Page 3 of Found By You

She smiles weakly when Butch lifts his chin, standing. “I’ll walk you out.”

I head to the front door of my parents’ old farmhouse. It’s gone through a few renovations over the years with the help of my siblings, but it still holds its rustic country charm. A family home, through and through.

One I hope to emulate someday.

Yanking on my steel-toed boots and Carhartt jacket, I walk outside with Butch hot on my heels. And he thinks I’m the annoying one.

“We were going to tell you first,” he says. “But, uh, you’ve been so busy lately. No one’s seen you around.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, reaching my blacked-out company-wrapped truck with Montgomery Repair & Towing written in a bold silver and harsh red with a steel plow on the front. “I’m happy for you guys. You deserve this, Butch.”

He pushes his hands in his pockets, eyeing me as I hop in the driver’s seat. “So do you, ya know,” he huffs, forcing a cloud of steam from his nostrils and into the cold, mid-December night. “That’s what you told me, isn’t it? If even a prick like me can find it, you can find it again.”

My jaw tightens, my resolve crumbling to mere ash. “And what if I don’t want to find it again, Butch, huh? No woman I’ve met for the last five years has changed a goddamn thing for me. I’m done looking, all right? I’ll do ya one better. I’ll be the brother who dies alone on this fuckin’ mountain. How’s that sound? ‘Cause it sounds damn good to me,” I bite out, slamming the door as I start my truck.

Butch goes to grab the door, but I lock it. He bangs on the window, trying to tell me something about not leaving like this. I ignore him and peel out down the snowy driveway.

The last person I’ll be taking any kind of relationship advice from is one of my damn brothers.

Two.

Maci

“Life is a highway…” I whisper-sing to myself as I get back in my white Chevy Equinox after filling the gas tank.

I’m back on the snow-dusted roads a moment later in what I think is either Wyoming or Montana, but I’m not sure anymore. My GPS has been cutting in and out for the last hour as I make my way through the mountains. I should stop for the night, but I’ve got a schedule to keep. And I need to go as far as I can so when I pay for a motel room, I can keep it for a whole day to rest—not just half a night with their annoying early checkouts.

I crank up the heat and place a hand over my belly, sighing to myself at the rumble that follows. “Just a little bit longer, sweet pea, then we’ll find a room and somewhere to eat, I promise.”

Talking to my belly at only ten weeks pregnant might seem a little weird to most, but when you’re driving alone from Oklahoma to Alaska, you take what conversation you can get. Even if it is a growing fetus in your womb.

Most people would say I’m crazy for running away how I am. That things will ‘die down’ in time—they won’t. And even if they do, what’s the point? There’s nothing left for me in Oklahoma. Not after…everything.

He ruined my life. Years of my life wasted on someone who was a walking, talking, good-looking lie. And I hate myself for getting so wrapped around his finger the way I did.

Evan Dunn. The worst mistake of my life, and the father to my unborn child. My child. It all came crashing down when I found out I was pregnant. While I was excited at the prospect of starting a family with him, Evan demanded we get rid of it. When I told him I wanted to keep the baby… He lost it.

Secrets were revealed. Lines were crossed.

My world went up in flames the next morning when his face was plastered on every news outlet: The Governor’s son-in-law dead from a fatal car accident…

Pictures faded in and out on the screen, from his military photo to the one of him and his wife on their wedding day.

I feel just as sick now as I did then.

I was the other woman.

The woman no one wants to be. Not really, anyway. And I had no idea. He should have been an actor for the deceit he was able to pull over my eyes. But no one cares about my side of the story. No one wants to hear that I didn’t know—no matter how true the statement may be.

When the story made the news and the investigation into foul play began shortly after…my name was written alongside the scandal to rock the state.

While the police and detectives believed my story—and all the proof I had to back it up—it was too late. Words were spun to paint me as the villain in every aspect of the term. I had hoped my family and friends would realize the truth. I mean, they’re the ones who should know me best, right?

Wrong.

“There’s no way you couldn’t have known he was married.”

“Do you get off on being a homewrecker?”

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