by Devney Perry
DOTTED LINES
Copyright © 2020 by Devney Perry LLC
All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 978-1-950692-27-9
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No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in a book review.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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Editing & Proofreading:
Elizabeth Nover, Razor Sharp Editing
www.razorsharpediting.com
Julie Deaton, Deaton Author Services
www.facebook.com/jdproofs
Karen Lawson, The Proof is in the Reading
Judy Zweifel, Judy’s Proofreading
www.judysproofreading.com
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Cover:
Sarah Hansen © Okay Creations
www.okaycreations.com
Other Titles
Jamison Valley Series
The Coppersmith Farmhouse
The Clover Chapel
The Lucky Heart
The Outpost
The Bitterroot Inn
The Candle Palace
Maysen Jar Series
The Birthday List
Letters to Molly
Lark Cove Series
Tattered
Timid
Tragic
Tinsel
Tin Gypsy Series
Gypsy King
Riven Knight
Stone Princess
Noble Prince
Fallen Jester
Tin Queen
Runaway Series
Runaway Road
Wild Highway
Quarter Miles
Forsaken Trail
Dotted Lines
Calamity Montana Series
Writing as Willa Nash
The Bribe
The Bluff
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Preview to Gypsy King
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
Clara
“What are the yellow lines for?”
“They’re dotted lines,” I answered.
“But they aren’t dots.” August sent me his famous look through the rearview mirror. The look that said I was wrong, and he was skeptical of everything I’d taught him in the five, nearly six, years of his life. He’d picked up that suspicion toward the end of his kindergarten year, and I’d been getting the look a lot this summer.
“No, they aren’t dots. But when you go fast enough, they sort of look like dots.”
“Why aren’t they called stripes?”
“I think some people might call them striped lines.”
“That’s what I’m calling them.” He dipped his chin in a single, committed nod. Decision made. “What do they mean?”
“It means that if you get behind someone going slower than you, and as long as there isn’t someone else coming in the opposite direction and the road is clear, you can pass the slower driver.”
August let my explanation sink in, and when he didn’t ask another follow-up question, I knew I’d satisfied his curiosity. For one topic.
One. Two. Three.
“Mom?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
“How much does the ocean weigh?”
Now there was a whopper. But my son’s endless questions never disappointed to entertain. I’d lost count of how many topics we’d covered on this trip alone. August was nothing if not inquisitive. I couldn’t wait to see what he’d do with all the facts he was storing in his head for later.
“With or without the whales?” I asked.
“With the whales.”
“With or without the yellow fish?”
“With them.”
“And the blue fish?”
“Yes. All the fish.”
“Even the starfish?”
“Mom,” he groaned. “How much?”
I laughed, glancing at the backseat, then turned back to the road. “The ocean, with the whales and the fish and the starfish, weighs more than the moon and less than Jupiter.”
His little forehead furrowed as he rolled that one around. “That’s a lot.”
“It sure is.” My cheeks pinched from smiling, but that was the case with August. When he was younger, I’d told him he had magical powers. That if he smiled, I smiled. Every time. That was his magic, and he used it often.
I adjusted my grip on the steering wheel as the tires whirred over the pavement. The Cadillac floated down the road more than it rolled. In a way, it was like we were flying, skimming just above the asphalt as we soared toward California.
August stared out his window, his legs kicking. He was already restless to get out of the car even though we’d just started today’s journey, navigating the roads of Phoenix as we headed toward the interstate.
We were halfway through our two-day journey from our home in Welcome, Arizona, to Elyria, California.
In total, the trip was only eight hours, but I’d split it up, not wanting to torture my son with an entire day strapped in a car seat. Last night, we’d stopped in Phoenix and had a nice evening at the hotel. August had spent the hours after dinner doing enough cannon balls into the pool to sink a pirate ship. Then he’d passed out beside me in bed while I’d read a book for a few hours of distraction.
This morning, after a continental breakfast of pastries and juice, we’d loaded up the Cadillac and hit the road.
“Mom?”
“August?”
“Do you like this car?”
“I love this car,” I answered without hesitation. Even though I hadn’t spent enough hours behind the wheel to consider it mine, I loved this car. For reasons that would be lost on my son.
“But there’s no movie player,” he argued. It was the third time he’d reminded me that the Cadillac didn’t have a video console like my Volkswagen Atlas.
“Remember what I told you. This car is a classic.”
