Accidental Knight: A Marriage Mistake Romance(100)

The tears hit me again, harder. Throwing open the door, I step out. “No, go home, Edison! Back to the barn. I can’t be here right now. It isn’t you...”

He lifts his head and nickers loudly, almost like he’s shouting back. Or is it a warning?

I glance up the road. Tears blur my vision, but there’s a distinct dust plume and a truck. Drake.

Somebody shoot me.

“Barn, Edison! Right now!” I look behind me, to see if there’s enough room to back up, but just then a car swerves along and parks itself on the other side of my Jeep. A white BMW.

Ugh, my parents. As if there isn’t enough fun to go around.

The passenger door opens, showing an empty seat. I start moving, planning to just stick my head in and tell them I’m in the middle of...I don’t even know. But I can’t do this right now.

I run to it, glancing at the plume of dust getting closer. At least it might give me a minute to hide from Drake and get my crap together, so I flop in, slamming the door behind me.

“Hey, I’ve only got a minute, but –” I cut off the instant I realize something isn’t right.

The car swerves back on the road and flips itself toward town. Then we’re flying down the road at a speed I don’t think Mom or Dad would be caught dead driving.

Oh, Jesus. I don’t know why I even bother turning to see if it’s them. I already know the answer.

My heart hits the back of my throat even before I get a good, long look at him.

“Who the hell are you?” I whisper, grabbing at the handle, but the door won’t open. Even if it could, there’s no way I’d be able to leap out at this speed without taking on a serious risk.

The man smiles as he stomps the gas. “Child safety locks. Greatest fucking invention known to man.”

I wrench harder on the handle with one hand, trying to slide the lock open with the other hand.

But he reaches over, grabs my arm and pulls, twisting it behind my back until the pain steals my breath.

“Ah, okay! What do you want?” I growl through the pain.

“I’m just your ride, my dear. I’m taking you to see your parents,” he says coldly. “You made it easier than I thought it’d be, Annabelle.”

He’s driving with one hand and holding my arm behind my back with the other. I can’t move.

The pain makes me wonder if he’s already pulled my arm out of its socket.

“Far easier.” He gives my arm another twist and shoves me forward.

I cry out and grab at the dash with my other hand to keep from hitting it or the windshield.

He laughs. “Careful, Bella, don’t want to damage Mommy and Daddy’s car. It was real nice of them to loan it to me to swing by and pick you up.”

I don’t understand. Clearly, he’s gotten their rental, but I don’t recognize him. He’s too young to be Avery.

I twist, trying to get a better look at him. Big sunglasses and a baseball cap obscure his face. “Who are you?”

He whips the car into the other lane, a smirk on his lips.

I glance up and can’t pull my eyes off the semi barreling toward us as he’s passing a tanker truck in the lane we should be in. That’s when my life starts flashing before my eyes.

Oh my God.

But the BMW barely makes it around the tanker and back in the right lane when the cattle truck in the other lane flies past, horn blaring. The one behind us honks too.

What the hell have I gotten myself into now?

“Are you trying to get us killed?” I glance at the dash, looking to see if there’s any way I can pull the key out of the ignition.

Nope. It just has to be a push start.

“Quite a mouth. Shut your yap already,” he growls, shoving me harder into the dash.

Pain fires through my shoulder and winds down my arm. I close my eyes as we fly up behind another vehicle. There are cars in the other lane, too.

I can only hope he won’t kill us, and that Drake saw the BMW.

It’s like that all the way to town, this deadly, senseless dance on the road. He almost kills us three more times. I’m too shocked to even scream.

Then he peels off the highway onto a side road half a mile before the city limits. This road just goes past an old implement dealer and then back into town.

“The hotel’s on the other side of town,” I say, wondering why I bother. He’s clearly not taking me to Mom and Dad.

“Exactly. They’re not kicking up their heels at the hotel no more. Your folks have got some meaner digs now.”

Jesus. I don’t like how he says it at all.

I know it’s useless, but I can’t help asking again, “So who are you? What do you want? If it’s money –”

“Nah, fuck your coin. That’s what my old man wants. Me?” He chuckles, this harsh, dry sound like burning leaves. “My tastes are a little more sophisticated.”

We roll past the mobile home park, shoot across the East-West highway that would’ve taken us to the North Earhart office, and then keep going toward the park. There’s nothing else on this road.

It ends at the very edge of where Theodore Roosevelt National Park begins in all its rugged, hilly glory. I think of how vast those Badlands are, how Gramps would take me out here and we’d look out over miles of nothingness that go on forever. I shudder.