Chapter 7
Lane
Bitter or Sweet
Neither one of us got much sleep that night.
I could tell Brynn was worried about all the things she couldn’t do to help the kid. Unfortunately, Ten hadn’t offered any reassurance or platitudes. Without a license plate number, there wasn’t much anyone could do to track down the mysterious RV, and without a formal complaint filed, or a verified missing persons report she could link back to the kid there was no legal leg for anyone to stand on when it came to hunting the missing travelers down. As of now, it was nothing more than an uncomfortable confrontation witnessed by a couple of strangers even if something deep within my gut told me there was something much more to it. Ten promised to put some pressure on the park rangers that patrolled the area where we were camping and assured us that if anyone came across the RV, she would have them do a welfare check on the young man. It was something, but it didn’t feel like nearly enough. And I knew Brynn felt the same way.
How many times had the authorities stopped by her mother’s trailer to check on her and her sister, only to walk away and leave them in the care of a woman who couldn’t see past her vices? Harmony Fox was a master manipulator and a skilled liar. When she needed to play the role of caring and concerned mother, she did, and Brynn was left in that house fighting to survive whatever trials and tribulations her mom’s newest conquest put her through. Back then all I wanted to do was drag her out of that ratty, rusted trailer and take her home with me. I wanted to hide her away somewhere she would never be found by the people who left bruises all over her and that taught her to flinch whenever somebody reached out to touch her. Now, all I wanted to do was protect her from the pain that being unable to help someone she so clearly sympathized with was causing her. She didn’t want anyone else to suffer the way she had, and that made the feelings I had for her swell even bigger inside of me. Her compassion and kindness were endless, and I couldn’t help but be affected by it.
The close quarters didn’t help matters either. Every time I closed my eyes, I was enveloped in her sweet and spicy scent. Every way I moved I felt the whisper of her soft skin or the slide of her long, silken hair. My heart beat in time to her choppy, aggravated breaths and when she twisted and turned in her sleeping bag I could feel the air churning between us with sexual tension and a lifetime of dismissed desire. Now that the passion and hunger were allowed out of the cage I’d kept them trapped in, those feelings were starving, ravenous, and barely controlled. I could feel them clawing at my insides, twining up my spine and tangling around my throat. I was close to being a savage, controlled by nothing more than the primal instinct to take, to claim, to devour what my inner animal always considered MINE. There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t want every single part of her, but for the first time ever, Brynn was the one who wasn’t ready.
She was still skittish from that soul-scrambling kiss, and I could see the way her heart was hurting from having to hurt Jack. It was clear she didn’t trust the sudden shift in my willingness to see what she’d put in front of me from the very start. I’d spent so long ignoring all we could be to one another, that it was hard to blame her for being wary of my intentions. All she knew was how I treated her when she was my best friend, and how I treated her when she broke my heroic heart. She had no idea how I would treat her as a woman I wanted to make my own, and frankly, neither did I considering there hadn’t ever been anyone besides her that I wanted to tie myself to for the long haul.
Since neither one of us slept more than an hour at most, we were up in time to watch the sunrise over the desert, and if the circumstances were different I would admit to the sight being as beautiful and as breath-stealing as the woman standing next to me. A landscape that was so stark and hostile shouldn’t feel warm and dynamic, but each color that shot across the sky, and each grain of sand that sparkled a different shade in the awakening sunshine painted a picture full of life and experiences. It reminded me of home.
Brynn and I worked quickly and efficiently together to break the tent down and paused only long enough to eat a quick breakfast. We spent the morning in contemplative silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Vegas was still on the agenda, but some of the excitement about visiting Sin City had waned. Suddenly a city where anything was allowed with very few consequences wasn’t as appealing as it was before that panicked scream in the night had ripped Brynn and me apart. We were both intimately acquainted with the results of what happened when someone wasn’t afraid of consequences. I’d taken a bullet, and she’d lived a life ducking thrown fists and wandering hands.
The drive was only supposed to take a little over three hours which I was grateful for. While I was too keyed up the night before to sleep, staring at the road and the flat desert landscape that was stretched out in endless, rolling miles ahead of us, was enough to lull my eyes into a series of heavy blinks and to have me fighting back yawn after yawn. Brynn used her phone to book a couple of rooms at one of the flashy, glittery casinos on the Strip and I couldn’t wait to faceplant in the center of the king-sized bed. I didn’t question her when she said she got two rooms. It was clear she needed some space to work through the way things were changing between us, and I assured her that I was going to be in the suite next to hers all alone unless she decided she wanted to keep me company.
Since I left the ranch, I was running on nothing but nostalgia, remorse, and adrenaline, not to mention I was still healing from major surgery. I was drained, both physically and emotionally. Having my hands tied when it came to helping out that kid who may or may not be in trouble was the last straw. My well was dry, and I needed a good night’s sleep, a steak, and a shot—or six—of good whiskey to recharge. I also wouldn’t turn down another taste of the woman sitting silently beside me, but I didn’t want to be greedy.
