Page 1 of Breaking His Exile

one

Once, there’d been a plan.

Not a good one.

Okay, maybe not even a plan at all, but at least an order of operations: get the hell clear of California, keep moving, use cash only, and absolutely, under no circumstances, contact her brother until she had no choice.

At eleven p.m., forty miles outside Solace, Montana, Rainey Beckett ran out of choices when her ancient Ford truck ran out of gas.

Damn faulty gauge still showed a quarter of a tank, but the truck sputtered to a halt on the shoulder of a dark mountain road and died.

The only thing she could do was laugh.

Because the alternative was to start screaming and maybe never stop.

She slouched back, found her backpack on the passenger seat, and did a quick census: a crushed pack of gum, cherry ChapStick, five blue guitar picks, her phone with a cracked screen and precisely zero bars of service. A crumpled Black Flag T-shirt and a note—folded so many times the creases had gone white—buried at the bottom. She left the note where it was.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, but the road behind her was as empty as it was in front of her. Not that she’d accept a ride from a stranger anyway.

She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and muttered, “Fuck.”

Now what?

God, that had always been her life, hadn’t it? A series of misfortunes and bad luck followed by now what?

Well, she’d found her way out of situations worse than this. She’d figure this one out, too. She just had to stop wallowing and think.

There was a bar a few miles back. The Dead Marshall. She remembered it because of the bikes out front. A chill had scraped down her spine when she saw them, and she’d thanked her lucky stars she hadn’t needed to stop.

She could walk there and use their phone to call River.

“Hey, Riv. I know we haven’t talked in like nine years, but I’m stranded. I’m forty miles out. Come get me.”

Almost a decade of silence and that was the sentence that would break it— not “how dare you?” or “I love you” or “I hate you” or “I missed you” or any of the other things she’d imagined when she saw him again. Just “I need you,” which was the one thing she’d sworn she’d never say to him again.

No.

She couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t call him.

Not yet.

She’d make gas money the way she’d done everything since she was sixteen — by herself, owing nobody — then she’d drive into Solace and figure out the rest when she got there.

She grabbed her guitar from the backseat and stepped out into the night. She left her backpack. The fewer things she had to carry, the better. She shut the door, took one more look up and down the road, and started walking.

It was colder than she expected for early July. The Dead Marshall was three miles back, maybe four, and she didn’t see another car for the entire walk. When she finally rounded the last bend and saw the sign burning like a lighthouse through the trees, her stomach cramped with dread.

Was this a good idea?

Probably not, but she didn’t have any others.

But this was going to be the last one. The last roadhouse, the last set played for gas money and a warm meal, the last night sleeping in the truck with the doors locked and the guitar case wedged against the passenger door like it could stop anything.

Solace was close. River was close. She just had to get there.

Inside, the place smelled like every bar she’d played since she was sixteen — spilled beer and old wood and a sad desperation underneath it that no amount of scrubbing ever got out. Low ceiling. Dark beams. A neon sign throwing purple across the far corner, and a jukebox grinding out something about a woman who left and a man who should’ve known better.