Page 6 of Quarter Miles (Runaway 3)

“Oh, I didn’t send him away for you. He was driving me crazy, hovering over my every move, so I kicked him out.”

I giggled. “How are you today?”

“Good.” She smiled, leading me to the porch swing. “How are you?”

“Nervous,” I admitted. “I haven’t taken a trip in a long time.”

“You’ll love it.” She stroked her belly as I sat at her side, her eyes wandering over the view ahead.

“Yeah, I think I will. It was a good idea.”

“Thank you.” She shimmied with pride. “I have my moments.”

Like the other Greer homes on the property, Easton and Gemma’s place was rustic and refined. The dark-stained exterior was broken by shiny, glimmering windows. The meadows surrounding their place were blooming with spring flowers. A deer and her fawn inched out from a copse of cottonwood trees, their noses bent to the grass and their ears raised at attention.

We sat on the swing, rocking gently in the cool, crisp morning air. I tugged the sleeves of my sweater over my chilly knuckles as Gemma shoved her sleeves above her elbows. For the past month of her pregnancy, she’d cursed often how it was so damn hot.

“Any word from your private investigator on Aria?”

“He emailed me last night and said she’s still in Heron Beach.” Gemma shifted to take a sticky note from her pocket. “Here’s her address and the name of the hotel where she works.”

I took the note and stuffed it into my pocket. “God, this is crazy.”

“Maybe.”

“What if she doesn’t want to see me?”

Gemma scoffed. “Please. This is Aria we’re talking about. She’ll hug you so hard it’ll probably crack a rib.”

I smiled. “True.”

It was going to be strange seeing Aria after all these years. I could still see her and her sister, Clara, standing at the bus station, waving as Gemma, Londyn and I boarded a Greyhound destined for Montana. Clara had been crying while Aria had laughed, flipping us off for leaving them behind.

“Do you think she’ll take the car to California?” I asked.

Gemma shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. But if not, that’s okay. Come home and Easton and I will take it after the baby’s born.”

On cue, a shiny red Cadillac appeared on the gravel lane ahead.

This was it. That was my ride. Damn, I was nervous. About leaving. About driving. About everything. When had I become this cowardly recluse?

I’d grown up in Temecula, California. Though the city at large appealed, my childhood had not. I hadn?

?t grown up in a dreamy, suburban home with a white picket fence and a goldendoodle named Rover. My youth had been a nightmare. At sixteen, I’d run away from home to live in a junkyard with five other teenagers who’d each survived nightmares of their own, Gemma included.

She’d been my roommate in the junkyard. The two of us had shared a makeshift tent, while Aria and Clara had lived in an old delivery van, and Londyn and Karson had turned a rusted 1969 Cadillac DeVille convertible into a home.

The very car that bounced and bumped our way.

“Did you call Londyn?” I asked Gemma.

“I did. And she thinks my idea is brilliant too. She loves that her car is bringing us all together.”

“Me too.”

As we’d grown up, I’d lost touch with my junkyard friends. Gemma, Londyn and I had come to Montana for jobs at the resort, but they hadn’t lasted long. Londyn only four months, Gemma eight. They’d both landed in Boston and we’d gone years without talking until one day last fall, Gemma had shown up at the resort out of the blue, driving a Cadillac.

Londyn had rescued her Cadillac from the junkyard and she’d had it completely restored. It was a piece of classic Americana. A showstopper. She’d set out in that Cadillac on a journey of her own, to find a new life. After she had, she’d given the car to Gemma, urging her to take her own trip.