“Do you mind stopping at the next rest stop or gas station?” Brynn’s question pulled me out of my sleepy musings. She held up an empty bottle of water and gave it a little shake. “I drank one too many of these this morning, I think.”
We left the campsite so early that we would hit Vegas before most things besides the casinos were even open. We weren’t in a rush, so I didn’t feel like I was racing a clock. I told her I would be happy to stop as many times as she needed me to.
She gave me a little grin of appreciation, and I felt the way my blood heated in reaction swirling in my veins. I forgot how great it felt to be the reason she smiled. Even now she didn’t do it enough.
“I forget that it’s okay to ask for what I want and that I’m allowed to say what I need. Your dad was the one who drilled that into me. He was the first adult I ever met who didn’t make me feel bad for asking for more.” She fiddled with the ends of her hair. “He was also the one who taught me that just because you asked, didn’t mean you were going to get it. He told Lydia over and over again what he could do to make her happy, and when he told her what she could do for him and you kids, in turn, she practically laughed in his face. Boyd was such a good man. I will never understand how he loved someone as selfish as your mom for as long as he did.”
I grunted and felt the way my face twisted into a dark scowl. My dad had done everything he could to make sure my brothers and I had a great childhood, except protect us from our mother’s frigid indifference and heartbreaking disappointment. He let her ruin our family time and time again because he couldn’t stay away from her or tell her no. Not until he got sick and she finally committed the ultimate sin. Dad wanted her to come home and help out with the ranch and to keep an eye on Sutton and me since we were still in high school. He told her that he was dying and that he wanted to spend his last few years as a family, together. He’d been sick for a little over a year at that point without any of us knowing about it. My mom practically laughed in his face. She told him that as soon as he was gone, she was selling the ranch and taking the money to buy a house in Dallas. It was the coldest and harshest she’d ever been, and it was finally Dad’s breaking point. He could deal with Lydia not loving him, and not loving his kids, but there was no way he was going to tolerate her not loving and caring for his ranch after he was gone.
Discarding his family’s home like it was as disposable as their love had been, taking the only thing left of his legacy away from his sons, he wouldn’t stand for it. So, he filed for divorce the next day and put the wheels in motion, cutting Lydia out of everything in case he died before the divorce was final and leaving everything to my brothers and me equally. When Brynn became family, he also left a portion of the property to her, a portion my mom had tried to wrest away from her after my dad passed. She was convinced she could contest the will and prove that she was the rightful recipient of the inheritance due to the length of her marriage to my old man, and because of all the questions surrounding his union with Brynn. Brynn had only been a Warner for a little under a year at that point, but she was so much more a member of our family than Lydia had ever been.
Mom lost, and nothing made me and my brothers happier than to see her go down in flames. The rage she had at no longer being able to dangle my dad at the end of her rope was immensely satisfying, but none of it made up for her years of jerking all of us around.
“He always said there was something special about her. There was something about her he couldn’t let go of. Maybe because she was the first person he’d ever loved? Maybe because she gave him three boys to carry on his birthright? Who knows? He never looked at anyone the way he looked at her, even when she broke his heart every time she left.” I cut a look in Brynn’s direction and let out a sigh. “I used to pray she wouldn’t come back. Every time she left I wished it was finally the time she’d had enough of us, enough of the ranch, and she would stay away. She never did.” My hands curled around the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles turned white. “She always ran out of money or got bored with whomever it was she was sleeping with. Whenever real life got too hard, she came back to us with her tail between her legs. She was only conciliatory for as long as it took her to drop her bags at the front door.”
I spotted a sign for a gas station at the next exit and shifted lanes so we could get off the highway.
“The Warners also have a really hard time admitting they’re wrong. Dad held onto Mom for as long as he could, Cy would have never walked away from his first wife even though they were never a good fit, and Sutton put up with Alexa and her madness far longer than he should have. We never seem to get it right the first go around.” Which was why I hadn’t bothered to try up until now. She made me look at taking that risk in a whole new light. Maybe we were the very definition of it being better to love and lose, than never having allowed ourselves to love at all.
Brynn let her head drop back against the headrest and worried her lower lip with her teeth. “Do you think you’re ever really able to let go of the person you love first? Is that love the biggest, brightest love that will eclipse any other love that tries to take its place? Is there no seeing around the love that ultimately teaches us how badly loving someone can hurt? Does first love taint all the other love that follows after it?”
I hit the brakes too hard when I pulled off on the exit. We both jolted forward getting caught in the seatbelts. I hated that I was her first love and that she called all the different ways she felt about me back then tainted. I never wanted her to think of the way she felt about me as dirty or ugly. Even when I didn’t know what to do with it or how to return it, I thought the way she loved was the most beautiful thing in the whole world. I’d never seen anything like it until my older brother met Leo, and then again when Sutton allowed himself to fall for Em.
