What Comes Next Read online

  “Maybe some do.” She smiled—finally, a real one! The kind that wrinkled her eyes. And now, I wanted to hear the laugh I knew was close to surfacing.

  “I know!” I slapped the steering wheel with my palm. “Farm boys! With hay-bailing biceps and killer tans . . .” I flexed my arm playfully to draw her attention to the sculpted muscle protruding from the sleeve of my shirt.

  Big mistake. What turned other girls to jelly produced the opposite reaction from Ana. She clammed up, and promptly shifted her gaze out the windshield.

  I should have known. This was the girl that couldn’t bear to look at me without a shirt on just a few weeks ago. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking. I needed damage control, quick, before I lost the ground I’d gained. Because I hadn’t heard her laugh yet.

  “So that’s a no to pool boys, cowboys, and farm boys,” I mused quietly.

  Actually, not a no to farm boys. If anything, her reaction proved the opposite. But that wasn’t where I needed to steer this conversation. Damage control. That was my focus.

  I pointed a finger at her. “Circus freaks? You must like the circus freaks.” She shot me a quizzical look, and her reluctant smile reappeared. “Just wait for the summer, when the fair comes to town,” I continued, giving her a playful wink. “There will be plenty for you to choose from then.”

  A giggle bubbled out of her, and I gave myself a mental pat on the back. Not the hearty laugh I’d hoped for, but good enough.

  “You’re horrible,” she told me.

  “I’ve been called worse.” I shot her a raised eyebrow smirk. “By you.”

  “You must have deserved it,” she volleyed.

  I returned my attention to the road with a lazy shrug. “You’re probably right.”

  I couldn’t argue with her on that one. I’d certainly earned a few of the names she’d called me when we were kids. Especially that last summer, when I’d been too cool, and other girls had been too distracting, to hang out with her much. We hadn’t exactly split on good terms. But I hadn’t known then that it would be another five years before I saw her again.

  With a sudden clarity, I realized why I’d offered to drive her to Richmond. Sure I didn’t want her to be the nameless subject in another news story on the dangers of hitchhiking, but that was only a cover for the real reason.

  I sought redemption.

  I wasn’t the asshole my father had tried to program me to be. I was better than him, better than the life he would have pushed me into if he were still alive. I was my own man, and I liked to think I was a man that would do things like this for someone I knew. Someone that mattered to me, more than I would ever admit.

  Our early morning breakfast was a distant memory by the time we exited the interstate a few hours later. Neither of us knew which part of Richmond the address was located in. The local library proved to be our best source for finding that answer. It took us thirty minutes to find the street on a map and plot the easiest way to get there.

  I’d been in Richmond only once before—and the regional baseball tournament I played in had been held at one of the schools outside the city limits. Downtown Richmond remained a mystery to me, and wasn’t somewhere I wanted to roam around aimlessly. Especially considering I hailed from a small town with more dirt than pavement on its roads.

  Before we got back in the truck, I suggested we stop for a bite to eat first. Ana was more than willing, and I wondered if she was as hungry as I was, or starting to have second thoughts.

  “You still want to go through with this?” I mumbled around the burger in my mouth.

  She nodded, but didn’t look up from her plate. She’d barely touched anything. Definitely not hungry. Or too nervous to be hungry.

  “You don’t have to do this, Ana. We can turn back now. Just say—”

  “No. I need to do this. I want to,” she insisted.

  Rain clouds rolled in while we ate. By the time we finished and paid, it had started to sprinkle. A light mist dampened our clothes as we hurried for the truck. A rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, indicating that the worst was yet to come. I climbed into the truck and shut the door on the weather, and the uncertainty that the storm had brought with it.

  I would do this for her, if she thought she needed to. I would take her to wherever she needed to go. Though I hadn’t been much of a friend to her lately, I would be the friend she needed today.

  Because I had a feeling the storm clouds were only going to get worse.

