by Amy Gamet
What was the alternative? He couldn’t force her to let him in. She was a grown woman who got to call the shots in her own life, and if that put his back up, it said more about him being a nosey bastard than anything about Joanne. Yes. He should definitely let her get back in that Porsche of hers and drive away.
That car was easily worth well over a hundred grand. Anyone with a car like that shouldn’t need to borrow a few thousand dollars, much less drive all the way from Chicago to New York to do it. And it was just days after her husband died, for Christ’s sake. She should be in mourning, not desperate for cash and anxious as a bird flying over the ocean.
He rounded the service desk, nodding at a neighbor, more convinced with every step there was more to Jo’s situation than met the eye. What kind of person would he be if he just let her walk out the door, ignoring his sense that something was terribly wrong? Lucas had said they couldn’t go home. What did Sloan need? A personal invitation to intervene?
He could convince her to stay with him for a while, at least a few days. See if he could get her to open up, even if that meant walking on ice that had barely frozen over. He’d cared for her once. The least he could do was be a true friend to her now, or at least try.
He pushed out of the bank and got into his car.
Jo was frantic. “We have to get back. We shouldn’t have left April and Lucas alone.”
“What’s going on?” He drove out of the parking lot. “Did something happen?”
“Please, just hurry.”
“Damn it, Joanne! What the hell is going on?” He swerved through traffic and ran a light as it turned red, his tires fighting for traction on the snow-covered road. “Are you in trouble? Is someone trying to hurt you?”
“I thought I could just get away, that we could start over somewhere new and he wouldn’t find us.”
“Who?”
“David owed someone millions of dollars and if I don’t give it back to him within a week...” She looked over her shoulder at Fiona. When she spoke again, it was a whisper. “He’s going to kill one of the children. He said if I went to the police, he’d kill them all.”
“Jesus, Joanne, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now. He was at the bank.”
“Who?”
“The man! Richard Bannon. I think he’s a mobster. I’m not honestly sure.”
Sloan twisted in his seat. “Just now?”
“I don’t know how he found us. I didn’t think we were followed. I was careful.” She let out a single panicked sob. “He said I shouldn’t have left the other two home alone.”
“Goddamn it.” He drove even faster, passing a minivan over a double yellow line. “They must have put some kind of GPS tracker on your car.”
“I didn’t intend to bring you into this. I thought with some money I could hide and keep us safe.”
“We need HERO Force.”
“I can’t afford—”
“I’ve got it.” He punched in Mac’s number on speed dial. When the old man answered, he barked, “Mac, we’ve got a problem. I need backup at my house, pronto. As many men as you can spare.”
10
Sometime between the slalom home from the bank and the arrival of the men from HERO Force, Joanne had lost complete control of the situation. “How do we know they won’t just follow us again?” she asked.
Mac paced the length of the kitchen with sure, steady steps. “Friend of mine runs the local state police barracks. He’s setting us up with a roadblock at the entrance to the thruway.”
The front door opened and one of the SEALs walked in. Jo thought his name was Champion, but they all seemed to have nicknames and she was thoroughly confused. “There’s nothing on the Porsche. No transponder, no anything,” he said.
“Search their belongings,” ordered Mac, the kids moving faster than Jo had ever seen them move, bringing their duffel bags for the man to inspect.
Joanne turned to Sloan. “Are you sure your mom won’t mind if we take the RV?”
“Thirty-two feet of freedom has never been more necessary. She’d do anything for you. You know that.”
Her heart squeezed with emotion. Evelyn Nowak had been more like a mother than Joanne’s real mom had ever been, and truth be told, she’d missed Sloan’s mom terribly over the years. The idea that she would bend over backwards to help her and her kids nearly broke her fragile composure.
Mac stopped in front of them. “You’re sure this is what you want to do? Not too late to change your mind and go to the police.”
They’d been discussing this for hours, both before Mac and his team arrived and after. Jo had limited options. Try to find the money and return it to its rightful owner, go to the authorities, or do as she’d originally planned and run away. While that was her favorite option, she could see the wisdom in looking for the money first, and with Sloan and HERO Force on her side, there was actually a chance she’d find it.
Already, their computer guy was working on tracing David’s accounts and searching for others, but so far, he hadn’t found any money. “I’m afraid to go back there. I keep seeing my house all torn up, knowing someone was in there.”