I rubbed a hand roughly over my exhausted face and pulled the truck to a stop at the pumps. “I think first love is important because it shows you how strongly you can feel about another person, both good and bad. Then I believe there is a forever kind of love which is the love that simply feels right. It’s the kind that you know was meant to be yours all along. Everyone in my life has been burned badly by first love, but my brothers held out and fought for the forever kind, and they sure seem happy. They didn’t have a problem finding their way around whom they loved first, or second, for that matter. They all made their way to the person who could love them the right way, except for my old man. He ran out of time before he had the chance to find the kind of love that wouldn’t hurt him every single day.”
Brynn reached for the door, cocking her head to the side as she climbed out of the cab. “So, you think it’s all a matter of patience? That forever love will find whomever it’s meant for?”
I followed her out of the truck, boots landing with a thump on the cracked asphalt. The gas station was quiet, we were the only people at the pumps, and aside from a lone semi parked off to the side, there didn’t seem to be any other customers. I watched Brynn through the space between the open doors, and she watched me back just as intently.
“I think that both your first and your forever are important. I don’t think you can have one without the other, and I don’t see any reason why your first can’t also be your forever as long as it’s the right person. Someone special.”
Her rust-colored eyebrows lifted and another one of those grins that shook me to my very foundation crossed her face. I was starting to think of them as my smiles, ones she only gifted to me. I was going to covet them and collect as many of them as possible before we got back to the ranch.
“I’ll keep that in mind. I’m going to run in and do my thing. You want me to grab you anything while I’m in there?”
I tipped my hat back with a finger and smiled at her. “Funyuns.”
She wrinkled her nose and made a face of utter disgust. “You still eat those gross things?”
“Yep.” I made sure to pop the ‘P’ on the end and added a wink for good measure. She handled all the cooking and most of the grocery shopping, not only for the family but the guests at the ranch as well. If I wanted a Funyun fix, I had to go into town, and I typically only ate them when I was out on a trail ride. They were my survival rations when I did the tours like the one Emrys and Leo had initially gone on, the ones where guests paid to live off the land and really, truly rough it for a week. The Funyuns were a lifesaver after five days of fish and whatever else they foraged from the forest.
She rolled her eyes at me and muttered, “gross,” just loud enough that I could hear her.
I propped my boot up on the back wheel of the truck and watched as the gas gauge ticked up and up. Fuel out in the middle of nowhere was damn expensive. I was wondering if it would have been smarter to fill up when we got to Vegas when I was jolted from my thoughts at the sound of a vehicle pulling up along the opposite side of the tanks. The RV rattled and shook like it was about to die when it rolled to a stop. I frowned when I realized the ugly machine was more rust than metal and the hair on my arms lifted when I realized all the windows in the ancient vehicle were covered up with wilted and sun-faded cardboard. I couldn’t see the plates, but I had a feeling if I walked around to the front of the RV they would be the familiar white and blue ones from the Lone Star state. There couldn’t be that many RVs in the desert with blacked out windows.
I pulled my hat down low on my forehead and watched as a burly man hefted himself out of the driver’s seat. I watched as he lumbered around the front of the RV, head down while he muttered to himself. The guy was several inches shorter than I was but about twice as wide and it wasn’t from middle-aged spread. He was built like a damn bull, and there was no way that a scrawny kid would be getting away from him no matter how hard they fought.
The guy ran his card through the machine and finally noticed me leaning against the side of the truck. We considered each other silently for a long, tense moment until he tilted his chin up in a brisk greeting.
“Afternoon.” The voice was bland and disinterested, but I got the feeling his narrow-eyed gaze was cataloging every move I made.
I lifted my chin in return. “Afternoon. It sounds like that beast could use a tune-up.”
The other man looked at the RV and then back me with a scowl. “It gets me where I’m going.”
I rubbed my thumb along the edge of my chin and lifted an eyebrow. “And where would that be?”
The guy frowned in confusion and started to tap his foot impatiently, the big tank on the RV taking forever to top off. “Where would what be?”
I pushed off the side of the truck and shot a look over my shoulder to make sure Brynn was still inside the gas station. I had no idea if this was the same guy dragging that kid across the campsite, but I had a bad feeling about him, and those covered windows were making my skin crawl.
“Where are you going? Pretty sure we were at the same campsite in Joshua Tree, but you lit out of there like you just remembered you left the stove on at home. Just wondering where you’re off to in such a hurry.” I dropped my arms, so they were hanging loosely at my sides. I wasn’t going to let anyone get the drop on me ever again.
The guy took a step back, and his eyes widened in obvious surprise. He shook his head and moved to quickly pull the nozzle out of his tank. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t anywhere near Joshua Tree.”
I moved a step closer to him so that I was standing between the gas tanks. “Are you sure? This old hunk of junk is pretty memorable. So was the scene you caused when you pulled that kid through the campsite.” I was taking a guess he was the same guy. I was a great poker player and knew when a bluff would pay off. This was one of those times. A mixture of fear and anger moved in a flash across the stranger's wide face. He jammed the gas pump back into the holster and shifted to move around the front of the RV, keeping his angry gaze on mine. I wasn’t letting him get back behind the wheel without knowing for sure the kid was okay.
