’s hillside home, giving me the opportunity to spill my guts to my favorite person, he did as promised and joined us on the patio for lunch.

“Please, help yourself and join us,” she’d said when he walked back around the house.

“Thank you.”

I wasn’t actually sure what he was going to do. Would he reject my mom’s invitation with the excuse of duty, or would he take her offer? I was surprised when he walked to the side table and fixed himself a plate before sitting down in between Mom and me at the large round table.