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I’ve made peace with the fact we’re not going to Noelle’s.
She truly doesn’t need this kind of trouble.
“Let’s go,” Ridge says to me as he shrugs on the brown leather coat he’d lifted off the bar stool.
Dad and I fall into step beside him, heading for the door.
Again, I wonder if this is actually a good idea, accepting an invite to stay with this strange man, but we don’t have another option.
Dad needs rest. Ditto for Rosie and Stern. So do I.
“Let me have the keys to your truck,” Ridge says as Tobin opens the door.
I hand them over. There’s no use arguing. It’s still snowing, heavy white slop that’s only piled up higher and deeper ever since we entered the bar.
There’s a black SUV parked by the door with four flat tires and Pete inside, glaring at us.
A harsh chill sweeps up my back that has nothing to do with the cold.
Ridge slaps the hood of the SUV, hard, pointing two fingers at his eyes and then at Pete.
He’s wearing that grin for our benefit, but his eyes are ferocious. There’s no mistaking their message.
Don’t you dare.
God. My heart crawls up my throat just watching how he’s toying with the thug.
I truly don’t know if this guy’s drunk, high, or just plain crazy.
Don’t know if I want to know, either, because he’s our only ticket to a little sanity tonight—as insane as that is to think.
Ridge opens the passenger door of a big silver truck with dual back tires. He holds it open for Dad to climb in. I can smell new leather, new car scent as I stand nearby, watching my father use the running board to ease up and then buckle his seat belt.
“We’ll see you at the house,” Ridge says as he shuts the door. Then he tells Tobin, “Find him something to help with that cough, and some soup. I know we’ve got something in the pantry.”
“Certainly,” Tobin says as he climbs in the driver’s seat, sounding more like an employee of some sort obeying his boss rather than a friend.
Weird.
While we’re walking toward my rusted old two-tone tan Ford, he asks, “Sellers’ Pumpkins, huh? How’s business?”
Oh.
Right.
Though the paint is faded on the wooden rack on the box of the truck, it’s still legible. Amazing Jackknife needed a tracking device at all.
There’s nothing like trying to disappear with your name plastered across the side of your getaway vehicle.
Maybe we just hoped we had time before they’d notice we’d blown town.
Maybe we hoped Clay and his merry band of monsters would chase after something more lucrative than our farm and the thing he’s been after all along. The sick, gut-wrenching thing I still can’t bring myself to admit.
Wrong.
The phone call to Noelle proved it even before the goon showed up.
“That was our farm, our old business back in Wisconsin,” I say. “We raised pumpkins.”
Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been a good gig, even if it was seasonal. Not one that would’ve made us rich, but it had provided a living, and my parents enjoyed it.
Ridge gives me a firm, quiet look.
I can’t tell if he’s amused or laughing at my lame pumpkin-growing past.
“We had a huge pick-your-own field.” I nod at the horse trailer. “Rosie and Stern pulled a big hay wagon around, giving customers rides. It was kind of a big deal in the fall. Gift shop, corn maze, hot cider and treats, bonfires at night…everything except the zombie costumes.”
“Sounds fun.”
I pull open the passenger door.
“It was for a while.” No lie. I don’t even want to think about how much I’m missing it right now.
Grabbing the snow brush off the floor, I shut the door and start wiping the snow off the windshield.
He walks around to the driver’s side and starts the truck, then circles around and grabs hold of the brush. “Let me take care of it.”
“But—”
“Darlin’, you deaf? Go check your horses before you freeze to death out here.”
Okayyy. So, apparently, he’s got that large-and-in-charge bluntness down pat.
I take off to check on Rosie and Stern.
They’re a matching team of American standardbreds.
Both brown with white blazes on their foreheads, white socks, and black tails and manes, they’re hard to tell apart, except to Dad and me.
Rosie, sweetness incarnate, loves her attention. Stern prefers to just be fed and left alone, besides a good brushing and a carrot every so often. He practically falls asleep during grooming.
They both give me a friendly snort.
“I’ll let you out soon, guys,” I tell them. “I promise.”
“Rosie and Stern? Which one’s which?”
I whirl around, surprised he remembers their names. “Um, this is Rosie on this side, and Stern’s over there.”
“Hope they like roosters. Loud-ass roosters with lungs like bagpipes.”
“Come again?”
“Eh, you’ll see.” He nods and gestures at the truck. “Let’s go. My buzz has worn off no thanks to cueball and his fun, so I’ll drive, if you’re cool. It isn’t far.”