He shook his head at me and took another step toward the open driver’s side door. “You’re mistaken, man. I’m traveling alone. I bought this beater years ago so I could hit up Burning Man, now I’m just a desert rat, a nomad. I never stick to any one campsite for too long. I need to get back on the road.”
I stepped off the concrete divider and with one long stride was in front of the other man. I pointed the finger at the covered windows and practically growled, “Why do you have the windows blocked? What are you trying to hide in there? If you’re traveling alone why don’t you let me check inside the back of your camper?”
I was pushing it, but I didn’t care. If he had a kid in there who didn’t belong to him or who was in danger, I was putting a stop to it. I couldn’t save Brynn. I couldn’t save Daye. But I could do something to help the mysterious kid who should be anywhere else besides inside of this blacked out RV.
‘Man, you’re crazy. I’m not letting you inside my camper. Get the fuck away from me.” The guy reached up and pushed me directly in the center of my chest. My still healing ribs screamed in protest, but I easily knocked his hands away.
“I’m calling the cops.” I pointed at the RV again and gritted clenched teeth. “I don’t know what’s going on, but everything is telling me it’s not anything good. You aren’t going anywhere until I know you’re alone and that you don’t have a kid in there.” I smirked at him. “I bet they’ll impound that rolling garbage can based on your outdated emissions alone.”
The guy swore at me, and I anticipated his move long before he lunged at me. I braced for the impact, so he wasn’t able to take me to the ground, but his bulk slamming into my body was like taking a hammer to all my still injured places. My back connected with the gas pump and my breath escaped in a whoosh as a meaty fist landed heavily on my side. I managed to get my hands on the stranger’s chest and shoved him off of me with all my strength. I tossed an uppercut before I could think about what I was doing and watched with primal satisfaction as the guy’s head whipped back so fast I knew it had to hurt. I heard his teeth click together and rolled my eyes when he called me a ‘mother fucker.'
“Mind your own fucking business.” The guy wiped a hand across his mouth and spat a mouthful of blood in the direction of my boots. I smirked again. I lived on a ranch; he had no idea the crap…literally…these boots waded through every single day.
“If you’re hurting a kid, making him scream and dragging him around, that is my business. If you’re lying about being alone so you can hurt that kid, that’s also my business. Just tell me what’s going on and why you have the windows all covered up, and I’ll be on my way. Call me nosey.” I shouldn’t taunt him, but his evasiveness was wearing on my last nerve, and the longer I kept him engaged, the longer I had to figure out a way inside the camper.
“The only thing anyone is calling you is an ambulance, asshole.” The man bent and pulled a wicked looking knife out of his boot. It was the kind that had a thick, rubber handle and a serrated edge. The kind of knife my brothers and I used when we went hunting and had to clean game in the wild. That blade was made to separate skin and muscle from bone. The afternoon sun glinted off the blade and highlighted the deadly intent in the stranger’s unwavering gaze. “You ain’t getting in my RV and you ain’t calling the cops. You’re going to walk away and forget you ever saw me. Are we clear?”
The only thing that was clear was that he had something in the back of that RV that he was willing to kill for. I tilted my head to the side and lifted my hands up in front of me in a harmless gesture. “Easy, buddy. No need for the knife.”
“Fuck you. Fucking good samaritan. Who gets involved in other people’s shit? What kind of moron are you?” The guy sneered at me, taking in my camo hat with the ranch’s logo, my tooled leather belt with its belt buckle with the longhorn on it, and my boots. “You’re a real cowboy, huh?”
I shrugged. “Just a concerned citizen who worries about those who don’t always have someone to fight for them.”
The guy tossed back his head and laughed, but it was a harsh, twisted sound. “Your hero complex is gonna get you dead, cowboy.”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
We were so focused on one another, neither one of us noticed the tall, red-headed woman that slipped into the truck behind me. We didn’t see her rummaging around in the glovebox where I stashed my handgun, and we didn’t hear her creeping around the gas pump at my back until she called out, voice clear and calm, “Drop the knife and give him the keys to the camper.”
I always thought Brynn looked good. She was a beautiful woman, built along the lines of a living fantasy. There was something equally wholesome and mysterious about her, but the sight of her with a weapon, looking strong and steady, ready to defend both of us, kicked my heart in the ass. She didn’t need a hero anymore. Maybe she never did. She was her own savior.
The startled stranger faltered for a second before scoffing, “Do you even know how to use that thing?”
Brynn’s brows arched and in a flat tone she told him, “I was born and raised in Wyoming.” Like that was enough of an answer. She inclined her head to the camper once again. “Let him in.”
The guy switched his gaze between Brynn and me, taking stock of how serious she was with that gun. She cocked her head to the side and told him, “I already had the attendant call the police. They should be here any minute. You might as well let us in.”
The man let the arm holding the knife fall, and the metal clicked against the asphalt when he let it drop. He dragged his hands over his face before digging into his pocket for a set of keys. He tossed them to me, but his gaze was on Brynn. “You don’t understand. You have no idea what you’re getting in the middle of. It’s best for all of us if we just go our separate ways. The people I work for…” he trailed off and let his head fall forward on his neck like it weighed a million pounds. “You just don’t understand. There’s no way you could.”
