“Good one.” The woman returned Lola’s camera. “You’ll be glad when you get back. That’s definitely going in the scrapbook.”
Lola thanked her and left. During her trip, whenever she’d remembered, she’d taken at least one photo at each stop. At a rodeo in Wyoming, she’d sat in the stands with her cotton candy and watched a roping competition. Afterward, she’d won a goldfish at the state fair and given it to a little girl, making her hold it up for the camera. Lola had never been much of a moviegoer, but in Denver, she’d spent two days in the dark, gorging on foreign films during a festival. She’d photographed the sun rising between two gray mountains. A group of oddly-shaped pine cones. Tree trunks floating in the fog. Those were all from an early-morning hike she’d taken. She wasn’t in any of the pictures, though, and she wasn’t sure why she had them. They weren’t for a scrapbook—or for anything, really.
Lola stretched her arms and legs before getting back behind the wheel. Driving an entire country could be hard on the body, and she was achy a lot of the time. She unfolded her map panel by panel, revealing America in seconds. Without a phone or GPS, navigation was a new skill for her. The options were many—Botanical Gardens in Des Moines, the St. Louis Arch, Chicago—but she’d already decided on the Ozark Mountains. After days of cities and crowds, solitude in nature sounded luxurious.
Lola put the car in drive and hit the freeway. Hours crept by, as endless as the yellow, rolling wheat all around her. Clouds skidded across the blue sky and as she drove into the afternoon, they began to gather, low and gray on the horizon.
Everything had darkened by the time she reached the Ozarks, even though it was only late afternoon. She scanned her way through radio static, searching for a weather report. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The map got fuzzy around the mountains, and she didn’t want to get caught in the rain looking for lodging.
She pulled off the road at the first place she saw, her tires chomping as she found a place to park. In her Hey Joe hoodie and a jacket, the warmest things she’d brought from California besides her trench coat, she walked up to a tiny, hole-in-the-wall bar with a lit Fat Tire sign in the window.
Inside, Lola blinked a few times to adjust her eyes to the dark. It was empty—nobody drinking his dinner yet. The interior wasn’t an exact replica of Hey Joe, but they were cut from the same cigarette-burned cloth. She walked up to the bar. Johnny’s third favorite Led Zeppelin song, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” played in the background as if someone’d forgotten to turn the music back up after a conversation. Some postcards of Midwest attractions were tacked on the walls. The retouched photographs were more vivid than what Lola’d seen with her own eyes. The real thing had been good, but it could always be better.
Lola hadn’t contacted anyone, though she’d often thought about it. A message that she was fine. Better than fine. Amazing. She was seeing things that were good enough for postcards, learning about the country she’d grown up in—and herself too.
Above a wall of hard alcohol was a photo of bikini-clad women in snow boots and furry hats.
It may be freezing outside, but Missouri is still the hottest state in the U.S.A.!
She smiled. In Denver, she’d almost bought that same postcard with Colorado instead of Missouri. It would’ve made Beau laugh. She looked forward to a time when her tinges of nostalgia would die off, and she could fully enjoy Beau’s suffering.
The bar served food, only three items—hamburger, hotdog or cheese fries. And then a list of beer sorted by draft or bottle. Lola hadn’t eaten since Kansas. Sometimes, during long stretches in the car, she’d wonder what would’ve happened if she’d walked into that gas station weeks earlier and Beau hadn’t had a gun to his head. If they’d bought a couple pieces of candy and scarfed hotdogs on the way back to the hotel.
She slid a hand along the pitted lip of the bar. The wood wasn’t as smooth as Hey Joe’s. Or maybe that was just how she remembered it. It wouldn’t have mattered—the hotdogs. Beau would’ve gotten what he’d wanted from her one way or another. If not that night, then the next. Or the next. Beau never gave up. Did he?
