Page 55 of Rolling Thunder

“They’ll kill him! Evan will go back to prison! He can’t do this!” she cried. Her injuries were the least of her worries.

Bill lit her a cigarette.

“He has to do this,” he said quietly, handing her the smoke.

She tried to smoke, but her whole body shook.

Spinning away from Bill, she stomped up her porch stairs, flung open the front door, and stormed inside. She was on her own mission.

She found it easily enough. The conveniently unattended open bottle of whiskey in the middle of her kitchen table. She marched over. Then paused. Stared at it. Looked over her shoulder.

Bill, who followed her inside, now deliberately averted his gaze and backed out to sit on the front stoop. Bill knew damn well where she was going. Yet he said nothing, didn’t even spare her a glance over his shoulder.

Annie’s words echoed in her mind. “Call me if you feel like drinking.”

“Fuuuuck,” she growled through gritted teeth.

She abandoned the whiskey and headed for the barn.

She rinsed out her mouth, hosed the ground-in dirt and filth from her face and hair, cleaned and doctored her cuts with the ancient supplies in barn’s dusty first aid kit. There was no mirror in the barn, and she didn’t really want to know how badly she was beat up this time. She could feel that her cheek was swollen as she dabbed the grit off her face. Instead of dwelling on that, she meticulously tended and fed each horse in the barn. She cleaned out a few stalls that were hardly dirty. She swept the aisle. Twice.

Bill knew she needed space and mercifully left her to herself.

By the time the sun was going down, there was nothing left to distract her.

Evan and Jake weren’t back yet. She returned to the house and found the whiskey bottle was gone, no longer taunting her from the kitchen table. For a moment, she felt a stab of terror that Bill himself might be drinking it, but there he sat on her stoop, unassuming, with only his 9mm Luger at his side. She sat beside him.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

He nodded slowly without looking at her. “I’ll just stay here till they get back, then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Her heart clenched for a moment. “I wish Grandma Kay was here,” Kayla said quietly, her voice breaking a little.

“You and me both,” he said. Their eyes met in the dim light.

Just before the grief swamped her, she heard the distant rumble of a lone motorcycle turning onto the end of the road.

Anxiety shot through her, and she stood up, pacing. She recognized the sound. It was Evan’s bike. What had they done? What would the consequences be?

It didn’t take long for her to find out.

CHAPTER 23

To her shock and surprise, following behind Evan’s bike was Trent’s El Camino, driven by Jake. They came through the still-open gate, drove right past her and Bill on the porch, all the way down to the trailer loop, and backed the El Camino into the barn until it was hidden from view.

Bill got up without a word and walked purposefully in their direction. Bill was totally in his element dealing with the violence that had suddenly taken over her life.

Kayla remained on the porch, bewildered.

The men joined each other in front of the barn in a brief conversation she obviously wasn’t invited to. Had they killed Trent? Why else would they come back with just his car?

Then the three men spun and walked pointedly up the driveway toward the house, Evan making for the porch, Jake and Bill veering off toward her truck.

Apparently, it was decided that Canyon Bill and Jake were going to take her truck to go pick up Jake’s bike, wherever that was. They silently climbed in and drove away—without asking permission, without a glance, and without explanation.

At last, she and Evan were alone.

Moving inside to the kitchen, she watched him peel off his riding gloves. His knuckles were bloody and bruised.

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