Page 8 of Quarter Miles (Runaway 3)

“Got your Triple A card?” Easton asked.

“Uh, no.” Why would I have Triple A? I hadn’t gone anywhere in years so why would I need roadside insurance? “But I have a phone.”

He frowned. “What if you get a flat?”

“Then I’ll change it and finally put the hours of practice you made me endure to good use.”

Jake and JR had taken shifts teaching me how to drive. They hadn’t been able to believe that I’d come to Montana at eighteen and never been behind a wheel. But it was Easton I’d called when I’d gotten my first—and only—flat tire on a trip to Missoula. We’d come home and for the next week, he’d made me change one tire a day until he was sure I had it mastered.

Easton was the oldest of the Greer sons and the closest thing I had to a big brother. He was overprotective and mildly annoying, but kind. When Gemma, Londyn and I had come to the ranch from the junkyard, he’d been working on the ranch, having already finished college. He was handsome and rugged, but he was too broody and serious for my taste. Besides, his heart had been Gemma’s for a long, long time.

They were the perfect pair. Her sass and steel mellowed him. He tamed her wild nature and gave her roots.

They would be difficult to be around if I didn’t love them both so much.

“Do you want some cookies for the road?” Gemma asked, looking down the gravel road. “I made some last night.”

“No, that’s okay. I think I’ll just get going.”

“But are you sure? You might get hungry.” Before I could protest again, she held up a finger and walked toward the house.

“Tell me these aren’t an experimental batch,” I said to Easton once she was out of earshot.

Gemma had been enhancing a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe for the past month. Every few days, she’d come to my office with a half dozen for me to sample. When she’d brought in the batch with raisins and pistachios, I’d told her I was on a new diet, no sugar allowed.

“No,” Easton said. “These are actually pretty good.”

Gemma emerged a minute later with a zippered plastic bag stuffed with cookies. She took each step slowly, her eyes once again searching the road as she came to my side.

I glanced over my shoul

der but the lane was empty. “What?”

“Nothing.” She handed me the cookies. “I thought I saw a deer.”

“Ah.” I nodded. “Okay. Time to get going.”

The quarter in my pocket was getting heavier and I was anxious to give it a flip.

Gemma pulled me in for a hug. “I wish I could go with you.”

“Me too.” I held her tighter, her baby belly requiring me to stand on my tiptoes to get over the bump. “Rest, okay?”

“Yeah,” she muttered.

At her prenatal checkup on Friday, the doctor had put her on activity rest, concerned with her blood pressure. Until their baby boy was born in a couple months, she was to relax. Gemma didn’t actually know what that word meant so I suspected the next two months would be entertaining at the very least.

In all the years I’d known Gemma, she’d never stopped moving. Her ambitions were unparalleled.

Cash was that way, in a state of perpetual motion. Unless we were watching a movie together, he always had something to do, whether it be an odd job around the house or something with a horse at the stables. Then again, maybe I just saw him as busy because we shared a home.

The idea that he hadn’t been home made my heart twist.

Was he still with her? Would he even notice I was gone? Or would he take this opportunity to fuck his girlfriend on our living room couch?

Five years ago, I’d moved in with Cash. At the time, I’d been living in the staff quarters—a dormitory of sorts for the single, young, seasonal employees who didn’t have their own home in the area, complete with cramped rooms and communal bathrooms. Not that I was picky. I’d spent years in a dirty junkyard, and my childhood home before that hadn’t been much better.

Carol and Jake had just built a new house in the foothills, their retirement home, and Cash had been living in their old home, alone with nearly three thousand square feet and two extra bedrooms.