Lola hadn’t seen the look on Beau’s face when she’d disappeared. With his control issues, it would be the not knowing that’d quickly drive him insane—where had she gone? How? Would she be back? When? Those questions, over and over, until he didn’t know what was stronger—the hurt or the anger. Until he was teetering between never wanting to see her again and questioning how he could go on without her.
Lola turned to leave the bar but stopped. A tall, burly man dressed in black blocked the doorway. He stomped his leather boots on the ground, shaking out his long, brown-and-gray-streaked hair. “Help you?” he asked.
She checked over her shoulder, absentmindedly patting her wallet in her pocket. The alarming amount of cash she had in her car and on her person was never far from her mind. Nor were strange, oversized men who might be on the lookout for women traveling alone. “No. I was just on my way into town.”
“Better get a move on then.”
She edged around him, glancing sidelong at the patches on his motorcycle cut before deciding to keep her eyes on his face. This guy looked meaner than the diluted versions of him she’d served in Hollywood. He shifted to let her by.
With her first step outside, something dripped on the crown of her head. The sky slumped, resting on the mountains. A white spec floated down and landed on her face. “What the…?”
“First snow of the season.”
She glanced back at the man, who leaned in the doorway. “Snow?”
“Yep.”
She’d only seen machine-made snow once—on the ground in Big Bear. This was something else completely. More flakes drifted down on her, glitter in a snow globe, dampening the top of her hair. She put her tongue out to catch some. It was natural that something other than rain fell from the sapphire-gray sky, but it was foreign to her—like reading about music and then hearing it for the first time.
“It’s beautiful.” Lola blinked crystals off her lashes. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s—”
“Goddamn obnoxious. You ever shoveled this shit? Plus, it brings on the insomnia, the cold.” He paused. “But you know how that is.”
She squinted at him over her shoulder. “No. I sleep fine.”
“Dark circles don’t lie.” He disappeared back into the bar.
She touched her cheek—she’d noticed them too. All that driving left her restless at night.
The parking lot was empty. Her car glowed red against the muted gravel, the buzz in the air tainted by the smell of petroleum. For eight days, she’d convinced herself staying under the radar was necessary. She’d barely spoken to anyone. She wanted to tell someone how amazing it was that she’d never seen this before. Lola pulled her jacket closer around her and shivered.
The magic of the moment was short-lived for the same reason her one-handed picture while crossing the Golden Gate Bridge had come out blurry. She was alone. Beau could’ve been standing by her side for her first snowfall if he hadn’t been so proud and childish. He was a grown man behaving like a boy who’d had his feelings hurt. Was that what he thought of Lola, that she’d taken her toys and disappeared in the middle of the night?
They hurt themselves to hurt each other. It was almost as if Lola could look past the pain when she saw it that way—she just wasn’t sure she was ready to.
Chapter Seven
Lola stood in front of the roadside bar in the Ozarks, snow falling a little faster now, dampening her denim jacket and hoodie.
“Not much of a coat you got there.”
Lola turned quickly at the gruff voice. The man in the leather boots was back. “I’m from California,” she said.
He held out a paper cup. “Here.”
She shuffled toward him a little, the soles of her sneakers scraping against the dusty-brush sidewalk. The drink instantly warmed her hand.
“So, you lost, California?” he asked.
She inhaled fresh coffee and took a sip. “No.”
“Liar.”
She almost spit out her drink, raising her eyebrows at him. “What?”
He nodded at her pocket, where she’d stuffed the guidebook. She’d folded the corner of a page that had information about a nearby lodge.
“What brings you around?” he asked. “Business? Pleasure?”
She took another drink, too quickly this time, and burnt her tongue. She ran the tip of it over the roof of her mouth, her eyes watering. He didn’t strike her as anything other than curious, but she’d thought the same of Beau when she’d met him. “Mostly sightseeing.”
“Anything good so far?”
“Sure.” She angled her body a little more in his direction. “I stood in the geographic center of the continental United States.”
He laughed. “Well, that’s something, isn’t it?”