  It didn’t take long to realize the address we were looking for was in a neighborhood that had little to be desired. With each turn I made, drawing us closer to the dot on the map we had copied on the library’s copy machine, the streets grew darker, the houses smaller, and the yards narrower.

  Definitely not the “lawyers with mansions” side of Richmond.

  Ana shrunk into her seat, and I wondered if this was the moment she would tell me to turn around. But she didn’t. She sucked in a breath and pressed her face to the window to follow the street numbers as we crawled by.

  “There it is,” she announced softly.

  I spotted the number we were looking for, and pulled over into an empty spot on the curb two doors away. Ana craned her neck to study the crumbling duplex behind us. Chipped lime green paint covered the outside, and black security bars lined the windows. Combined with the pack of young boys on the corner, who looked young enough to be in school but intimidating enough to make me wish I had a weapon, the whole situation made me uneasy.

  “I’m going with you,” I told her. My tone, hopefully, left no room for argument. I reached behind the seat, pulled out a sleek black jacket, and handed it to her.

  She turned it in her hands, the trace of an amused smile on her lips. “What else you have hiding back there?”

  “I’m afraid to look,” I grinned.

  The truck had once been my dad’s, then my brother’s, and now was mine. It had seen a lot of years, and accumulated a lot of junk behind the seat.

  “Do you have another jacket?” she asked.

  “I’ll be fine. Go ahead. Put it on.”

  I waited until she shrugged into the oversized garment. Then I pulled the hood up and over her head. While she zipped up, I pulled the string tight, securing the hood around her head. A loose stand of long blonde hair escaped, and I tucked it back in place.

  I gave her a quick once-over before nodding. Nothing I could do about her small stature and slender frame, but at least the hood would cover her hair and part of her face.

  I climbed out of the truck and met her by the rear bumper. Taking her hand in mine, I steered us toward the front of the duplex while keeping a wary eye on the group of boys on the corner. One of them nudged another, and all three of them turned to watch us—more specifically, Ana. The jacket and hood wasn’t doing as good of a job at concealing her as I had hoped. I stood a little taller as I stared them down, daring them to say or do something with me by her side.

  The silent showdown passed without Ana knowing anything about it. We turned to take the crumbled walkway leading to the duplex, leaving the boys to watch from across the street. While Ana focused on the door in front of us, I darted a look over my shoulder to find the biggest of the three boys watching. His interest was a little concerning. But first things first . . .

  Ana pressed the doorbell, and I waited stiffly at her side as a muffled shout came from inside the house. My heart thumped in tune with the heavy footsteps that approached. At the sound of locks being disengaged from inside, I squeezed Ana’s hand. The door swung open, and her fingers tightened like a vice grip around my knuckles.

  “Yeah?” The raspy voice of a man that had smoked his life away greeted us a second before his beady eyes appeared in the slit between the door and the doorjamb. They flicked back and forth between Ana and me, waiting for an explanation for what we were doing on his stoop.

  I glanced down at Ana, waiting for her to take the reins. With one look at the devastation in her eyes, I knew
that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Robert Winston?” I asked the man. I was pretty sure that was the name I’d seen scribbled down alongside the address.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Ana . . .” I dropped my head to speak into her ear. My knuckles ground together under her grip, and the tips of my fingers were going numb. In case she didn’t already know, I reminded her, “You don’t have to do this.”

  Seeing the man that was more than likely her father, I really hoped she wouldn’t go through with what she had planned. From what little I could already tell, the man hadn’t remembered to shower or shave in days. I doubted he would remember whether or not he fathered two kids.

  Ana dropped my hand, and I flexed my fingers to get the circulation moving again while she withdrew the photo she had brought with her.

  “Is this you?” she inquired softly.

  His gaze flicked to the picture briefly before shuffling his feet back into the safety of his house. I threw my forearm out, thwarting his attempt to shut the door on us.

  “Is it you?” I demanded. His added weight on the door served as a sufficient answer to my question—an answer he didn’t want to admit. To Ana. To anyone, least of all himself.