Sadly, she understood, and that’s why she was willing to pull a gun on him. She wouldn’t stop because she knew exactly what she was getting in the middle of.
It took me a minute to figure out which key worked on the padlock that was hanging off a tough looking bracket. That extra level of protection indicated RV guy was trying hard to keep something or someone inside of the camper. I put all my weight behind pulling the rickety door open and when it gave I let out an ‘oomph.’ Immediately I was engulfed in the stench of unwashed bodies and stale food. The RV was filthy, and there was a graveyard of empty beer bottles, drug paraphernalia, and empty fast food wrappers. It was disgusting, dark, and dank. I suppressed a shiver of revulsion and called out a gruff hello as my eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering in through the spots on the body of the RV that rusted away to nothing.
The space was small, a tiny kitchen with a fold out table and a bunk that folded out. There was no one visible in the main area of the camper, but the bathroom at the back of the RV had a padlock similar to the one on the outside door. Something disturbing and alarming slithered down my spine as I searched for a key that would open the lock. It took me two tries with every key on the ring to get it unlocked, and once I had, it popped, and I tried to shove the accordion-style door out of my way only to meet with resistance that wouldn’t give. I put a little more weight into it but stopped immediately when a low groan rose up from somewhere near the floor. I crouched down, sucking in a breath when the form of a very naked body came into view. Even in the dark, I could see bruises and lacerations decorating every spot of visible skin.
“Hang on there, kid. I’ll get you out of here.” There was another groan and the sound of shifting. The kid moved like a wounded animal, and I knew I was going to put my hands around the neck of that asshole outside and not let up until the cops dragged me off of him.
I rose up and looked in the mess for something I could use to pry the hinges off the door so I could get to the captive teenager when Brynn suddenly screamed my name.
I was out the door between one heartbeat and the next. As soon as I cleared the last step out of the RV, I saw she was no longer holding the stranger at gunpoint. The man was now brandishing his knife at a young woman in a hybrid. He pulled her out of her car while she was shaking and screaming for her life. He unceremoniously tossed the newcomer on the ground and peeled off with a screech of tires and a cloud of dust. Brynn dropped the arm holding the gun and gaped at me. “He moved so fast. There was no way I was going to take a shot with her between us. I’m good, but not that good.”
I gazed at the spot where the car had been. “Go see if she’s all right. I’m going to get the kid out of the RV. He looks like he needs medical attention. The cops should have shown up by now.”
Brynn flinched and moved to tuck my gun away. “I didn’t actually have him call. I saw the knife and panicked. The clerk is so stoned I doubt he noticed anything other than the YouTube video he was watching on his phone. I’ll call them now and tell them we need an ambulance.”
I was about to tell her that sounded like a plan when a voice that was scratchy, and hardly above a whisper begged, “No cops.”
Brynn and I both gasped as the naked teenager suddenly appeared at the door of the RV. He looked even worse in the light of day.
His eyes were black and blue, both of them nearly swollen shut. I swore my heart cracked in half when he pleaded brokenly, “I just want to go home.”
Chapter 8
Brynn
Straight or Bent
“You should let us take you to the emergency room at the very least.” I tried again to reason with the battered teenager, but just like all the times previously, my concern was met with silence and an unflinching stare.
The kid's face was a patchwork of old and new bruises, mottled blues and yellows that forced me to fight a cringe every time I looked at him. His dark eyes were sunken into his too skinny face, and his long, narrow nose had an obvious bump in it from a break. His hair was stringy and greasy, and so thin in some spots I could see his scalp. His arms and legs were covered in scratches and bite marks, and he was still gangly and knobby, at the stage where he hadn’t yet grown into his body.
When Lane asked him how old he was, he muttered that he was eighteen without an ounce of conviction. If I had to guess I would bet he was closer to fourteen or fifteen, even though his eyes looked ancient. When I asked him what his name was, he told me I could call him, Bauer, but didn’t mention if that was his first or last name. The kid reminded me so much of myself when I was his age that I felt the ache of those painful memories throb right in the center of my chest.
The woman whose car got stolen wasted no time calling the police, even though the battered, naked teenager was adamant not to involve the police in the situation. When he pulled himself up and grabbed onto Lane’s shirt with both hands, the dark-haired cowboy was clearly at a loss. The teen alternated between crying and yelling, frantically telling Lane that all he wanted was to get to Denver where his older brother was. He swore that he was going to take off if the cops showed up. He was in near hysterics when he exclaimed that he wasn’t going back to foster care. Somewhere in all the frenzy, he mentioned that he would have never been in the RV with that man, to begin with, if the authorities had just let him stay with his brother in the first place. His desperation poured off of him in waves, and it broke my heart that someone so young knew what that felt like. It also hurt deep down in a place I didn’t like to revisit inside of myself that I sympathized with him so strongly. He honestly believed no one in law enforcement was going to be on his side, which led me to believe they hadn’t been in the past. Since I’d walked that road myself every time the police in Sheridan passed me and Opal off to the tribal law enforcement, who, in turn, handed us right back to our mother, I knew how lonely and terrifying it was, I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out, “We’ll take you to your brother.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the kid had collapsed back on the ground, drained and drunk with relief. Lane looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but all I could do was shrug. I was going with my gut, and my gut was telling me this kid was going to be a ghost by the time the authorities showed up. If I wanted to help him, I had to get him to trust me. I had to prove that I was on his side.
