Page 4 of Christmas With the Convict

“Something wrong with your car?”

I squeal and jump back in my seat. Luckily, he doesn’t open his eyes and find me memorizing every detail of his gorgeous face.

“No. No,” I laugh awkwardly. “Just planning our route. And we’re off!”

As we head toward the highway, Chase never looks back at that horrible place. He keeps his eyes closed, and I turn on the seat warmer for him. I think he falls asleep before we’re a mile down the road.

I smile at him, resisting the urge to hold his hand all the way to Aspen.

Just before the on-ramp, we pass a yellow sign with bold black letters:

Do not pick up hitchhikers.

Chapter 2

CHASE

I shouldn’t be here.

Not in this expensive car. Not scuffing the leather with my dirty clothes. Not anywhere near this angel, this perfect creature that looks like she’s never experienced an ounce of hardship.

I don’t hate her for that. All my life has been spent in the gutter with people who know pain like a brother, especially these last six years. Pain turns people bitter. It beats them into a bruised, swollen pulp, and they turn that pain against the people around them.

I don’t hate them for that either, but I’m tired of it.

Is it any wonder I slept through the first two hours of the drive?

I wake up swaddled by the warm seat. Wendy hums a tune to herself and taps her fingers on the steering wheel. Her nails are painted red with little snowmen and stars as gold as her hair.

It’s strange seeing her outside the prison. The first time I caught a glimpse of her, I was mopping a hall. She came strolling by, practically skipping, silky blond hair bouncing with each click of her heels. It was like a golden fox had found its way under all the barbed wire and chain-link, passed the guards and their rifles, and into the concrete hell. She was sunshine inside, and I got myself in her class as soon as I could.

Every night, I saw her blue doe eyes in my dreams.

That was all it was supposed to be. She was my beacon, my light at the end of the tunnel. A reminder that the outside world was still there, and there might be beauty waiting for me if I could survive long enough to find it.

But I shouldn’t have thrown myself into her life. No good that can come of this. Whatever perfect holiday home is waiting for her at the end of this drive will be blackened by me, the unwanted guest. They’ll treat me like a stray dog, and they’ll be right to do so.

I should tell her what I did, what got me locked up. If I do, I know she’ll stop the car, open the door, and leave me here on the side of the road. Confessing now before this gets out of hand would be the right thing to do…

I’ve never been good at doing the right thing.

“You’re awake.” Wendy smiles, beaming like a sunrise. “Get some good sleep? You were drooling.”

I sit up and wipe my chin. “Haven’t slept that deeply in years.”

My words hang in the air. Even now, the prison seems to be chasing me, taunting me, demanding that I come back and embrace the cold cuffs around my wrists.

“Oh, God. Those beds must have been horrible,” Wendy laughs.

Shelaughs.

And I can’t help but laugh too.

“Hard as stone. And cold,” I say. “Is there a heater in this seat?”

“Seat warmers.”

My mind drifts to the old truck I drove before I was incarcerated. The heater only worked because the radiator did a shit job of keeping the engine cool…

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