  “Get off my property before I call the police,” he threatened through the gap between us.

  “Ben.” Ana’s hand on my shoulder prevented me from finding out if that space was wide enough for my fist to find his face.

  “Two kids! You know that?” I shouted through the crack as a woman’s voice came from somewhere inside. “Piece of shit—”

  “Ben.” Ana pulled on my arm, forcing me to let the door slam shut.

  I resorted to kicking the side of the house. “Don’t deserve for them to call you dad!”

  “Ben!” Finally, I stopped to look at Ana, huddled on the small stoop beside me in a jacket three times too big for her. “Please, I just want to go.”

  “Yeah.” I took a breath to slow my racing heart, and took her hand in mine as we descended the narrow steps. “Ana, I’m—”

  On the street, the three boys had surrounded my truck. Despite the steady rain, one reclined against the tailgate, one peered through the passenger side window, and the big one circled the vehicle like he was considering making an offer to buy it.

  Or steal it.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “Ana, stay here.”

  “Wait.” Her fingers dug into my elbow harder than she’d held my hand two minutes ago. “Let’s just walk around the block. Maybe they’ll leave.”

  “We won’t have a truck to return to by the time we get back. Just stay here.” I held her gaze long enough to make sure she understood. “I mean it, Ana. Don’t move.”

  She didn’t agree, but she didn’t argue with me either. I figured that was as close to an agreement I would get out of her. I left her on the curb in front of the walkway that dead ended at her father, and approached the group of boys.

  They were younger than me by a year or two, and smaller. Only one of them could give me a run for my money one-on-one. But all three at once? If I got jumped, I’d be in trouble.

  “Hey.” I nodded to the big one as I neared the truck. “We’re about to leave, so . . .”

  I didn’t show him the keys in the safety of my pocket. Not yet. But then the kid’s cold gaze slid over my shoulder, and I suspected he wasn’t really all that interested in my truck after all.

  “Is that your girl?” he sneered.

  No hesitation. “Yep.”

  My ears picked up the sound of shoes scrapping across blacktop, and I spun around to find the window peeper creeping up behind me. Beyond him, Ana inched closer, looking anxious enough for the both of us. Her eyes widened, warning me a split second before my skull exploded with a mind-numbing pain.

  I glimpsed something shiny in the hand of the big guy when I spun, just before I doubled him over with a fist to his gut. Then the other two were in the mix, and everything got a little fuzzy. For every blow I landed, I took two. Wet, sticky liquid dripped from a cut above my left eye, blurring my vision as the two smaller ones wrestled my arms behind my back. The bigger boy smirked as he approached for the knockout sucker punch. I blinked to clear away the blood covering my eye, and watched as he pulled his arm back—

  A streak of black darted from out of nowhere, knocking the boy off balance. The hold on my arms dropped as the two who had held me back rushed to help their friend detach the monkey on his back.

  Not a monkey—but Ana.

  Her awkward reverse chokehold worked. I managed to jerk the passenger side door open just in time to rescue her from a head-first fall onto the concrete. I shoved her toward the open door, and stood to face down the two smaller boys. Behind them, the leader picked something off the ground. My eyes zeroed in on the pointy end of a small pocket knife as he rose to a stand.

  “Ben!”

  Time to go. I launched myself through the open door, partially knocking Ana over in the process. Recovering quickly, I yanked the door shut and pushed the lock before the group of boys followed. I thrust the keys into the ignition before I was fully in my seat. The roar of the engine drowned out the sound of something striking the passenger window.

  Ana jumped halfway across the seat as the truck shot away from the curb and into the street. Several long seconds ticked by slowly. The only sound in the cab came from the soft rain pelting the roof, my ragged breaths, and the chattering of Ana’s teeth. She shook so violently that the seat vibrated beneath me.

  “Ana, you okay?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Y-you?”

  I peeled my eyes off the road long enough to glimpse her shaking legs beside mine. “Fine.”