I managed to get him into a pair of Lane’s sweatpants and one of my extra flannel shirts, both of which hung off of his emaciated frame, just as the sound of sirens wailed in the distance. I urged Lane to put the pedal to the metal, so we weren’t around when the authorities arrived. He hesitated for a second, but eventually, we were cruising down the highway at a steady clip, putting distance between us and the crime scene.
I looked back and saw the woman with the stolen car waving her arms and speaking loudly into her phone. When we were hustling the teenager into the back of the truck, she had pointed in our direction and yelled that we couldn’t leave the scene of a crime. Since we had witnessed the assault and theft, she was technically right. That had Lane’s jaw tightening even more and a muscle in his cheek fluttering as he ground his teeth together with audible force.
Trying to appease him the best I could and still maintain the gossamer thread of trust I’d built with the kid, I called 911 and reported what we had seen. I gave the dispatcher a detailed description of the man who drove the RV and mentioned they might want to have the police check out the abandoned vehicle once they got to the gas station. I gave my account of what happened when RV guy dragged the woman out of her car and left my number in case the California Highway Patrol had any questions. I wanted to protect the kid, but I had too wide of a moral streak to flout the law completely.
When I hung up, Lane cut me a sharp look out of the corner of his eye. “What’s going to stop that guy from grabbing another kid? I don’t feel right about not talking to the cops about this.”
I was opening my mouth to argue that even if we stayed to talk to the police, there was no guarantee they would be able to catch the man who pulled the knife on him, but they for sure would take Bauer in for questioning. And they would undoubtedly dump him back in the system, when a quiet, shaky voice from the back muttered, “He didn’t grab me.”
Lane shifted his gaze to the rearview mirror, a frown pulling at his dark brows. “What do you mean? You were locked up in that bathroom. That’s no way to treat someone.”
The kid looked down at his hands. His fingernails were torn, and there was blood on each fingertip. His knuckles were scabbed over and on the back of one hand was a healing wound that was perfectly round. It didn’t take a genius to figure out someone put out a cigarette on the back of the kid's hand. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him we were taking him to the hospital, no arguments, but I had the feeling if I did that as soon as he was out of my sight he was going to run.
“He didn’t take me. I answered an ad I found online. He told me he was taking me to meet my new employers. I went with him willingly.” Every inch of the kid’s body bled shame and repulsion. I could tell he believed he was supposed to be smarter than that. He’d lived enough in his young life that he was supposed to know if it seemed too good to be true, then it probably was.
“What kind of ad was it?” Lane’s initial suspicion that Bauer’s abduction was tied to a sex trafficking ring echoed in the question.
The teenager shrunk in on himself and refused to meet Lane’s gaze in the mirror. Absently, he traced the wound on the back of his hand, and I watched as he blinked back tears. I needed to get some food into him, and he needed a bath. I was hoping once we stopped to fuel up again I could convince him to let me patch him up, and I wasn’t giving up on getting him to a doctor either.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to. I know it can be hard to let someone else inside that kind of experience.” That kind of pain was personal; it wasn’t something you wanted to share with others.
I heard him exhale a wobbly sounding breath as he lifted his head. Underneath the damage, it was easy to see he was going to grow into a rather good-looking young man. There was something almost pretty about his high cheekbones and wide, chocolate-colored eyes. The off-center nose and sharp jawline kept him from being delicate, but just barely. It was all too easy to imagine what interest the creep in the RV had in him, and what he had in store for him when he got delivered to his new employer.
Bauer’s fathomless gaze landed on mine, and I could feel him searching for the secrets I had that were so similar to his. He must have seen something that let him know there was truth behind my words because, slowly and methodically, he started talking.
“I’m gay.” He whispered the words like he was confessing to a horrible crime. He shook his head when I started to respond that his sexuality didn’t matter in the slightest. He held up a hand and whispered, “Let me get it all out, and when I’m done if you want to drop me at the closest truck stop, I’ll understand.” He shrugged dejectedly. “You oughta know the kind of person you’re helping.”
Lane stiffened next to me, and he cocked his head so that he could glance at the kid without taking his eyes off the road. “That’s not going to happen, kid. No matter what, we’re not leaving you until you’re somewhere you feel safe. No matter what you have to say, I’m not leaving you until you’re with someone who can take care of you. You look like you’re in desperate need of it.”
The teen made a choking sound and lifted his injured hand to wipe his wet cheeks. He took a fortifying breath and let the rest of the story out in a rush. “My parents are very religious. They didn’t take it well when I told them that I liked boys instead of girls.” He rubbed both his hands over his face, and I could see that they were trembling. “My dad is real old fashioned. He honestly believed he could beat the gay out of me.”
