Page 48 of Prodigal Son

“I can’t.”

“Damn it, Vito, stop the car! Pull over!”

He grudgingly pulled onto the median where the exit ramp forked off the highway. She slapped him in the arm.

“Stop hitting me! I’m sorry. I thought you might change your mind.”

“Well, I’m not going to.”

He sighed and merged back onto the Turnpike taking the exit toward Lancaster.

Feeling maneuvered and helpless, she glared out the window. An annoying ringtone filled the car. “Are you going to get that?”

“It’s not my phone, it’s yours.”

“Oh.” She should probably program a better sound for her notifications. Scowling at the screen, she cursed. “Why the hell is Adrian calling me?”

Vito winced. “I might have contacted him when I was looking for you.”

She tsked. “Seriously, Vito?”

“I didn’t know where you were! I thought you might have hooked up.”

“Give me a little credit.” She sent the call to voicemail. “I can’t believe you called him.”

She had given Adrian three years of her life and, in the end, he emptied her savings account to cover his ass from getting fired after embezzling money from his job. She hadn’t known he was a criminal. She especially wouldn’t think he was a thief. Thieves typically acquire assets or money. Adrian was always broke. Turned out, he never had any money because he spent it all on his other girlfriend. Destiny was just the fool funding their relationship and unknowingly paying back his stolen loans to save his ass from jail.

She should have turned him in, but she didn’t. Vito wanted to kick his ass, but she stopped that from happening, too.

She gave three years of her life to a man who never truly loved her. Adrian used her and made a fool out of her. Retaliating would have only drawn out her pain and exposed her ignorance to more people.

In the end, she was so shaken she just wanted Adrian to go away. He destroyed her trust, not just for him, but for all people. She’d become so cynical, she swore off men all together. It had been three cold years, and her heart still hadn’t healed.

“Ah, you know you’ve arrived in Amish country when you can smell the horse shit.”

She ignored her brother and continued to stare out the window as the pretty farmland rolled by. Even in winter, when the grass had hardened and the earth faded to brown, she found peace in the country.

The sun caressed the gray clouds, casting golden shadows on the fields below. Red barns dotted the hillsides and smoke billowed from chimneys on farmhouses. The primitive countryside reminded her of an old oil painting—“Stop the car!”

She shot up in her seat, and Vito startled, jerking the wheel and veering off the road. “What is it?”

Destiny’s head whipped around as they passed a barn tucked away on a spread of open farmland. “Get off the next exit.”

The turn signal clicked, and Vito edged the car back onto the road. “Why are we getting off?”

She didn’t have a rational explanation. “I need to see something.”

“Could you be less cryptic?”

“There was a barn back there. I recognized it.”

He frowned and pulled off the exit. “This is Amish country.”

“Just turn right and follow that road.”

He did as she instructed. Destiny searched the area for any landmark that looked familiar. “I’ve been here before.”

“When?”

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