Lola nodded. It’d been more exciting than the twine, at least.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
She glanced upward. Information was precious. “I…”
“Give me that.” He held out his hand for the guidebook, so she passed it to him. He flipped to the dog-eared page and grumbled, “Moose Lodge. It’s for tourists, you know.”
She shrugged. “Aren’t all hotels?”
“Got a point. Not much to see around here, though.”
Lola frowned. She didn’t mind that. The open road and countryside had been good for her. The snow was magical. Kind of like Los Angeles from a distance when it was all lit up at night. Her heart thumped once when she thought of home.
“This lodge isn’t far,” he said. “You by yourself?”
Lola glanced at the lid of her coffee. She palmed the cup, welcoming its warmth. Yes, she was by herself. No, Beau was not waiting in the car for her. He was where she’d left him, where she’d spent twenty-nine years of her life—minus eight days.
“Ah,” the man said. “I see what you got now, and it ain’t insomnia.”
“What is it?” Lola asked, still looking down.
“Lonely. I got that too, plus the insomnia, ever since my wife passed. Not a nice combo.”
Lola nodded, swallowing. Things were rarely as bad as they seemed when she looked outside herself. “How long were you married?”
“Almost twenty years.”
“Long time,” Lola murmured. A long time to screw things up, to break each other’s hearts. A long time to put them back together.
“She had cancer,” he continued. “But you know how she died? Hit by a car. Believe that?”
“I’m sorry,” Lola said lamely.
“So was I, until I realized all the ways Maxie makes me better, even from the grave. Just this morning, I drive a few towns over to Costco and someone’s pulling out of a front spot. Never happens, right? I wait a good couple minutes. Then this guy comes from the other direction, swipes it at the last second. You know what I did?”
Lola hesitated, almost afraid to ask. “What?”
“Before Maxie passed, I would’ve taught the scrawny shit some manners. Instead, I rolled down the window and said, ‘You know what? Take the goddamn spot. I’ll park in back, get myself some exercise.’”
Lola chewed her bottom lip, trying to connect that back to their conversation. She’d never been much of a religious person, so she wasn’t sure of the polite way to proceed. “So, you’re saying…that was Maxie’s way of keeping you fit?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “I’m saying since she left me, I don’t sweat the small stuff. Actually, I don’t let the big stuff get to me anymore either. Because it’s really not that important if you think about it. I’m going to go to Costco lots more times before I die, God willing, but never again with her. I’d park in the back every day if it meant she were walking by my side.”
Lola’s nose tingled. What Beau had done wasn’t small stuff by any means. Not to her. It wasn’t like he’d stolen her parking spot. This man would agree if he heard her story. Wouldn’t he? He’d lost the love of his life—well, so had she, and it wasn’t either of their faults. To forgive Beau would be a betrayal to herself—she’d always believed that. But maybe this man was telling her the opposite was true. Forgiveness was the path back to herself, to the woman who’d never gone out of her way to hurt someone else the way she had Beau.
“Life is short,” Lola said in summary.
“That’s right. We’d better try to have a good time while we’re here.” He rubbed his hands together, warming them. “So, what’re you running from, California?”
“What makes you think I’m running at all?”
He raised his brows at her. “My family’s owned this bar since before I could walk. Seen a lot of people pass through this town because it’s quiet. Hidden. Sometimes women trying to escape with their lives.”
“It’s not like that.” Lola shook her head. Running away was weak. She was taking back her life, fortifying herself after years of living for others. “I’m starting over.”
“That’s what a lot of these women say. Sometimes they get caught. Most of the time they go back on their own. But they’re almost always hiding.” The man raised his coffee cup at her. “Somebody were going after my wife, I’d want to know about it.”
Lola slid her wallet out of her back pocket. Suddenly, she wanted to be alone the way she had been her whole trip. It felt as if she were on the verge of understanding what all this had been about. She didn’t want to lose that. “How much do I owe you for the coffee?”
“On the house. As for Moose Lodge, you’re going to take this road down another mile and turn right. It’ll be on your left.” He returned her guidebook. “Get home safe, wherever home is.”
