Page 7 of Little Bird
And right now, he’s the only man I want to see. Because he’ll take me far from here, and if I ask him not to tell my mother, he won’t.
I rush to the bars and put my face against them, looking desperately one way and then the other down the hall. Where’s Burbank? How far has he gone?
“Officer Burbank?” I shout. “Can you take me to a phone? I need to make that phone call!”
I hear him muttering down the hall and have to stop myself from grinning like a maniac, because in a night full of confusion and horror, my heart has found Gunner Hawke’s name.
And for the first time in years, I feel like I know what I’m doing.
I just hope he remembers his promise to me.
And still plans to honor it.
Gunner
Thank Christ it’s not snowing yet.
It should be. We’re only a couple weeks from Christmas and we generally have a couple feet by now, particularly up in the mountains. But this year has been dry so far. Cold as the devil’s balls, but so little moisture that it hasn’t turned into anything. Just a bone-numbing cold that I can’t seem to shake, no matter how many fires I build.
None of which matters right now.
It’s just a good thing there’s no snow, is all, or I wouldn’t have made it down out of the mountains so quickly. And Taryn didn’t sound like she had a lot of time to waste.
Taryn Matthews.
The name takes me back to the thought spiral I was having before I started thinking about snow, and I shift the truck up into fifth, change lanes, and step on the gas. I’ve been driving for three and a half hours now, and the signs that fly past tell me the city is only a couple miles away.
A couple miles until I see Taryn again... and save her from whatever trouble she’s managed to get herself into.
A set of images fly through my mind at the thought of the girl, and I smile to myself. Blonde hair that never sat quite right. Wide hazel eyes that were always glowing like honey, and a full mouth that loved to smile. Quick laughter backed up by a truly devious streak of mischief and a willingness to try anything once.
I laugh outright, remembering the first time Gabe and I tried to teach her to cut wood, but cut myself off quickly. The girl was all sunshine and rainbows then, a warmth you couldn’t quite put your finger on, and she’d moved into my cabin and immediately made herself at home. She fit into our world—the trees, the animals, the never-ending views around us—like she’d been born to it. And God, I’d loved her.
Loved her like she was my own, like she was my flesh and blood and mine to keep forever, though she never was. She’d been another man’s daughter, transplanted into my life by her mother, who I married on one stupid, drunken night in Atlantic City.
Helen Matthews.
That name doesn’t bring a smile to my lips.
The opposite, actually, and I quickly turn my thoughts back to Taryn. I don’t want to remember Helen or the way she blew through my life like a hurricane, leaving nothing but wreckage and broken hearts behind her.
I do, however, let her memory color my mental train of thought. Taryn called me hours ago, talking so quickly I could barely understand her and begging me to come to the city to pick her up. She didn’t give me any details, and honestly, I didn’t ask for them. Now that I’m slowing down, though, I’m starting to wonder. Why the fuck did she call me when we’re not even blood? Surely she could have called her own mother.
Unless Helen has deserted her again.
I scowl at that, my blood chilling even further. Because I saw how Helen treated the girl when they lived in Hawke’s Wood. I noticed how Taryn’s eyes dimmed whenever her mother was in the room, and how Helen’s ire always managed to land on her daughter. It was hard to pinpoint, because it was never as obvious as you’d expect, but Helen had always found a way to downplay Taryn’s talents. Pretend the girl wasn’t quite right in the head. Imply that she wasn’t good enough for anyone to love her.
Hell, I’d even heard Helen ‘compliment’ Taryn by telling her that she’d done a lot better in life than Helen had ever expected her to.
I grip the steering wheel hard at the thought and feel the truck shimmy in response, the asphalt under me cold and dangerous. Releasing the pressure in my hands, I finesse the truck, waiting for it to calm down, and then turn my focus back to the road in front of me. It’s still cold and dry out but that doesn’t mean I can stop paying attention. One wrong move, one twitch too many, and I’ll end up in the ditch at the side of the highway.
And Taryn will still be on her own.
Not on my watch.
I might hate her mother with the heat of a thousand suns for what she did, but that wasn’t Taryn’s fault. And the last time I saw the girl, she’d still been one of the only people I knew who could make me feel as if the world was worth the effort.
Is it selfish to hope she still can?
