Page 42 of Burn the Wild

Maybe there are two of me. The Reese I created to survive in the real world, and the Reese I get to keep for myself. The hidden Reese that no one knows.

It doesn’t matter. No one wants to know the real me.

I don’t even know the real me.

Panic builds on top of my lungs, my heart, my chest. I can’t breathe. I need to breathe.

Out. I need to go out.

I dress fast. Stilettos. The sexiest dress I brought with me. Makeup. Glitter all over my body. Gold eye shadow.

When I step outside the chalet, my lungs release. I can breathe again.

I scan the dusk-lit field. The chalet is set so far out, it’s desolate. A pang hits me that I’m not on the ranch. That another person doesn’t want me around. I shake the grim thought out of my head.

I spot a ranch hand headed toward a busted truck and rush up to him. “Hey, hi,” I say. “I’m Jane.”

It’s the same ranch hand who brought me my coffee. It was Ruby’s idea. A sweet gesture, even if it pissed off Ford. Good. Whatever his problem is, I want no part of it.

“Can you take me into town?” I gulp air. “A bar. With whiskey.”

His eyes graze over my hips before landing on my face. “Whiskey, huh?”

“Yes.”

His grizzled features appear amused, but he nods. “Get in the truck.”

Hitching rides with strangers. It’s quick, impulsive, and feels so much like the old Reese I want to cry.

Nowhere is a dive bar about thirty minutes from Runaway Ranch in a small town called Resurrection. Sam dropped me off with the prophetic words of warning, “Two o’clock means you run.”

I weave through the high-top tables littered with beer cans and ashtrays, headed toward the bar. A jukebox plays outlaw country. Willie and Waylon and Johnny Cash. The scent of whiskey and stale peanuts lingers in the air.

It’s not a Vegas nightclub, but it’ll do.

“Whiskey and beer,” I tell the bartender as I settle onto a stool. I have no idea how I’m paying for it, but that’s a problem for Drunk Reese.

“You look familiar,” a man next to me says, giving me an approving nod. He wears flannel and a trucker cap.

“Instagram influencer,” I lie. “Knitting.”

“I don’t have Instagram.”

I bat my lashes at him. “Lucky you.” I lift my beer. “Cheers.”

We knock the lips of our cans and chug at the same time.

I finish first.

“Damn, girl, you can put those away,” he says, closing the distance between us. I bristle. He smells like tobacco and sour body odor. On his face is a leering grin. He gestures at the bartender, who slides another beer and a shot of whiskey in front of me.

I take a deep breath and debate. I know what the guy’s trying to do. But I want that distraction, don’t I?

My body is begging my mind to stop thinking, so I silence it with a shot. I down the beer in three quick gulps. The sharp smell of yeast suddenly has me flashing back to Gavin. My first record deal when I turned twelve. His sharp, impatient gaze as I signed the contract. A Vegas nightclub on my eighteenth birthday, and the never-ending flow of liquor. Kyler handing me a whiskey the minute I woke up from a hangover. Sex I don’t remember. My stomach curdles at the vile nostalgia.

I don’t want to be that person, do I? But I don’t know how to stop.

I want to be free. But all today showed me is I don’t know how.

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