Chapter 21
Anna
When I woke up on Monday, I felt like shit. My head throbbed dully. Unless I had been drinking heavily, I didn’t usually get a headache. My stomach turned with the first signs of morning sickness, and even though I hadn’t eaten yet, I had terrible heartburn. I had aches and pains all over. So, this was the wonderful world of early pregnancy symptoms? How was I going to get through the next nine months like this?
The idea that I was going to have to do this alone, that having a baby wasn’t a phase, but the rest of my life had changed, made me panic. I wasn’t ready for this. How was I going to raise the baby? I barely had a grip on my own life never mind creating another.
I heard Luke move around the cabin outside the bedroom, and I was relieved I was alone in the room. Tears rolled down my cheeks and everything ahead of me seemed blacker than black. I tried not to cry. I had to keep it together. I wiped my cheeks and walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I dressed and walked to the living room. I managed to push the tears far enough away that I could force the smile that Luke would buy.
“Can we go to town so I can call Lizabeth?” I asked, sitting down on the couch.
Luke shook his head. He was leaning against the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in his hand. Just the smell of the coffee made my stomach turn.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Luke said.
I didn’t even argue with Luke about why it wouldn’t be a good idea. I didn’t want to know. Getting into town to talk to Lizabeth was essential. I was freaking out, and I needed the steady voice of reason of my best friend to pull me through. I couldn’t talk to Luke about what was going on. I couldn’t afford the one person who had been willing to put me up to turn his back on me.
“Please, Luke,” I said, and I couldn’t hold back the tears as well as I thought. They welled in my eyes and fell over my cheeks. “I really need to talk to Lizabeth.”
Luke frowned, and he looked like he was going to ask why. I willed him not to go there. I didn’t want to speak to him about it. I didn’t want to have to lie to make up an excuse. I just wanted to go to town and speak to my friend.
“I guess we can go, but you have to make it quick,” Luke said after he considered it. I wasn’t sure what his reason was for saying no at first—maybe the weather was playing up again—but I didn’t care. I was freaking out, and I needed Lizabeth to ground me.
We drove into town, and I noticed that the sky was clear and the weather was crisp. There was no pending snow. I didn’t comment on it.
I walked to the payphone I had found before when Luke stopped in front of the store. He went in to buy a couple of things, and I dialed Travis’s number. I waited anxiously and asked for Lizabeth when he answered. I was in luck, Lizabeth was with Travis, and he handed the phone to her right away.
“I was wondering when I would hear from you again,” Lizabeth said. “You’re safe, right?”
The last time Lizabeth and I had spoken, she had warned me to stay away from Steamboat Springs because my dad was on his way to Colorado.
“I’m safe,” I said. The kind of trouble I was in was different than my dad finding me.
“Are you okay?” Lizabeth asked, picking up right away that something was wrong. She was my best friend, and she knew me better than anyone.
I shook my head, the lump in my throat rising even though I had told myself not to cry. “I’m pregnant,” I blurted out. Tears ran freely now.
“What? That’s impossible,” Lizabeth said.
“I took the test. It was positive,” I said crying. “My period was late. God, Lizabeth, I don’t know what to do.”
“This can’t be. You barely had sex. People do it every day and still struggle to get pregnant. Maybe you’re just late. Let’s work it out.”
I agreed, but I knew it would be futile. Not only had the pregnancy test been positive, but I was also suffering all the symptoms. I gave Lizabeth the date of my last period and let her calculate it.
“And?” I asked when Lizabeth was silent for a while on the other side of the line.
“Either you’re very late, or you really are pregnant,” Lizabeth said.
My crying had stopped, and even though it was close to the surface, I was able to gain composure.
“I’m pregnant,” I confirmed. “I’m getting morning sickness and heartburn and headaches and everything. I’m so tired all the time, all I do is sleep. I’m not even trying to be optimistic about it and hoping for a late period.”
Lizabeth was quiet on the other side of the line, and I could picture her frown as she tried to figure things out on my behalf. God, I missed her. I wished I could be with her right now. Lizabeth had been my support system for as long as we had been friends, the person I turned to with all the questions I would have asked my mother, had she still been around. Anger replaced fear, and I resented my dad for being such an asshole that I had had to run away, that I’d had to leave behind the life and the support I had. Anger was easier to digest than fear. Anger I understood. I was relieved it had changed, and I felt a little more on top of things, now.
