Page 9 of Runaway Road (Runaway 1)

Since the divorce, I hadn’t gotten angry. I’d gone numb and stayed quiet. My lawyer had encouraged me to stay that way so he could get me the best settlement possible. Thomas and I might have had a prenup, but Thomas had still ended up paying.

I’d hired a really good lawyer.

Aside from my own savings, I’d taken ten million dollars away from my marriage in our divorce settlement. Every cent was now being used by an organization that supported runaway kids. That money paid for clothes and shelter. It paid for education and long-term housing.

Thomas had escalated my station in life. Now his money was doing the same for other unfortunate kids who needed a helping hand. That donation had eased the sting of the divorce. It had helped me keep my temper.

Until now.

Fuck him. I stepped away from the phone, my fists clenched and my teeth gritted.

Thomas didn’t deserve fifty cents.

I turned away from the phone, practically jogging for the car. I pulled onto the road and drove past the on-ramp for the interstate. Raising my hand, I gave it the finger.

Fuck interstates. Fuck Secretary. Fuck husbands who got a vasectomy at thirty because they hadn’t planned on getting married five years later.

I’d been the exception to Thomas’s meticulously planned-out life. I’d been a spontaneous, lead-with-your-heart decision.

This baby was because he’d led with his dick.

Fuck him.

The yellow lines in the middle of the blacktop blurred as a sheen of tears coated my eyes. I slid on my sunglasses and blinked them away.

Miles and miles streaked past as I drove along the quiet highway. The trees fencing the road were bright and tall under the June sky. Birds flew overhead. Occasionally a

stream would appear, kissing the road before disappearing into the lush greenery.

It was picturesque and impossible not to appreciate.

The mental image of Thomas and Secretary holding a baby swaddled in pink was stuck in my head.

It was ironic that Thomas had impregnated the wrong woman. He’d begged and pleaded for me to stay, and if we’d had a baby, I wouldn’t have left him. Betrayal or not, I would not have taken a child away from a life where he or she would have wanted for nothing.

But I didn’t have a baby. I didn’t have a family and probably never would.

The tears threatened again, but I refused to let them fall.

“No more,” I whispered to myself. “He gets no more.”

I had this adventure to give me purpose. I didn’t need family when I had my freedom.

Holding tight to the steering wheel with one hand, I raised the other into the air. The moment my fingertips ascended above the windshield, they chilled. It was getting cooler now as the sun began its descent.

I’d crossed into West Virginia about an hour ago, a large, faded sign welcoming me to the state.

I stretched my hand higher, toward the fading light of the sky. Then I balanced the wheel with my knee, letting my other hand reach above. My arms stretched.

Freedom.

I was free. I was alone. I was lost.

And it was beautiful.

The air streamed through my fingers. As I stretched my arms higher, I filled my lungs, breathing deeper than I had in a long, long time.

I closed my eyes, for just a moment, until a lurch on my right tire sent the Cadillac jarring toward the centerline.