Page 25 of Hide My Heart
Hunter tugs the door open and reaches for me, grabbing my hair. “You bitch. You dirty bitch.”
The tires spin and catch, lurching the truck forward. Hunter wraps his arm around my shoulder, holding on and tries to reach for the key.
I give the truck more gas. The door is flapping, and I’m weaving and swerving down the rutted driveway. The truck veers into the fence, and the door slams into Hunter.
He grunts with pain, but doesn’t let go.
I jerk the wheel to the right to avoid falling into the ditch, and the truck flies over a bump, then comes down jerkily. Hunter grabs the steering wheel, his legs dragging and half-running to keep up.
I hold on tight and use the only weapon I have.
My teeth.
I bite his fingers, one by one, tasting blood, and the flapping door does the rest, hitting Hunter’s head.
He falls away, rolling on the snow-covered gravel.
I reach over and close the battered door, then hook a left onto the main road.
I might not know where I’m going, but I’m going as far as I can away from here. When I worked at The Brewed Force, I had access to the Internet. I was curious where Hunter’s cabin was, and I was able to use satellite view to zoom in on a few landmarks. The cabin itself is hidden beneath large stands of trees, but I recognize the fish-shaped lake we fished at and the snakelike road we took to get to the highway.
My heartbeat doesn’t return to normal until I’m safely on the interstate heading south. I fumble in my coat pocket for Hunter’s phone and turn it on. I have Nate’s phone number memorized, so I punch it in.
FOURTEEN
Nate
I realize my big mistakewhen I show Amber and Hunter’s picture to Darlene.
She smacks her bubblegum and rolls her eyes, then pushes her dirty-blond hair from her forehead. “Isn’t that the girl with the baby? The one who snuck into one of our rooms and left a mess?”
“She did?” I feign surprise. I thought I’d told housekeeping to clean it up, and I never mentioned to Darlene that Amber had stayed there.
“Yeah, her. You trying to track her down to get her to pay up?”
“Right, and I want to know if you’ve ever seen this guy before.”
Darlene squints and studies the picture. Her eyes narrow and widen, and I think she recognizes him, but she shakes her head.
“Lots of guys come through here on their way to the interior,” she says.
“Any who look like this one?”
“Nope. He’s not a good-looking man like you, so yeah, I wouldn’t have checked him out.”
“He might be wearing a beard.” I stroke my own. “Would that make a difference?”
“Nope. You can’t fix ugly.” Darlene sniffs, then trains her pale-green eyes on me and winks. “Goes the opposite way, too. You can’t hide behind your fuzz.”
Darlene is always throwing a flirt my direction here and there, but I’m too smart to take her up on anything. Can you spell sexual harassment?
“If you see him, let me know.” I snatch the picture from her and exit the lobby.
The Bluebird isn’t open today, because it’s Sunday and our town still has the blue laws—no liquor sold on Sunday, thanks to the McKays.
My phone rings as I step out of the lobby.
“Hello? Nate Riley, here.”
