Page 18 of Hell Bent

“Yes, you could.”

“On the other hand,” I said, “I’m the one who broke it off, so that’s not really fair. My mother will end up doing it if Idon’t go back. Ned loves my mother. He’ll love her more if she takes all those presents off his hands. I need to call her. I can’t just dump it on her. I can’t—” I was getting some more of the panic.

“Text somebody tonight so she knows you’re safe, and call her when you’re ready,” Sebastian said. “She’ll probably be worried about you, but you don’t have to go into it all tonight.”

“Cowardly,” I said, “but I’ll take that advice.” I rubbed my hands between my thighs. “I’m supposed to be back in school in January, too, and that fills me withmoredread—and it’s my last year! I’m almost done, but … but something iswrong,and there’s no space in my head to figure out what. I had to leave, all right?”

“All right,” he said. “So what happens now?”

I shrugged. “I drive. I figure it out. Or I don’t, and I muddle along until Idofigure it out.”

“Alone,” he said.

“Yes, alone. I can handle alone. Ineedalone.”

He held up both hands. “Fine. Your choice.”

“Well, thank you.”

When he reached out and touched my face, I froze, a french fry halfway to my mouth. He rubbed the place between my eyes where my mother always told me I’d get wrinkles and said, “You impress me.”

I couldn’t move. “I do?”

“Yeah. You do. That took guts. All of it. Most women would be crying and drinking.”

“Ha,” I said. “The night is young.”

Sebastian

I walked her back to her truck, and she turned at the doorand said, “I’d better get going. Thanks for the burger.” In jeans and a long-sleeved tee, looking lithe and strong and like a woman with a plan. And, of course, that ass.

Hey, there’s only so noble I can be.

I said, “You know—I need to make my destination sometime tomorrow, but I don’t need to get there overnight. We could get a hotel room—two, if you like—pick up a bottle, let you do that drinking. Get some sleep.”

She jerked back so fast, she banged into the truck, then recovered herself. “No,” she said. “I need to get out of the state. I need to?—”

I said, “Hey,” and when she’d stopped talking, “It was just a suggestion. Go on and go.”

She hesitated. “I do appreciate your help. Picking out clothes and all that. Getting a burger. Talking it over. It was good to tell somebody.”

“You don’t have to say thanks.” I knew my face was hard, but I couldn’t help it. “You’re not required to have sex with me, if that’s what that’s about. I said two rooms. Do what you have to do.” She hesitated, and I said, “Go on. Take off. You owe me nothing.”

She opened her door, then turned and said, “One thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Good luck with the dog,” she said. “You’re a good person.”

I said, “Good luck with the new life,” watched her climb into the truck and lock her door, then climbed into my own car, where the dog, who’d been in the back seat, wagged her tail, lunged forward, and licked my elbow in a polite way while I scratched her ears.

“I’m a good person,” I told the dog. “Whoopee. Guess that’s how princesses roll.”

8

AN UNEXPECTED DESTINATION

Sebastian