“Shit.”

Rev hunched over the wheel, breathing the curse word as though he didn’t want me to hear.

“What? What now?” I groaned, lifting my head off the window. We’d been driving for twenty minutes down a dirt track behind the safehouse that could barely be called a road. Rev clearly didn’t want to use the dirt road we’d come in on, and I understood why. If the cops were coming, we damn sure didn’t want to run straight into them.

“I don’t know where to go, Misty,” Rev snapped, cutting off my thoughts. I flinched at his anger, then felt my own rising to respond. But he cast another glance my way, eyes implying apology. He was wound tight. So was I. We couldn’t go back to the Bend. And now, we weren’t even safe at the safe house. We were trapped, bugs in amber, frozen in motion. We could drive as much as we wanted. There was nowhere to go.

“A motel?” I offered, rubbing my temples. I didn’t see any other option. We needed someplace to regroup, come up with a new plan. Rev nodded and kept driving, taking us to the highway. The silence between us was oppressive, but I knew he was just focused on getting us somewhere safe.

The Daniel Boone Motor Lodge offered three main amenities: cable, an ice machine, and anonymity. We paid in cash under a fake name. Continuing our stream of fabulous luck, the only available room had a single queen-size bed.

“Do you have any cots?” Rev asked the chain-smoking, 700-year-old man at the front desk.

“Eh?”

“COTS?!”

“No cots. What? You fightin’? No fightin’. You break anything, you pay for it.”

He narrowed his eyes, coughed, and leaned across the table.

“Need dope? Give you a number, you need dope…”

“We’re good,” Rev sneered, grabbing the key and ushering me out.

Our room wasn’t fancy, but at least it was clean. I could see the outline of the springs through the sheets and I knew it would be a long night. Purrloin was even less impressed, and promptly sat herself down at the door, scratching at it in a vain effort to leave. I knew exactly what she was thinking.

I glanced over at the phone on the bedside table. I knew I’d have plenty of calls to make sooner or later. The police would want answers, and so would the insurance company for my house… I couldn’t imagine trying to deal with any of it. Not yet. Not with Rev sitting there on a squeaky armchair, staring at the blank TV, waiting for me to say something. Of course, I was waiting for him to say something too.

I could just keep waiting, expecting him to say something. But I knew he never would. If I wanted to resolve this - or begin to try to sort of resolve this - I’d have to move first.

“Rev….”

“I’m sorry I tried to push you away.”

I literally gasped. Overdramatic or not, it’s the reaction my body had. He didn’t look at me when he said it, or after. I almost wondered if I’d made it up in my head. If he hadn’t said a goddamn thing, but I’d heard what I wanted to hear. But then he turned to me, eyes impassive, and he said it again.

“You’re too damn good for this,” he said. “And too damn good for me.”

“How do you figure?” I scoffed.

“You’re legit. You’ve got a degree, a job, friends you can show your back to without worrying about getting knifed. You could leave this town behind and never look back.”

“Oh, Rev,” I said, shaking my head. “You believe that all you want. But don’t take it out on me. You think I judge you for your life? Me? Of all people? I’m not sitting in this shitty hotel room with you because I’m heiress to the Colgate fortune.”

“You didn’t ask to be Millions’ daughter,” Rev pointed out.

“Yeah, well, whose son are you? The President? The last Nobel Peace Prize recipient? What did your old man do? Why are you in the life?”

Rev’s fingernails dug into the armchair, scraping its tweed fabric.

“He drove,” he growled. “Same as me.”

“And you think if he was a steel worker, you wouldn’t have been a steel worker? If he’d been a dentist, you couldn’t have been an insurance agent?”

“You’re not a criminal,” Rev snapped.

“No,” I said. “I got lucky. I was born without a dick. My dad raised me to walk the right kind of lines because I was his little princess. He wanted me to be safe. He taught me to never trust anyone. If I was a boy, you bet your ass he would have taught me how to steal everything in sight.”

“You can’t just blame your old man for everything,” Rev said. “Every decision I’ve ever made was mine.”

“Yeah, well, you decided not to snitch on Millions when you were arrested,” I said. “And you decided to help me. And you decided to risk your ass to save my cat. And you decided to help your brother. You wanna talk about people being better than other people? You’re a better man than you think, Rev. You’ve got it in your head that I’m so damn special, but I’m the pretty girl fucking your whole life up. You didn’t have to be here. You could have walked out of that prison and never said another word to me, but you didn’t.”

Shit. I hadn’t meant to say that. His head jerked on his neck, turning to look at me.

“Don’t,” he said, voice quaking just the slightest bit. I remembered him looking at me in the morning, when I’d said that very word, meant the same thing. We were both trying so hard not to. Why? Because we figured the other couldn’t help but hurt us?

“Tell me what you saw. That morning. When you watched me sleep. When I told you not to.”

“Misty, I don’t want this,” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s not fair. It won’t end well for either of us.”

“I don’t want it either, but it looks like we’ve both got it, whether we want it or not,” I said, and got to my feet. I went to him, stood above him, leaning down to put my hands on his arms. “We keep fighting this, Rev. I’ve got this voice in my head telling me you want to destroy me. That everything you say, everything you do, is nothing but words. I’ve got my old man telling me that a boy is a shortcut to a broken heart. What have you got? Tell me. Tell me what makes you not want this.”

He stared back at me, our eyes level. He didn’t even go for a glance down at my cleavage, which was impressive. He didn’t speak for a long time. Almost long enough for me to give up again.

“I guess I got the same voice,” he finally said, sounding pained. “Telling me a woman never sticks around. She’s always leave you. Always. Especially the good ones. And Misty, you’re the best. Best I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not gonna leave you, Rev,” I said, blinking, realizing how true that statement could be - if he let it.

“Well, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he breathed. He wrestled his arms free from my hands, took me by the waist. My heart hitched, stretched, seared. It was like setting a joint back in place. The brightest flash of pain, and then the sense that things were finally right. “I couldn’t ever hurt you, Misty. I love you more than freedom. I love you more than my life.”

For the first time, he kissed me without hunger. Without heat. Without expectation. It was just sweet. Just full, sweet, and a little bit sad. He pulled me into his lap, I grabbed his face in my hands.

“Crying?” he asked, pulling back. And that’s when I realized that I was. We were so impossibly screwed. We were hiding from cops and criminals with nothing to show for it but each other, and this dangerous man just told me he loves me. I spent a lifetime waiting for a moment like this. I was crying because our moment happened to come at gunpoint.

“I love you too, Rev.”