rearview mirror. He was receding in hers. In fact, watching his reflection now, she saw how he was literally walking away.
Sighing, Veda settled in for the drive home—or tried to. After being so close to Ajax and his drugging scent, the car smelled stale, and following hours of music and conversation, the cabin was too quiet. Veda flicked on the radio, but she only heard that song playing in her head…the one she and Ajax had danced to all of ten minutes ago.
She shook herself. Thought ahead.
In thirty minutes, she would be turning into the Darnel driveway. She would find her father reclined in his tufted high-backed chair by an unlit fire. After inquiring about her evening, he would calmly regurgitate how he felt about his daughter consorting with the enemy. The Rawsons were cheats who would have their comeuppance. Drake never tired of admitting that he couldn’t wait for the day.
Veda sat forward and looked up. Raindrops were falling again, big and hard on the windshield. She switched on the wipers, imagining her father’s reaction should he ever discover the truth. Not only was his daughter friends with a Rawson, she had also—shock, horror!—slept with one. In his chilling way, Drake would let her know his verdict. She was no better than the woman he had loved or the woman he had married. To his mind, both had betrayed him with a cowboy. Then her father would disown his daughter, the same way he had disowned his wife. And there wouldn’t be a thing she could do about it.
You are dead to me.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
Suddenly that tricky bend was right there in front of her. About to overshoot, Veda wrenched the wheel, slammed on the brake. As her tires slid out, she pulled the wheel the other way and the SUV overcorrected. A surreal moment later, it came to a jolting stop on the grass shoulder, at right angles to a heavy railed fence and the sweeping river of asphalt.
With those wipers beating endlessly back and forth, Veda white-knuckled the wheel, cursing her inattention. Her stupidity. But thankfully, she hadn’t crashed. There was nothing that couldn’t be undone. So pull up your big-girl panties and get back on the road! And she would…as soon as she’d dealt with the tsunami of déjà vu rolling in.
Mom sitting in the front seat of a growling pickup truck. Her cowboy boyfriend looking over his shoulder at Veda in back. A terrifying screech. A crashing, blinding jolt—
When her ears started to ring, Veda pushed open her door and scrambled out.
There were plenty of motels around. Or maybe she should simply drive on through to Jersey. She was under no obligation to see her father tonight. Damn it, her only obligation was to herself.
Not my fault, not my fault, not my fault.
At that moment, just as the skies opened up in earnest, a pair of big hands clamped down on her shoulders and spun her around. With hair whipping over her eyes, it took a moment to recognize the masculine figure, and then the concerned face streaming with rain.
Ajax raised his voice over the downpour. “What the hell are you doing?”
Veda thought about it and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
His brows snapped together before he threw open the back car door and waved an arm.
Get in.
The next second, he was behind the wheel, getting the vehicle back onto the driveway before turning, not toward the house or the main road, but into an offshoot lane. A moment later, they’d pulled up outside a building. After helping Veda out, he handed over her evening clutch from the front passenger seat and led the way to the building’s main entrance.
Soaked through, her soles sliding in their heels, she asked over the noise of the rain, “Where are we?”
“Somewhere safe.”
And yet, as Ajax punched numbers into a control pad by the door, the sign mounted next to it seemed to both mock and warn her.
Rawson Studs.
Satisfaction guaranteed.
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