I sucked in a breath through my teeth and put a hand over my pounding heart. “How old were you when you told your parents?” I was barely old enough to tie my own shoes the first time one of my mom’s boyfriends hit me. Every memory I had of my childhood ended up filtered through a haze of pain and bitter anger.
“I was”—he paused and looked lost as he sifted through his response— “Uh…eleven.” His reluctance to give us a hint to his true age drew the word out and caused his gaze to shift nervously around the interior of the truck. “My dad is a big guy. It was never a fair fight. For a while, I thought someone would step in and make it stop. My mom. One of my teachers. The police. It never happened, everyone believed my dad and whatever excuse he had for the marks he left that were visible. I tried to tell him that it didn’t matter how many times he hit me, I was never going to like girls, but that only made him angrier. The only person who ever got between me and Dad’s fists was my big brother. He always tried to protect me, but like I said, my dad is a big guy, and Mikey was no match for him. I was thirteen when Dad put Mikey in the hospital for daring to stick up for me.” The kid’s head dropped like it weighed a million pounds and his shoulders slumped with the weight of his story. “I knew that if I stayed under the same roof as my dad, he was going to kill one of us. He told me enough times that he wanted me dead, that I had no choice but to believe him, but I didn’t want Mikey to keep getting hurt. The only reason Dad ever hit him was because of me.”
Lane made a pained noise low in his throat, and I could feel moisture pushing at the back of my eyes. I was having a hard time keeping my expression even, and it was a struggle to stay in my seat and not launch myself into the back of the cab and wrap the kid up in an unbreakable hug.
“I left before he came home from the hospital. It didn’t take me long to figure out truck stops, and lonely truckers were an easy way to make it from one place to another and about the only way an underage kid could make a quick buck.” I couldn’t hold back the gasp that ripped out of me. He was so young. I knew his story wasn’t wholly unheard of or unique, but it still stung all my soft places to hear him tell it so matter-of-factly. “I turned tricks for a long time. Sometimes I made enough to get off the streets and keep myself fed. Sometimes I got the shit kicked out of me and ended up dumped back on the street like trash.”
He blew out a sigh and pulled his knees up to his chest. He rested his swollen, abused cheek on the points of his bent knees and closed his eyes. “I was so tired of not knowing what was going to happen to me each time I got into a car with whoever was paying. At least at home, I knew I was going to get knocked around, but on the streets, the nicest guy would turn on me, and for some reason, those hits hurt even worse. One night a guy who was around my age rolled up on me in a brand-new BMW. He wasn’t anything like my other tricks, he was cute, the kind of guy I used to daydream about. He picked me up, and we spent the night together. He was the first client who ever treated me like I was a human being. He asked me where I was from and when I told him about my shitty home life he told me he understood and that his parents had kicked him out around the same age. He told me that he used to hustle but found a better way to make money at it. No more shady tricks. No more standing on street corners fighting off junkies for territory. No more shakedowns from other hustlers and pimps. He gave me this website to check out. He told me I could make triple what I was making doing the same thing for a higher class of clientele. He mentioned the BMW and told me it only took him a week to earn enough to pay for it.”
Listening to that modicum of hope in his voice, I couldn’t resist reaching out to touch him. I was pulled to him because his trauma and lack of options were like a magnet. I hated what my sister and I had to endure. I loathed what he went through even more. My hand landed on the back of his head. His hair felt gross, but I stroked my fingers through the thin strands anyway.
“I already sucked cock and fucked for money. I didn’t see any difference, and the website was nice. Flashy and sophisticated looking. The site and the kid with the BMW promised a fancy apartment in Vegas, a whole new wardrobe and the kind of money I only dreamed of making. It was all pretty upfront, or so I thought. It was clear their business was sex for money, besides being an escort, they also expected applicants to perform on camera. I was never quite desperate enough to get caught up in porn, but if it got me off the streets, I was willing to do just about anything. Once I filled out the application and uploaded a video, they would send someone to meet me for a face-to-face interview.” The teen leaned into my touch like a kitten seeking warmth and comfort. “I heard back from them the same day I filled out the online form. They sent the guy in the RV the same week to pick me up from the fleabag motel I was camped out at in LA. He told me my interview was to have sex with him and if he decided I was good enough and he thought I would make the cut, he would take me to Vegas. I must have passed because I was in the RV later that day, only something wasn’t right, and I knew it. Why would a company that promised a penthouse apartment and a designer wardrobe send a busted-up RV to take me to Vegas?” He turned his face, and I brushed my thumb over his banged-up cheekbone.
