Page 16 of Quarter Miles (Runaway 3)

She shrugged, speeding up to seventy. “I don’t know. I guess when we get to the next place we feel like flipping the coin, we’ll flip it.”

“But we need to end up in Oregon.”

“Yep. We’re taking the Cadillac to Heron Beach. To Aria.”

Aria. How did I know that name? I played it over and over, trying to place it, then it came to me. “She was one of the kids in the junkyard with you and Gemma, right?”

Kat nodded. “Yes.”

“There were six of you?”

“Aria and Clara, the twins. Karson, the only boy who lived there. Then Londyn and Gemma, who came here with me.”

I’d been in college when Kat and her friends had arrived, but I’d met them on a trip home for spring break. Grandma had introduced them to me as her girls. She’d also warned me to stay away from her girls if I wanted to keep breathing.

Carol Greer didn’t make idle threats, so I’d stayed away, and after graduation, when I’d returned to the ranch to work, Katherine had been the only girl left. By that point, she’d been all but adopted by Grandma and Mom. She was the daughter both of them had always wanted.

Any plans I’d had about hitting on her, asking her out, had flown out the window. And I’d definitely wanted to ask her out.

But it had been for the best. A relationship on the ranch would only lead to disaster. We saw enough of that with the staffers. There’d be flings and hookups, and inevitably, one or both of the involved parties would quit.

I’d resented my family some at first for dictating the type of relationship I had with Kat, limiting my options. Over the years, I’d become grateful. We were too good of friends to risk losing it all. My family had been right to discourage me from pursuing her.

Look how quickly things had fizzled with Dany. Or the women who’d come before. Quality boyfriend material I was not. Friend, I could manage.

And maybe without the other family members around, Kat would finally open up about her past. The two of us talked about anything to do with the ranch. The only topic of conversation Kat ever shied away from was her past.

Years ago, she’d confided in Grandma about her childhood, that she’d run away from home to live in a junkyard, of all the fucking places. The thought made my skin crawl. My Kat, tiny, beautiful, loving Kat, living in trash.

She’d never trusted me with the story and I’d only heard it secondhand.

Grandma and Mom had warned me specifically not to push, that it was Kat?

??s business and not to pry. So I hadn’t for years. We’d had plenty of other things to talk about, work and whatever drama was happening with my family or guests at the resort.

But Kat had opened up more since Gemma had returned and it had piqued my curiosity. Kat wasn’t forthcoming with details about the life she’d lived before Montana, but she also wasn’t running away from the topic like she used to. She must have sprinted from her childhood like a horse bolted from a rattlesnake.

Maybe on this trip she’d feel safe airing some demons.

Maybe I’d finally confess my own secret.

“What’s Aria like?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since the day we left the junkyard.”

“You’re sure she’s in Oregon?”

“According to Gemma’s investigator, she works at a hotel there.” Kat shifted to dig a sticky note from her pocket. “The Gallaway.”

“And why exactly are we going to see Aria?”

“Because eventually, this car needs to get to Karson in California.”

“Then let’s go to California.”

“No.”

I stared at her profile, waiting for an explanation. “Just, no?”