Page 29 of Rolling Thunder

“I don’t know how much that shit costs,” he said, holding it out to her. Something clanged shut behind her eyes, so definitively it was almost audible. She recoiled from him.

“I don’t want your money,” she said, her voice strained and hard. What the fuck? Why did everything keep going off the rails?

He looked at her, but she refused to meet his eyes. He tried to understand why she seemed angry that he wanted to pay for the emergency contraceptive. He had no clue what her beliefs were. Maybe she didn’t want to take the pill?

“Look, if you don’t want to take the pill, let’s talk. I wasn’t trying to pressure you.” She shook her head, backing away. He considered catching her again, but she was anywhere but here. The closeness and trembling vulnerability that they’d shared for a few brief moments had evaporated like mist in the rising sun, and now it was as if it had never existed at all.

“It’s fine. It makes sense. I’ll see you around.” It was a shove-off if he’d ever heard one. She turned away and got into her truck. He gathered his dog and the dog’s things. That couldn’t really have ended much worse if he’d written a script for the worst-case scenario. The temporary euphoria of hot sex had been only a brief distraction from the train wreck that was the rest of his life. Seeing her had turned out to be an equally bad train wreck. He drove toward his house thinking this chick was more trouble than he could stomach right now.

KAYLA

Standing in line at the pharmacy, Kayla came to her senses and felt guilty for being nasty to Evan when he was just trying to be a standup guy. Remorse had prompted her to go through the food aisle, and now she stood at the checkout with emergency contraceptive, a pile of honeybuns, and a box of instant coffee. These were things she never used. Everything but the contraceptive was for Canyon Bill. She currently had two men in her life who, for whatever reason, were trying to be good to her, and she’d been horrible to both of them.

When she got home, she hopped the broken-down rusty fence to the adjacent five acres—which was much easier to do sober in daylight—and left the honeybuns and coffee in front of Bill’s tent. Then she went into her house, took the pill with a big cup of coffee, and texted Evan:

I’m sorry.

There was no response, so she steeled herself to get on with her day and get on with her life without him.

She managed to ride three horses before the pill obviously began doing its job, because she’d had to get off the last horse and vomit into the tall grass at the back of the arena. She straightened up, suddenly feeling as though she were melting into a pukey puddle in the sun. She turned around to lead the horse back to the barn and saw Bill paused mid-hammer-swing watching her. Great.

But it was about to get even worse. She saw that unmistakable green El Camino at her gate. As she headed up the driveway, filled with dread, she realized there were two people in the car today. Trent had brought her mother.

Kayla stopped ten feet from the gate, which was blessedly locked, still holding the horse’s reins.

“Kayla, hi,” Leanne said, stepping from the car. At least she had the decency to sound a little hesitant. Kayla could tell just by looking at her that she was using again. She looked thin, sallow, hungry. Of course, being in Trent’s car wasn’t a good sign either.

“Hi, Momma,” Kayla said softly.

“I need your help,” Leanne said flatly.

Trent got out and leaned on the hood of the car, watching Kayla with interest.

“It’s an emergency, or I would never ask,” she went on.

Anger unfurled inside Kayla. Like black ink in clear water, it spread out, blocking out anything beautiful. It was an emergency last year too. Last year, she fell for it. She dropped everything, drove her mother to rehab, and turned her life upside down to pay for it.

Kayla had been briefly mesmerized by the fantasy that her mother would get sober and they could start their lives over together. Despite Kayla mortgaging the farm to pay for rehab, Leanne checked herself out early and went right back to her old life, leaving Kayla high and dry with a huge mortgage she couldn’t pay.

“It’s always an emergency, Momma.” She dared a glance at Trent. Besides driving her mother here, she wasn’t sure what role he played in this. Was he moral support for her mother, or simply there to threaten her if she didn’t comply? Of course, he knew how much cash she’d left the club with the other night. What he didn’t know was that that money was already long gone, between the mortgage and the tab at the feed store.

“You don’t understand! You don’t know how hard it is for me! Trent is the only one who’s been there for me.” As if on cue, her mother’s crocodile tears began.

Kayla had seen this circus act before. Too many times to count.

“My boyfriend was beating me,” Leanne went on. “He threw me out in the middle of the night.”

“And Trent came to get you,” Kayla mocked. Leanne nodded, oblivious to Kayla’s deadpan tone.

The contest within Kayla raged on. Which would win out? Fear of Trent or anger toward her mother?

“First of all, Trent’s not the only one who’s been there for you. I mortgaged Grandma’s farm to put you in rehab and you’re fucking high again! Let’s just cut to the chase. I don’t have any money to give you.”

Trent’s eyebrows went up. Kayla wondered what surprised him more—that Kayla was standing up for herself or that she’d mortgaged the farm she inherited to send her junkie mother to rehab. Right now, she didn’t care. She just couldn’t care for one more second what these two low-lifes wanted from her or the long and twisted history they all shared. Trent and her mother were like a tar pit or quicksand. She was sinking in, and it always started slow and innocuous. But before she knew it, she would try to extricate herself, only to find she was paralyzed, helpless, and sinking right back down to the miserable place where they dwelled. She felt like she was going to be sick again, the hot sun cooking her skin, and she needed to hose this horse off. With Bill’s help, there was hope again that she could turn a profit on the farm and keep from losing it to the bank. Her mother was the opposite of hope. Her mother was the place where all hope went to die. Desperate to get away, she could already feel the sticky, sinking sensation of her mother’s hopeless lifestyle pulling at her.

“I’m not high, Kayla, I swear!” The desperation in her mother’s voice was like a branch snapping, the branch she clung to trying to save herself from the mire.

“I can see your track marks from here,” a man’s gruff voice interjected. Kayla realized Bill had come quietly up to flank her. Leanne stared at him in shock and silence for almost a full minute. In the nick of time, Bill had broken the spell. Kayla looked at her mother and Trent with fresh eyes and took a step back from them. Closer to Bill.

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