Page 44 of Rolling Thunder

The people at the Home Improvement Channel said that the buzz about him would die down quickly, but they wanted to use it to promote the show in the meantime. They wanted him to do more interviews, but he declined. He’d said what he needed to say. At least this time, he felt that the headlines were true to him as a person. Now, they were talking about what he himself actually said instead of gossip. He finally had his honor back, after years of struggling to reclaim it. And somehow, that honor had made him lose her.

Without Kayla by his side, everything felt hollow. Every time he passed her farm, he wondered. He knew she wasn’t okay. An idea struck him one afternoon when he saw Canyon Bill sitting on the front steps of the mobile home on the far side of Kayla’s property. He pulled over on a whim. Bill stood and met him at the gate.

“Is she all right?” he asked Bill without explanation.

Bill put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it thoughtfully. “It ain’t exactly my place to say.”

“I don’t know exactly how to say this except to just say it… She told me not to come around anymore, but it looked like somebody had tuned her up. She had a black eye. Wouldn’t tell me who did it.”

Bill looked off across the farm toward her little house.

“I saw the shiner. But she was mighty drunk the night before. She might have just fell down of her own accord,” he said noncommittally.

“I don’t believe that, and I don’t think you do either. She dropped me like a hot potato overnight and nothing happened between us. I think it has to do with that lowlife Trent.”

Bill nodded a little but said nothing.

“I think she’s in trouble, but she won’t let me help her.”

“In AA, they have a saying. You can’t make nobody drink, and you can’t keep nobody sober.” Bill looked at him. “You know what I’m sayin’, boy? She’s got to ask for help, or else you can’t give it to her. You ain’t responsible for her choices, and you can’t make ’em for her.”

Evan nodded grimly. “I guess you’re right, but it doesn’t make me hate this any less.”

Bill nodded back. “I get it. I’ve been in some tough spots too. Sometimes there just ain’t nothin’ to be done about it but stand back and wait.” He paused, looking into Evan’s eyes. “I’ll keep an eye on her the best I can.”

Evan clapped Bill’s arm softy in thanks, took a long look at her house across the pasture, and swung back onto his bike.

Days passed in a blur of interview requests and phone calls from the network trying to finalize the second season of the show. Suddenly, he and Dan were in a position to negotiate. Overnight, he’d become some kind of internet sensation. Their producer sat down with them and said, “Everyone loves a good comeback story.”

CHAPTER 18

Kayla had sat astride plenty of horses that were ticking timebombs. She had an instinct for it. She could swing into the saddle and immediately feel a steady horse, or one that was just pretending to be. There might be a few easy steps or even a few easy days, but the tension was always in there, waiting for the moment to explode. Then, without warning her world would turn upside down, literally. She’d be sent tumbling through the air when the horse finally blew.

She didn’t have to swing into the saddle this time. Her whole life was already a ticking time bomb. She felt frozen and powerless to stop it. She carried some tiny spark of hope that Trent would tire of the game and leave her alone. He had to drive almost an hour out into the middle of nowhere to fuck with her. Surely he had plenty of other girls who were closer and easier. He was counting on her to just cave. She’d resolved not to go crawling back no matter what. If he came for her, she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Maybe he would tire of her and she could make things right with Evan.

As the days dragged on and his texts became increasingly furious, she lost hope that he would ever let it go. He was twice as motivated since he evidently felt that she could sink him if the police asked about their history. She knew in her gut the timebomb was about to detonate.

Around dusk one beautiful Saturday evening, she headed back to the house after finishing her night chores. She planned to get a beer and admire the view from her porch as night quietly fell over her revitalized farm. As soon as she entered the doorway of the farmhouse, she knew. She stood there frozen, mouth dry, eyes wide, looking around. It wasn’t the first time he’d broken in. The hairs on her arms stood on end, and a slow-motion calm came over her.

Trent stepped out of the shadows, holding a can of beer he’d obviously pilfered from her refrigerator. He crushed it in his fist, and the sound startled her. He threw the empty can on the floor and stalked toward her like a wild animal.

“What’s it gonna be, Kiki?” he demanded. For an agonizingly long moment, she was just a deer in the headlights. She couldn’t act. She couldn’t speak. The bomb she dreaded went off.

Trent’s nonexistent patience ran out, and he launched toward her, grabbed her by the arm, and violently hauled her through the back door and yanked her effortlessly down her porch steps. “Let’s go see the old man.”

The thought of Canyon Bill getting hurt jolted her into action. She fought back, digging her heels into the crushed shell. “No!”

“No?” Trent mocked, dragging her down the driveway. All her power had been taken from her just that easily. Enough was enough. She wasn’t going to let this happen again.

“I’ll go with you,” she blurted.

He paused, still gripping her arm so hard, she was sure there would be more bruises.

She waited. The old survival instincts were there. Appease him too much and he wouldn’t believe it. She had to wait and see what he would do. His eyes narrowed.

“I just need to pack a few things,” she added, carefully.

His grip on her loosened slightly, and her arm throbbed. She focused on the pain, breathing carefully, measuring his response. She had to play things just right in this moment, or everything would go terribly wrong.

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