“What are you going to do?” Lizabeth asked.
I opened my mouth, about to tell Lizabeth that I didn’t know what to do when I spotted a black SUV parked across the road from me. The car was so suspicious, all big and black and ominous and out of place in the small town of Dillon that it was impossible to miss. Everything I wanted to say to Lizabeth left my mind, and a terrible terror overcame me.
“Are you still there?” Lizabeth asked when I didn’t answer her.
“I think my dad is here,” I whispered into the receiver. “He found me.”
“Oh, my God!” Lizabeth cried. “Get out of there, Anna!”
“I’ll call you when I can,” I said and slammed the receiver down. I had to get out of there as soon as possible. I had to find Luke and run.
I left the phone booth and ran down the road, looking over my shoulder at the black SUV. The windows were tinted, but I got a glimpse of the driver’s face, and I was almost a hundred percent sure it was my dad. I would know those hawk eyes, that thin pursed line of a mouth, anywhere.
When I ran into the store Luke had entered, it didn’t take me long to find him between the shelves. He looked up when he saw me and frowned.
“He’s here,” I breathed. “My dad found me.” I was out of breath, both from the exertion and the fear. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I couldn’t think about anything other than getting away.
“Oh, shit,” Luke said. He put the basket with all the supplies he had collected down on the floor and left it there. He took my hand, and we hurried out of the shop together. I looked over my shoulder before I climbed into the truck. The black SUV was still there like an omen, reminding me of the past that was catching up with me.
Luke threw the car into gear and peeled out of the parking spot. He floored it, tires squealing and flew down the road. I looked over my shoulder and saw the black SUV doing the same, pulling into the road as fast as Luke was.
“They’re following us!” I cried.
“Don’t worry, I’ll lose them. I have before,” Luke said.
“What do you mean, before?” I asked.
Luke shook his head. “They followed me back from the store the other day. It’s why I didn’t want to come into town in the first place.”
“Don’t you think you should have told me about it?” I asked.
“We can fight about that another time, first, let me shake them.”
Luke was being reasonable even though I was upset about the fact that he hadn’t told me about the black SUV following him. If I had known, I wouldn’t have pushed to come to town to speak to Lizabeth. But Luke was right, we could talk about it later. For now, we had to get away from them. I had to get rid of my dad as soon as possible. If he caught up with me and found Luke, there was no telling what he would do to us. My dad wasn’t known for his mercy, and the last thing on earth I wanted was for him to hurt Luke when Luke had done everything to take care of me.
Luke raced down the road we had taken to come to town, and I witnessed superb driving skill. He handled the truck like it was a race car and in no time, the SUV had to step on it to keep up. Luke shot past the road that led to the cabin and drove on, indicating and turning in the opposite direction down another dirt road. This road split up into several smaller roads that led into the trees. Luke seemed to know where he was going and drove between the trees, taking turns whenever he could, making last-minute decisions, stopping after a while. He switched off the car and waited.
“What are you doing?” I asked. I was still panicking. If they found us here, we had nowhere to go.
“They won’t find us here. I know the road like the back of my hand, but to someone new, it’s like a labyrinth. We’ll wait them out before we head back to the cabin. They won’t find us there once we manage to get onto the dirt road and between the trees.”
I tried to listen to Luke, to understand what he was saying to me, but I was in a flat panic. What if my dad found us? What if he hurt Luke? What if he took me back home and forced me to marry Sam? I didn’t know if I could handle it. I didn’t know if I would survive the life with the man I loathed.
After a while, Luke switched on the car again and slowly crept out of his hiding spot between the trees. He looked left and right, driving out of the maze of dirt roads and onto the main road. We kept our eyes open for the black SUV, but it was nowhere to be seen. Luke turned onto the dirt road that led to the cabin, and finally, we were safe.
“Oh, my God, what am I going to do?” I cried out. I was still trying to get a handle on my panic. I was freaking out.
Luke wrapped his fingers around my wrists and forced me to look at him. “Listen to me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. All right? They think we live somewhere in those dirt roads because it’s the second time I’ve taken them in there. We’ll be all right. They lost our trail.”
I nodded and forced myself to calm down. Luke was right, he knew what he was doing, and he would take care of me. I had to trust him. It was the only thing I had left.