Page 16 of Devil in Disguise
He didn’t want totypeat her. He wanted totalkto her. He typed,I’m coming then. Can wait with you at least. We can be the support team.
He didn’t wait for an answer. He told Hank, “Emergency. Got to go. I’ll, uh, text you about next week.” After that, he ran to his truck, jumped inside, and headed out.
* * *
It was midnight.Annabelle was finally asleep out of sheer exhaustion, and Dyma wasn’t. She was sitting on a hotel bed with her phone in her hand and earbuds in her ears, watching the rest of the movie the two of them had started together and not seeing it.
Owen was driving. Not flying, because, he’d texted her,Takes too long. Need one of those private jet things like Harlan has. Never mind. Driving.
Driving eight and a half hours to get here, for Harlan, for her, for whoever he could help. All the way into the night.
She wished for a GPS chip. She wanted to know where he was, and how long it would be before he was here. She’d texted him an hour ago, when he’d been stopped for gas,Tell me when you’re close.
Another ten minutes of a movie she’d never remember, and thedingin her headphones. She clicked, and there he was.
15 minutes out.
She slid off the bed, grabbed her keycard from the dresser, crept out of the bedroom, then out of the suite, shutting the door as softly as she could behind her, and headed downstairs to wait.
It took seventeen minutes. By the time the clock had ticked off those 1,020 seconds, she was standing on the deserted apron outside the hotel, her arms wrapped around herself in the not-really-cold-but-feels-that-way-because-I’m-tired-and-tense, 12:45 A.M. chill, peering down the road and looking for lights.
She didn’t realize it was him at first, because he didn’t pull into the loading zone. The headlights, high and bright, pierced the darkness, and then the big truck swung into the lot and into a space. She didn’t know it was Owen until the door opened and he swung down, grabbing a bag from the seat behind him and shoving his cowboy hat onto his head. Then, he couldn’t have been anyone else. And she was running.
The rough asphalt hurt her bare feet, and she didn’t care. She ran. And this time, he didn’t wait to pull her up into his arms. He ran, too. He reached her before she’d made it halfway across, picked her up with one arm, got his other arm around her, and held on tight.
For once, she didn’t kiss him, and he didn’t kiss her. He just held on. For about a minute.
Finally, when she could talk, she said, “Thanks for coming. I’m so glad you’re here. This is the worst.”
“I couldn’t be anywhere else,” he said, and she felt the words as much as she heard them, all the way from inside his barrel of a chest. Then, “Does your mom know I’m here? Harlan?”
“Yes. At least, I told them you were coming. Harlan was glad, I think. I can’t really tell.” Now that he was here, the words, the feelings were tumbling out, impossible to contain. “He’s so … so different. It’s a little scary. He’s holding it together for his sisters, but their grandparents are coming tomorrow, and … it’s theirdaughter,and they have to know she died like that, and he killed her. Harlan and Annabelle’smom.How do you live with that? How is that possible?”
She was shaking hard now, though not crying. She almost never cried. Not when she was mad, and not when she was sad. The last time, she’d been in Owen’s arms. On the night of her graduation, holding the bracelet that was on her wrist now. Thinking about her grandma, wishing she was there.
But her grandma had died because she was sick. How much worse was this?
And why did people you loved have to die? At the wrong time, for such completely wrong reasons? It was too hard.
Owen didn’t say anything, but the hand splayed across her back pressed a little harder, and his arms closed around her body a little tighter. Finally, he said, “That’s rough. Let’s go. You’re cold.”
She went with him. Into the hotel, up in the elevator, and into a room down the hall from the suite she was sharing with her mom and Harlan and Annabelle. She said, when he’d dropped his duffel beside the bed and run his hands over his face, looking so weary, it twisted at her heart, “I’ll go back to my room in a little while. I don’t want Annabelle to wake up and be alone. But I need to be with you right now.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he sighed. “I need a shower.” He pulled off his boots, opened the duffel, grabbed a couple things from it, and headed into the bathroom, and she sat on the bed and waited.
Barely five minutes, and he came out again dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Almost the only time she’d seen him in anything other than jeans. He sat on the bed beside her and took her hand, and she asked, “Are you hungry? Did you eat?”
“Yeah. Gas station. I’ll eat in the morning.”
He yawned, and she said, “Come on. Climb in bed.” She got in with him, and when he said, “We shouldn’t …” she said, “We’re not. I’m just holding you for a minute, because I’m so glad to see you, and I can’t believe you came, and … Owen.” Her arm around him, and finally, his around her. “I love you so much,” she told him. “All I’ve wanted tonight is for you to be here with me, because nothing’s as awful if you’re here, and besides, Harlan needs friends. I can go back and sleep with Annabelle and know I’ll see you in the morning, that you’ll help me figure out how to help in the … in the background. I’ll know that it’s better, you know?” She tried to smile, even though it was dark, and he couldn’t see. “It’s so much better.”
“Yeah.” He sighed, and the hard muscle of his arm went slack around her body. Because he was asleep.
10
Benevolent Sexism
He never did gether to the ranch that summer.