He huffed and sank deeper into his car seat, totally unimpressed. “How much longer?”
“We’ve got a while.” I stretched a hand to the backseat, palm up.
He might not be having the time of his life in the car, but he was still my best pal. With a crack, he slapped his hand to mine for a high-five.
“Love you, Gus.”
“Love you too.”
I returned my hand to the wheel and relaxed into the buttery leather seat.
Yes, I loved this car, even if it wasn’t mine to keep. The 1964 Cadillac DeVille had once been a heap of rust and dented metal. The car had rested on flat tires in a junkyard in Temecula, California, home to bugs. Probably a mouse. And two runaway teens.
The on-ramp for the interstate approached and I took it, my heart galloping as I pressed the accelerator.
Today was the day. Today I was returning this Cadillac to one of those runaway teens. Today, after more than a decade away, I was going to see Karson.
My stomach twisted. If not for my firm grip on the wheel, my hands woul
d shake. Twelve, almost thirteen years ago, I’d left California. I’d left the junkyard that six of us had called home for a time.
My twin sister—Aria—and me.
Londyn, Gemma and Katherine.
And Karson.
He’d been our protector. The one to make us laugh. The shoulder to cry on. He’d made a bad situation bearable. An adventure. We’d survived the junkyard because of Karson.
And the Cadillac was his, a gift from Londyn. I was simply the delivery girl.
In another lifetime, Londyn and Karson had made this Cadillac their home, back in the days when it didn’t have glossy, cherry-red paint or a working engine. But Londyn had hauled the Cadillac out of the junkyard and had it completely restored. She’d kept it herself for a time, then set out to give it to Karson.
Her trip from Boston to California had only made it to West Virginia. From there, Gemma had taken the Cadillac to Montana. Katherine had been the third behind the wheel, driving it to Aria in Oregon. Then my sister had brought it to me in Arizona.
Ready or not, it was time to finish what Londyn had started. I’d put off this trip long enough. But it was time to make the handoff, to take the last leg of the journey.
The final trip.
It wasn’t the hours on the highway or the destination that had kept my heart racing since we’d left home yesterday. It was the man waiting, unsuspecting, at the end of the road.
Had Karson found whatever it was he’d been searching for? Had he built a good life? Was he happy? Did he remember our moments together in vivid clarity like I did? Did he replay them during the long nights when sleep was lost?
Will he recognize me?
“Mom?”
I shook off the anxiety. “Yeah?”
“How much longer till we get there? Exactly?”
“About four and a half hours.”
He groaned and flopped his back. “That’s gonna take forever.”
“You could take a nap. That will make the trip go by faster.”
August sat up straight and sent me a look of pure poison through the mirror. “It’s morning.”
I pulled in my lips to hide my smile. “How about some music?”
“Can I play a game on your phone?”
“Sure.” I rifled through my purse in the passenger seat, finding my phone. Then I handed it back to him.
August unlocked the screen with the code, though his face worked at times too.
I’d be forever grateful to Devan, August’s father, for helping me create this magnificent boy. But I was also forever grateful that August looked exactly like me. He had my blond hair, though his had been lightened by the Arizona summer sun, whereas I got mine highlighted at the salon. We shared the same nose and the same brown eyes. August’s second toe was longer than his big toe, something he’d also inherited from me.
He was mine.
Mine alone. The lawyer I’d hired when August was a newborn had assured me that once Devan had signed his rights away, Gus was mine.
It wasn’t the life I’d wanted for my son, to grow up without a father, but it was better this way. Devan hadn’t wanted a child and no amount of coercion would have turned him into a decent parent.
So I showered my son with love and attention. I would, shamelessly, for the rest of his life.
Good luck to any girlfriend he brought home. Fathers were allowed to put boyfriends through an interrogation. Well, this mother was taking that liberty too.
The sound of a math game drifted through the cab as August played on my phone. The dings and chimes of the app mixed with the hum from the wheels on the road.
And I breathed as the miles toward California whipped by.
It was only a state. Only a name. But somewhere along the way after we’d left Temecula, California had become synonymous with the past.
California meant hungry days. California meant dark nights. California meant death.
It was the reason Aria wouldn’t go back. Same with Katherine. Neither of them had any desire to set foot in California again. Maybe, if I’d begged, Aria would have come with me, but I wouldn’t have asked that from her. Besides, she’d just had a baby and was in no shape for a road trip.
