Page 17 of Rolling Thunder

A rush of emotion boiled up inside her: shame, guilt, embarrassment. She’d never wanted Trent and Evan to come face-to-face. It was the two parts of her life that were never supposed to intersect, lest Evan find out about that missing nine years she’d never told him about. How could she possibly explain? He was still scrutinizing her. She had to say something.

“I mean, sort of…he…he used to be my boss.”

Evan stared at her, clearly dissatisfied with her explanation.

“He wanted more. I didn’t. It’s complicated,” she continued, squirming.

“Must be. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

She looked down at her hands, and sure enough, they were trembling uncontrollably. Her throat closed. Traitorous tears welled up in her eyes, and she tried desperately to wipe them away; wipe all of this away.

It was all getting away from her again, like it seemed to do whenever Evan was around. Despite the heat, she felt cold all over. He took a step closer to her, as if measuring her reaction.

Why did he see everything? How did he know that if he had just reached out and touched her, she would have bolted like a spooked horse? His steady presence undid her. She struggled desperately to swallow the tears back down to the secret place where she hid it all, and it just wouldn’t go. It was closing the proverbial barn door after the horses were long gone.

“Come here,” he said quietly.

She shook her head, half blinded by her tears. “No. Please go. Thank you. I’m really sorry about all this,” she blurted.

“Kayla.”

Somehow, the way he simply stated her name said everything. It said I don’t believe you want me to leave. And, you don’t have to lie. It said, You’re safe. And, Do as I say. So, she did. She could hardly see through her tears, but she did take a step toward him, and felt his hands close gently on her arms. She still wasn’t prepared for it, too much tactile input, and she whimpered a little bit when he touched her. Despite that, she wanted him to touch her. She wanted so desperately for it to be true, to be safe. She was never safe, had never been safe.

“Do I need to beat his ass?” he asked her.

“You beat the shit out of some biker…” Trent’s words echoed in her brain and sobered her. Nothing like a little survival instinct to bring a girl back from a nervous breakdown. Evan looked like someone who could have done time, and she ought to know. She scrubbed her face, drawing a slow, measured breath and swallowing down her tears. Evan probably wasn’t any better than Trent. She knew just how the bad boys rolled, offering protection from whoever was worse than them. She’d found out the hard way, who you needed protection from was them.

“No, you don’t need to beat his ass. Were you really in jail with Trent?” she asked, studying him.

He stared at her, carefully neutral. Then, he shrugged. “I don’t remember him.”

“So, you were in jail.”

His expression seemed to become even more closed and unreadable. For the first time, she was a little afraid of him. A bark from the barn broke the silence and the tension. They both glanced over and saw a little black blur bouncing up every few moments, just clearing the four-foot stall wall with a ridiculous look on her face.

“My dog really is in your barn,” he said, sounding surprised. She barked again, and a few seconds later, her face peeked over the stall wall for a split second, pleading to be let out.

“Your dog is a kleptomaniac, so she’s in jail,” Kayla said dryly.

A spontaneous laugh erupted from Evan. “What’s she done?”

“She steals shit. Four currycombs to date, a hoof pick, a pack of gum. What else have you taken, Abbey?” Kayla asked the dog, approaching the stall she was locked in.

“Wait, did you name my dog?”

“Well, I have to have something to yell at her when she’s running off into the sunset with my stuff.”

He laughed again, and she couldn’t help but chuckle a little herself. The dog was maddening, but somehow adorably precocious.

“Abbey,” Evan pondered. “Where’d that come from?”

“She just looks like an Abbey.” The dog was now sitting, eyes bright with joy and mischief, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, looking happily from one of them to the other as if she knew some great secret that they didn’t.

“Well, she does look pleased with herself. I’ll go get my truck and come back for her, okay?”

She nodded.

“Kayla,” he said, suddenly serious. “I’m not like Trent. You need to know that.”

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