“I told the guy I wanted out, that I didn’t want to go to Vegas anymore and he laughed at me. He told me his boss already had a buyer for me, and that scared the shit out of me. I tried to get away. We stopped at a McDonald’s, and I tried to run. That’s when he beat me up and locked me in the bathroom. I kept trying to get away, I almost did at the campsite in the desert, but I hadn’t eaten anything in days. I ran out of steam, and he caught up to me. That’s when I got this.” He lifted his hand with the cigarette burn and let it fall. “Mikey just turned eighteen. He told me that he’d moved out and promised I could stay with him. I haven’t seen him since I left home, but I have a few regular tricks who let me use their phones so I can contact him.” A sad smile moved across the kid’s face, but his eyes remained closed. It was the same expression I got when I thought about Opal.
Lane cleared his throat roughly, and the hand that wasn’t resting on the steering wheel clenched into a fist. “Would you mind letting me talk to your brother, kid? I’ve got two older brothers myself, and I know they would do anything for me, so if your brother is the same way, I can drop you off in Denver with a clean conscience. It won’t keep me up at night for the rest of my life.”
Bauer nodded under my palm, and I could feel some of the tension drain out of him. “I don’t have a phone. If you let me text him from your phone, I’ll have him call you when we get wherever it is we’re going.”
I let go of my hold on his head and turned to look out the windshield. I exchanged a knowing look with Lane and shifted uncomfortably on the leather seat.
I tugged on the ends of my hair and told Bauer, “We’re headed to Vegas. We’re on our way home to Wyoming and were going to hit all the hot spots along the way. We already have a couple of rooms reserved, but we can skip staying in the city if it’s going to be painful for you or if it freaks you out. We’ll skip the Grand Canyon and power through to Colorado instead over the next few days.”
He was quiet for what felt like a long time, and I could feel something that felt like anxiety practically vibrating off of him. “I’m not going to have to fuck either one of you or both of you if I let you take me to a hotel, am I?”
I gasped, and I was sure my face resembled a fish out of the water as I blustered and blundered to answer him in a way that would reassure him down to his bone. I didn’t need to worry about it; Lane had it covered.
“Kid, this entire trip was her and me trying to figure out if we could still be friends while working together and sharing the same house if we ended up in bed together. That’s complicated enough without dragging someone else into the mix. All we’re interested in is helping you out. We’re both familiar with what it feels like to end up backed into a corner with nowhere to go. I know it’s probably hard for you to believe after all you’ve been through, but there are good people in the world.” Lane sounded so ernest and sincere it was hard not to have faith in every single word he said.
The teen was silent again clearly trying to make a better decision than the last one that put him on the road to Sin City.
When he spoke, he sounded so young and wistful it cracked my already fragile heart into a million pieces.
“Is it a nice room? I can’t tell you the last time I spent the night on clean sheets.”
Lane coughed to cover a dirty word and nodded even though Bauer could only see the back of his head. “We got adjoining suites. Five-star all the way. You can have Brynn’s room, and we’ll bunk together. You can order anything you want from the room service menu, and we’ll find a shop to get some clothes that fit you. Typically, I’d never let a teenager loose in a swanky hotel on the Vegas Strip, but you make me feel even more small-town than I am, kid.”
“How can you trust me and want to do something nice for me after everything I told you? You know I don’t deserve it. You know there’s a good chance I’ll be gone in the morning.” He sounded so resigned, and I wondered if that was how I sounded every time I had to go back home to my mother and her mistakes.
Lane waited until the teenager met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “I told you there are good people in the world. I choose to believe you are one of them. Nothing you told us makes me think you’re a bad kid, and none of it was anything you wanted to do. You did what you had to do to survive, and you did it when most kids are just figuring out who they are and who they want to be. What we do during desperate times isn’t who we are, that’s the worst version of us. What you do when you have the option to make better choices is the man you’re going to be judged by.”
Bauer seemed to process Lane’s words. I could almost see him weighing the authenticity of the man before him against all the other men who had used and abused him in his young life. I wondered if Lane was ready to take his own advice. What I did when I had no other choices, wasn’t who I was. That girl had nowhere else to go and nowhere else to turn. It was the woman I was now I needed him to see. I wanted desperately for him to understand now that I had choices, lots of them, many of them great and promising, that he was still the one I wanted. He would always be my first choice.
To break through some of the emotionally thick atmosphere that permeated the small space, I dug around on the floorboards by my feet until I found the bag of snacks I’d picked up at the gas station. I held up the bright yellow and green bag containing Lane’s favorite junk food and offered it back.
Bauer screwed his thin face up into a look of utter disgust and flatly informed me that Funyuns were gross.
His reaction made me laugh and forced Lane to chuckle as well. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to put us all on even footing and for me to feel like we’d gained some footing where this young man was concerned.
As soon as we got to the hotel, I was raiding the minibar and crying myself to sleep, so I didn’t have to think about all the horrible things that brought the boy into my life. It made me wonder if Lane had to do the same thing when it came to me. Was every thought he had about me punctuated by the memories of why he couldn’t separate his life from mine? Did he still see the little girl with bumps and bruises, or did he see the woman who had learned to take care of herself?
The thoughts twisted and turned until my head started to pound in an insistent throb.
Screw the minibar, I was ordering a bottle of top-shelf whiskey from room service and passing out before I had to worry about spending another night within touching distance of my favorite blue-eyed cowboy.