Lola didn’t have a home anymore. Johnny had come close, but that feeling of safety had vanished quicker than she thought possible. Now, only one idea came to mind—but an empty shell was no place for anyone to call home.
* * * * *
Lola found the lodge easily, and it was a good thing, because the storm was picking up. Her Converse crunched snow as she walked up to the lobby. Inside, she removed her hood, plucking her sweater to rid it of flakes.
“Early this year, isn’t it?”
Lola looked up at a young girl, whose eager smile gave her chipmunk cheeks. “What?”
She nodded behind Lola. “The snow. I thought we’d have a few more weeks.”
“Oh. I wouldn’t know. This is my first time in Missouri.” She approached the front desk. “First snowfall too.”
The girl clapped her hands and wiggled her pink-tipped fingers. “How exciting. I don’t even remember my first. I was a baby.”
Lola laughed a little at that. Enthusiasm was infectious in this friendly town. “I would’ve called ahead if I’d realized there was a storm coming. Do you have a room for tonight?”
“We sure do.” She grabbed the computer mouse and began clicking. “King bed all right? All the rooms are one-fifty plus tax.”
It was the most Lola’d paid for a room yet, but she wasn’t about to go hunting for something else in this weather. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the money. “I’ll take it.”
“Great. Just give me a sec while I set you up.”
A wailing noise came from outside. Lola left a couple hundred-dollar bills on the counter with her license and went to the window, drawing the curtain aside.
It was dusk now, but the pine trees surrounding the Moose Lodge glowed white with powdered branches. A little boy in a puffy jacket and knit cap cried noisily, gulping air. His mom stood by their car, hunched over her phone to protect it from the snow. Lola had the urge to go pick him up, comfort him, anything to stop his bawling.
After a minute, the mom snatched a toy airplane from her purse and handed it to him. His face smoothed immediately, and he took off running, his arms planed at his sides as he weaved through the tree trunks. She’d done the same with her doll, Nadia, as a little girl. She’d dressed it up for imaginary tea parties. At home
alone, that was her friend, and that was enough to content her. Children played games for themselves, not their opponents.
Lola crinkled her nose with an unexpected wave of tears. Either she was hormonal or homesick, because thinking of her past wasn’t the kind of thing that usually moved her.
The boy jumped into fresh snow with both feet. If Lola’d brought proper boots, she would’ve joined him. She decided when she had a kid, she’d make sure he or she got a chance to play in the snow. And she’d be right by his side.
His mother stayed in the parking lot, tapping at her cellphone. Lola’s cash-filled car was ten feet away.
Johnny’d had a mantra—no kids until they had the money. Well, Lola was sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars now. That kind of money was a new home, a college fund, clean clothes and never missing a meal. Lola had put all that and more on the line just to spite Beau. She’d not only lost touch with the future she’d once wanted, but every day that money wasn’t in a bank, she’d also risked it. For what? To hide out in motels in hopes of making Beau suffer? Who was actually suffering?
Lola’d been avoiding thinking of where and when her trip would end, but she had to start making decisions. She’d hoped to get some answers from the road, and in that moment, one came to her—Los Angeles was her home. Before Beau, before Johnny, it’d been her first true love, and it was where she one day wanted to watch her own son or daughter run around in her backyard.
She’d been looking for the wrong thing. True freedom would never come with revenge. Lola had spent a decade angry with her mother for reasons she couldn’t even pinpoint—she didn’t need that shadow at her back looming larger. She wanted herself and those she loved to live in light.
“Oh, shoot,” she heard from behind her. “We don’t accept cash.”
Lola turned back to the front desk. The lodge was a step up from the motels she’d been crashing at, but not a huge one. “You don’t? My credit card is…” Lola hesitated as she returned to the counter. “Is there any way you can make an exception? I’ve been traveling for over a week and haven’t had a problem paying cash anywhere else.”
Night Edge (Night Fever Serial Book 4) Page 4