  She glanced up at me. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I know.” My head hurt like hell, and my face felt like I’d been stung by a dozen hornets. I glimpsed into the rearview mirror long enough to see the gash above my eye. I would see the rest of the damage soon enough, but I already knew I’d gotten lucky.

  I was more concerned about Ana’s well-being than my own. That . . . and whatever was wrong with my truck right now. I grunted as the wheel fought to veer to the right. After a few moments of fighting it, I pulled to the curb and jumped out.

  In addition to the slash cut into the right front tire, I found two broken headlights.

  Could have been worse. Much worse, I reminded myself as I climbed back into the cab. I relayed my findings to Ana, my attempt to keep her calm helped to keep myself calm. Because I had no idea how we would get ourselves out of this mess.

  The good news: the tire got us to the safer part of Richmond, where we found a repair shop. Bad news: they had to order the headlights from another shop, and wouldn’t be able to do anything until the next day. But there was a twenty-four-hour diner and a not-too-shabby hotel across the street where we could stay until it was done.

  Sounded like a line, and I wondered if the same person owned all three businesses. Perfect for wringing every dollar you could from out-of-towners in a clutch.

  Between the two of us, we had enough money for a room, and just enough left over to get something to eat from the diner. As far as paying to have the truck fixed, I needed to have Mama wire me some money. That was a conversation I didn’t look forward to.

  Distracting me from that thought was the amusing sight of Ana buzzing around the hotel room. She disappeared inside the bathroom before returning a moment later with a dampened white towel. Her fingers trembled as she lifted it to my eye. She hovered there, millimeters from touching the material to the cut, before dropping the towel into my hands.

  “I can’t,” she muttered as she spun around to swipe the plastic ice container from the table. “You’re going to need some ice.”

  She darted past me, and slipped out the door before I could open my mouth.

  While she was gone, I took a nice, long look in the mirror and used the towel to wipe up the blood. It didn’t look that bad, but she was right—I needed ice. Even with it, I would be left with a
swollen eye and a nasty bruise.

  The door banged open, and Ana ran into the room with an overflowing container of ice. Her hands shook as she scooped a handful of cubes into a clean towel.

  “You must be freezing.” I observed her damp clothes.

  “No.” She handed me the wrapped up bundle of ice, and shook her head like the thought of being cold hadn’t occurred to her.

  “Why don’t you get a hot shower, and put some dry clothes on,” I suggested. “I’ll go get us something to eat.”

  “You need—”

  “I’ll be fine. I don’t mind having a black eye.” I attempted to make light of the situation with a grin. “It makes me look tough.”

  Her lips curled into a reluctant smile, and I got the faintest hint of a laugh.

  “Go.” I pushed her in the general direction of the bathroom before she found another reason to protest. “I’ll be back soon.”

  I made the walk to the diner next door, paid for a family-sized bucket of fried chicken, and headed toward the pay phones while I waited for the order.

  Mama picked up after the first ring. “Ben?”

  I hesitated—this was not going to go over well. “It’s me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Ma—”

  “Then you’re about to not be okay. You get your ass home right now, or so help me—”

  “I can’t,” I interrupted her before she managed to get into her usual lecture. I had it memorized; I didn’t need to hear it again. “I’m stuck in Richmond.”

  “Richmond?” I pulled the phone away from my ear as she shrieked, “What are you doing in Richmond? And what do you mean by stuck? Ben, you had better—”

  “I’ll explain everything when I come home tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? Absolutely not, young man. You . . .” I gently tapped the receiver against my forehead as she rattled on. I knew better than to try to get a word in—not until she finished. I only put it to my ear when I suspected she had finally started to wind down. “. . . a good explanation if you ever want to leave this house again.”

  “I do have an explanation. But right now, what I need is for you to wire me some money.” She sucked in a breath, and I quickly gave her the information. “I’m sorry, Mama, I’ll explain tomorrow, but can you do me one more favor? Call the Maxwells and let them know Ana’s alright.”