Page 26 of Bleeding Blackheart

I get the air adjusted to my liking and rest a hand on the wheel. “I want to be rude. I want people to think I’m a jerk because it’ll make them want to stay the hell away from me.”

She smoothes her hair off her shoulders and puts her seat back. “Mission accomplished.”

I double-check to make sure I have my shotgun, two spare pistols, and my ID. Once I’m good to go, I take off down the main road to get on the interstate.

The first place we’re headed to is Colorado Springs. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go but have never been, and it’ll get us over a third of the way to our destination.

Montana sits in her seat quietly while I drive. She’s more quiet than I’m used to, and it’s driving me nuts. I don’t like listening to music while I drive, so I try to get a conversation going with her instead so she can rattle off and maybe it’ll make the journey go faster. “You ever been to Colorado?”

Her entire body locks up like she’s going into shock, and she covers her face. “We’re going to Colorado?”

“That’s our first stop.”

She crosses her arms and looks out the window, hiding away even more.

“What’s wrong with Colorado?”

“Nothing.” She glances at me and looks straight ahead with a blank expression on her face.

I hope to God Montana has some useful survival skills because lying isn’t one of them. “What happened in Colorado?”

I take a glance at her and see her eyes watering, and I wait for her to answer. Minutes pass, and she doesn’t say a damn thing. “I expect you to answer me when I’m asking you something, Montana.”

She scoffs. “Blackheart, I don’t know shit about you, and you avoid my questions like they’re bullets, so you can fuck off.”

If I weren’t in traffic, I’d pull over and remind her who the fuck’s in charge, but the faster we get to where we’re going, the faster we can part ways an I can be free of her unruly ass.

Almost an hour passes without a word between us when she looks over at me. “Who’s Margaret?”

Her question catches me so off guard that I nearly blackout on the road. “Just some girl.”

Bile rises in my throat as soon as the last word leaves my lips. Margaret was more than that. She wasn’t just somegirl. She was Dallas’ baby sister. I dated her for three years. We lost our V-cards together. I thought I was going to marry her. She was pregnant before my father killed her. Only eight weeks, but still. She’s probably rolling over in her grave at me talking about her like she was a nobody.

Montana pauses, and I think she’s forgotten about the entire thing until her voice softens. “And she passed away.” She says her words so cautiously, but they feel like a knife to my heart.

“Yep. She was murdered.”

Montana sighs and places a hand over her heart. “You got her horse the day she died.”

I speed up while I drive, not wanting her to see how hard this is for me. I guess my secret isn’t as big of a secret as I thought. It’s not hard to see I can’t stand Violet. But I don’t know how the fuck she guessed that she belonged to Margaret. “How do you know that?” My blood boils, thinking it was Dallas who told her when I was out of the room. He loves talking about his sister as if she’s still alive. I don’t like talking about her at all.

She sniffles and wipes her face. “It’s the way you look at her. When you look at Violet, you just have this . . . this look. Like you’re so disgusted. It’s the same look you had on your face when Dallas mentioned Margaret. Andthen you shut him up. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

Montana hasn’t done anything particularly wrong, but I’m furious with her. Can’t she tell I don’t want to talk about any of this shit? I grip the wheel, digging my nails into the worn material. “Anything else you wanna add, Sherlock?”

Montana turns her head to me slowly while I reduce my speed so I don’t slam into the car in front of us. Tears spill down her face, and she wipes her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

You should be sorry.Prodding and prying in my business. She probably feels embarrassed. She doesn’t know a goddamn thing about me or Margaret or what happened to us. Wanting her to feel worse, I push her further. “What are you sorry for?” I expect her to apologize for being nosy. Or to tell me to screw myself. But her next words hit me harder than I expect.

Wiping her eyes, she faces her window. “For your loss.”

We’re halfway to town when I can’t bear the silence any longer. After I made my little fox cry, she kept hermouth shut, and so did I.

But I want to hear her annoying little voice for some reason. It scratches an itch in my brain I can’t explain. “Are you hungry?”

She looks over at me like I’m speaking German. “What?”

“I asked if you were hungry, Montana. Do you need food?”

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