Page 4 of Wild Highway (Runaway 2)

Gone were the posh and polish. They were somewhere in the miles behind me, strewn across the interstate.

I’d left West Virginia two days ago, heeding Londyn’s advice not to rush the trip. The first day, I’d driven for six hours before stopping in Louisville, Kentucky, for the night. I’d eaten dinner alone, not unusual for me, then went to bed. The next day, I’d crossed into Missouri for a stop in Kansas City. Then this morning, I’d awoken refreshed and ready to hit the road.

So here I was, hours later, in the middle of Kansas on a warm September day.

Flat fields spread like a golden ocean in every direction, only disturbed by the occasional barn or building. The road stretched in an endless line in front of me and rarely did I have to turn the steering wheel. Traffic on the interstate was crowded with semitrucks hauling loads across the country.

As the day wore on, I found myself relaxing to the whir of the tires on the pavement. I studied the landscape and its subtle changes as I approached the border to Colorado. And I breathed.

Truly breathed.

There were no emails to

return. No calls to answer. No decisions to make. Benjamin would deal with any emergency that came up. As of now, I was the blissfully silent partner.

Walking away from my life had been relatively easy.

What did that mean? What did it mean that the only person who’d called me since leaving Boston was my paid employee?

Lost in my head, it took me a moment to notice the flash of red and blue lights racing up behind me. When their flicker caught my eye, my heart jumped to my throat and my foot instantly came off the gas. My hands gripped the wheel at ten and two as I glanced at the speedometer.

“Shit. Don’t pull me over. Please, please, please.” The last thing I needed was another speeding ticket.

The police car zoomed into the passing lane and streaked by. The air rushed from my lungs and I watched him disappear down the road ahead.

Thank God. I set the cruise control to exactly the speed limit.

Why did I always speed? When the limit was seventy-five, why did I push it to eighty-nine? When was I going to learn to slow down?

I’d never excelled at going slow or taking my time. I’d always put in twenty times the effort as others because I hadn’t had an Ivy League education or family pedigree to rely on. But give me a dollar and I’d turn it into ten through sheer will and determination. I worked hard and fast, something I’d been doing since running away from home at sixteen.

If you wanted to survive on the streets, you didn’t act slow. I’d figured out quickly how to care for myself. Granted, I’d had help. In the beginning, Karson had been my lifeline.

He and I had lived in the same shitty neighborhood. As kids, he’d walked with me to school and had played with me at the neighborhood park. It was a miracle neither of us had contracted tetanus from the swing set. Whenever I ran from my home crying, I’d often find him at that park, avoiding his own home.

Karson had been my closest friend. The day he hadn’t showed up at school, I’d gone to check on him. When I’d peeked through his window and saw his backpack was missing, I’d known he’d finally had enough.

When I’d hit the same breaking point, I’d sought him out. There hadn’t been a lot of other options. Karson had already made the junkyard his home. Then he’d helped make it mine.

A month later, Londyn came along. I’d found her digging through a Dumpster behind a restaurant, picking off a piece of wilted lettuce from a sandwich and actually opening her mouth to eat the damn thing. I gagged remembering that stench.

I’d ripped that sandwich out of her hand and tossed it back in the trash where it had belonged.

We’d been best friends ever since.

After saving her from the sandwich, I’d hauled her to the junkyard, made her a peanut butter and jelly, and introduced her to Karson. It had taken them three months to finally admit they liked each other. And another three months before Karson began spending his nights in her Cadillac.

A lot had changed since then. Life had split us all apart, though Londyn and I had always stayed friends. We’d both spent years living in Boston, meeting for drinks and manicures on a weekly basis. But Boston hadn’t been right, for either of us.

I was happy she’d found Brooks and a home in West Virginia. Had the others found happiness too? A few years ago—driven by curiosity or nostalgia or both—I’d hired a private investigator to look everyone up. It had taken him a few months since I hadn’t given him much to start with besides names, but he’d found them. Karson had still been in California, Clara in Arizona, and Aria in Oregon.

And Katherine was in Montana, where I’d left her behind.

The sound of my ringing phone startled me and I stretched to grab it from the passenger seat, seeing Londyn’s name on the screen.

“I was just thinking about you,” I answered.

“Good things?”