“A check-engine light, all on its own, is serious.”
“As I discovered when the car stopped working. For now, could we save the lecture? I’m sure I’ll do something equally stupid at some point, and then I’ll happily listen to you drone on and—”
“Did you check any of your other gauges?” he interrupted.
Savannah blinked. “No.”
“Because the battery seems to be fine, the coolant isn’t off the charts, but the gas seems completely nonexistent.”
She peered over Collin’s shoulder. Sure enough, the red gas gauge pointed straight down, hanging at least an inch under the letter E.
She really was an idiot. Savannah closed her eyes, and would have thunked her head against the roof of the car had Collin not still been sitting in her seat.
“I didn’t think to check that,” she said, her voice quiet.
“I’ve got a full can in the truck—never know when you’re going to need gas on the farm.” He climbed out of the car and pushed past Savannah.
“Of course you do,” she said to the air.
Collin Tyler, Good Samaritan, would never let his vehicle run out of gas. He would never ignore a check-engine light, and if his vehicle did run out of gas or stop working for some reason, he would have a solution.
Savannah Walters, Screwup, would forget to check her tank when she left Memphis, and would run out of gas five miles from her destination.
He returned with the portable can, opened the tank and began filling it through a large yellow funnel.
“This old can only holds a couple of gallons, but it’ll get you into town. You should fill up as soon as possible.” And there he went with the free advice. He just couldn’t help himself. And here she was wanting to stomp her feet or sink into the ground.
Running out of gas. It was a teenage mistake, not something a twenty-seven-year-old should do.
Collin finished filling the tank, closed the hatch and nodded. “See if she’ll fire this time,” he said.
Savannah slid behind the wheel and said a please, please, please before cranking the key. When the engine roared to life, she sank back against the beige seat.
Collin tossed the gas can into the bed of the truck and then crossed back to the front of the Honda, closing the hood. He tapped twice on the roof of the car. “Gas up on your way out to the ranch, Savannah, and get that check-engine thing looked at. Better to be safe than sorry.”
He offered a quick wave and in a moment was behind the wheel of his truck. He pulled around her, honked his horn once and drove toward the setting sun.
Better to be safe than sorry.
Savannah closed her door and then pressed back into the seat.
She glanced into the rearview and smirked. “Well, Savannah, not making that left really is turning out to be a great decision.” She put the car in Drive and continued through to the town.
The last rays of sunlight sank into the earth as she turned off the main road and onto the gravel lane that led to her childhood home.
She’d stopped in town to fill the gas tank. There’d been no sign of Collin or his big truck, thankfully, and the kid working the register in the station had barely looked up from his magazine long enough to take the twenty she’d pushed across the counter. Then she took the long way to the ranch, so that it was now after eight. For as long as she could remember, Bennett and Mama Hazel retired to their master suite by eight, and they were both up before dawn.
She stopped for a moment under an old maple tree. The porch light was on, glimmering in the twilight, as it had been every night for as long as she could remember. The last one in for the night was supposed to turn it off, and she wondered if Levi was the straggler tonight or if their parents had changed that eight o’clock bedtime habit.
Her brother, older by nine months and a full school year, rarely stayed out late. Or at least he hadn’t when they were kids. She had no idea what he did as an adult. He’d been gone, to college and then playing in the NFL, while she’d finished school and waited tables at the Slope. She’d left for the reality show just before the injury that had taken him out of football forever.
Didn’t matter. She would park, grab her overnight bag from the backseat and worry about the rest of her luggage tomorrow. Assuming she stayed past tomorrow. Savannah was still unsure just what she wanted to do. Go or stay. Wait out the scandal she knew was coming or run as fast and as far from it as she could.
Her father’s beat-up F-150 sat under a tall tree at the side of the house, along with a newer model that had Levi written all over it—from the flat-black paint job to the chromed bumpers and roll bar. Mama Hazel’s familiar station wagon was gone, probably traded in for the navy sedan that sat under the carport. Savannah couldn’t remember the last time Mama Hazel drove herself anywhere, but she liked to have a car handy “just in case.”
Huh. All the cars were accounted for, so who’d left the light on?
She took a deep breath as she pulled the old Honda in behind Bennett’s truck.
Savannah climbed the steps of the familiar farmhouse with her overnight bag slung over her shoulder. Her hand shook as she reached for the white-enamel doorknob and she willed it to still. This was her home. The place she was safe.
How many times had she been told that as a child? Never, not a single time, had she wanted those words to be true more than she did now. There was a storm coming, one that could shatter her, and she had a feeling she would need the strength of these old walls if she were to withstand it. Maybe, just maybe, if she hid here long enough the storm would never come.
Her agent had said as much. If she left quietly, if she stayed away, maybe nothing would come of her indiscretion.
Savannah swallowed hard and twisted the knob. The door swung in, opening to the small entryway with its familiar hardwood floors and the same brass hat rack in the corner that she remembered from her childhood. Stairs, with that familiar navy blue carpet runner, rose a few feet in front of her, dividing the living area from the dining room and kitchen. A lamp remained on near Mama Hazel’s rocking chair, the book she was reading lying pages-down on the seat, and in the low light she could see the pictures of Levi and her lining the wall. Levi’s trophies were on the mantel. She crossed the room, ran her fingers over a new frame and caught her breath.
They’d framed the write-up in the Slippery Rock Gazette of her third-place finish in the talent show. She hadn’t even called them after, had just said yes to the trip to Nashville and taken off. Under the frame was a copy of a music magazine with her smiling face on the cover. It ran the week her first single hit the top twenty before beginning its slow descent back down the charts.
“Van.” The softly spoken word startled her, and she turned. Levi stood in the gloominess, coffee cup in hand. He wore his usual jeans and T-shirt, his dark-skinned arms looking like the trunks of a couple of the trees she’d passed on the highway. He still kept his hair cropped close to his head, and even in the darkness, she thought his deep brown eyes had just a hint of amber.
It was the same amber her eyes had. When they were kids, she liked to make up stories about how she’d been adopted by her birth family, and the people who’d had her before had been her kidnappers.
Of course, that had only been wishful thinking. The Walters family was wonderful, but they weren’t hers. Her family had left her on the steps of a police station in Springfield with a note pinned to her chest.
Name: Savannah
Birthday in May
Seven years old
Eight freaking words on a note she couldn’t erase