Aria and Brody were currently enduring the sleepless, grueling nights as parents of a newborn. Logistically, it made sense for me to take this trip now. Brody was both brother-in-law and boss, so while he was taking time to spend with Aria and the baby, there was a lull in work to do as his assistant. With August on summer break from school, this was the window.
Or maybe I knew that if I kept avoiding the trip, I’d never take it.
I could do this.
I have to do this.
Because for twelve years, I’d been holding on to a hope. A distant hope, but one powerful enough that it had kept me from letting go and moving forward.
It was time.
After only thirty minutes, August gave up on his math game. He asked me another long string of questions, and then by some miracle, he fell asleep. Swimming at the hotel last night must have worn him out.
He was drooped in his chair, his head hanging down at an angle that would have given me a neck kink, when we approached the California border. Elyria sat on the coast, north of San Diego, and we still had hours to drive, but crossing the border was a hurdle of its own.
I’d opted for a southern route through Arizona, wanting to avoid Los Angeles traffic. And Temecula.
Visiting California was enough for one weekend. Returning to the town where we’d spent our childhood was an entirely different matter. Temecula had happy memories from the early years, from the happy lives Aria and I had lived before our parents had been killed in a car accident when we were ten. After that, I could count the number of happy memories on one hand. Temecula was full of ghosts, and though they still called to me at times, I wouldn’t go there even with August as my steadfast companion.
This trip was about closure. It was about Karson. That was plenty.
I gripped the wheel, my heart in my throat, as I passed the sign at the state border. California.
My stomach rolled and sweat beaded at my temple. I sucked in a long breath, dragging it through my nose to then push out my mouth. In and out. In and out, Clara. Just like Karson had taught me years ago when he’d witnessed one of my panic attacks.
I hadn’t had one in years.
My hands were trembling when my phone rang. I stretched for it in the passenger seat, checking that August was still asleep. It always amazed me that he could sleep through about anything.
“Hey,” I answered, not at all surprised that my sister was calling. Whether it was a twin thing or a sister thing, we usually had a good pulse on each other’s moods, even thousands of miles apart.
“Hi.” Aria yawned. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I admitted. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”
“Are you in California?”
“Yes.” I blew out a trembling breath. “I can do this, right?”
“You can do this. You’re the bravest person I know.”
“No, you are.”
Aria had brought us both through the hardest time in our lives. While I’d fallen apart after our parents’ deaths, she’d kept us moving. Ten-year-old me had gone comatose for a few weeks, mostly from the shock. What kid wouldn’t buckle under that much heartbreak? Aria. Maybe it was because I’d needed her and she’d stayed strong. She’d kept me going through the motions until the fog of grief had cleared.
Then I’d vowed never to fall apart again. As a child, I’d made good on that promise to myself. As an adult and parent, failing was not an option.
Aria thought I could make this trip and she was right. I could do this.
Granted, she didn’t know what had happened with Karson. Maybe if she knew the truth, she would have given me different advice.
“How are you doing? How’s Trace?” I asked, needing a different topic to focus on.
“We’re both good.” There was a
smile in her voice and a tiny squeak hit my ear. “He’s nursing. I think he likes his name.”
“Because it’s perfect.” Broderick Carmichael the Third. Trace. It had taken them over five days to give the baby a name, but when I’d called to check in last night from the hotel, Aria and Brody had proudly announced Trace.
“How is the drive?” Aria asked.
“It’s fine. Taking forever according to August.”
Aria laughed and yawned again.
“I’ll let you go. Take a nap if you can, okay?”
“That’s the plan. Brody fell asleep about an hour ago. Once he wakes up, we’re switching.”
I was glad she had him. I was glad he had her.
Maybe it had been watching my sister fall in love with my friend that had been the final push to send me on this trip. Someday, maybe, I wanted love. I wanted a man to hold me at night. I wanted a man who’d be a good role model to August. I wanted a man who made me feel cherished.
Until I confronted the past, I’d always wonder. I’d always compare.
I’d always think of Karson.
“Call me when you get there,” Aria said.
“I will.”
“Take a picture of Karson with the car if you can. I think Londyn would like to see that.”
“Good idea. I think she would too,” I said. “Love you.”
“Love you. Bye.”
When I ended the call, the anxiety from earlier had lessened. That was the way with my sister. On a bad day, we had each other. It had been that way our entire lives.
There was a good chance—better than good—that I’d return home with a bit of a bruised heart. And she’d be there to help it heal.
I can do this.