“You’ll have me there with you, and the other men nearby,” said Sloan. “And you won’t need to go home. They can search your house without you being there. You can show us all the places David hung out and we can look for clues.”
She nodded. It sounded like a simple enough plan, but inherently dangerous, and she wondered if she’d ever sleep again. “I know. We’ve been through it all. I’m just worried.”
“There’s nothing in here,” said Champion. “I’d like to take your cell phones apart, any other devices.
Jo handed hers over, as did April. Fiona held up her beloved iPad. The poor kids, they must be at least as frightened as she was, yet they were holding up like champs. While she didn’t tell them their lives had been threatened, she did come clean about the man who wanted back the money Daddy had borrowed. “It’s going to be okay, guys,” she said with more certainty than she felt.
April walked to her and opened her arms, the rare hug making Jo feel there was hope for them yet. The last year with April had been difficult, with the girl becoming more defiant and argumentative. She could only hope their current ordeal would bring them closer together instead of further apart, and the hug was a step in the right direction.
“Nothing in here, either,” said Champion. “Could be some kind of tracking software, though.”
Sloan nodded. “We need to destroy the phones.”
“My ’Pad, too?” asked Fiona, her bottom lip sticking out.
“Yes, sweetie, I’m sorry.” He squatted down in front of her. “We need to make sure we stay safe, and there could be something on there that puts us in danger.” The little girl nodded, her face a mixture of resolute acceptance and quivering loss, and Sloan knew he had to buy her another iPad at the earliest opportunity.
“It’s time,” said Mac.
Champion got on his phone. “Chop, they’re coming out to load the RV.” He’d been watching the house from the road to make sure no one else did the same.
“Won’t take long,” said Sloan. “All we’ve got is one bag each and a mangy ol’ husky.”
Jo nudged him with her elbow. “Don’t make fun of my dog.”
Sloan met her stare, intensity flashing in their depths before he grinned. “Who would have thought one day I’d ever choose a Winnebago over a Porsche?”
“I know, right? I call shotgun.”
“You’re my official copilot. You’d better ride shotgun.”
She smiled, suddenly noticing all eyes were on Sloan and her. Mac had stopped pacing and stood with his head cocked, Champion was openly staring, and all three kids looked like they were watching a pig fly across the sky. Her cheeks heated, and she pushed off the counter. “Okay, kids, let’s get this show on the road.”
11
Sloan drove along the highway, Joanne by his side and th
e kids tucked into the back of the vehicle, classic rock playing softly on the radio. Fiona had fallen asleep with her new iPad on her lap, April had been playing on her new phone since they left New York, and Lucas was completely engrossed in his Nintendo Switch. The devices were expensive, but he didn’t care.
Joanne had quite a fight with April over putting Instagram on her new phone, going so far as to forbid the girl from installing it. Sloan witnessed the legendary wrath of an eleven-year-old girl, and quietly wagered April would install it anyway.
They selected a campground an hour outside of Chicago to stay in overnight. Between the impending reservation and the long, quiet drive, he couldn’t help but feel like he was living someone else’s life, that these were his kids, this was his wife, and they were traveling on some special vacation.
It was a stupid fantasy and one he wouldn’t have admitted to if Joanne had asked what he was thinking. There was just the peaceful feel of sharing each other’s company and Sloan’s profound sadness at what might have been.
What if he’d said yes all those years ago, instead of freezing up like the idiot he’d been? It hadn’t taken him long to realize he’d made the wrong choice in refusing to marry her. Within two weeks of his arrival at basic training, he’d already bought the ring. If he’d gone to her then or called and apologized, told her he was an asshole and a jerk and a hundred different things, he could have begged to have her back. Maybe she wouldn’t have married David, and their entire lives would have been different.
But that’s not what he did.
He’d choked. He’d dug in his heels. He’d arrogantly thought he’d have the rest of his life to make it up to her. He’d dragged his feet and taken his time and planned exactly how he wanted to pop the question, never imagining she would already be someone else’s wife by the time he returned from training.
“Tell me about David.” The words were out before he could stop them, the need to know what happened outweighing his desire to maintain the peace. The air between them changed instantly, seeming to carry a charge like a storm blowing in.
“What do you want to know?”
“You got married pretty quick. Why?”
She didn’t say anything for the better part of a mile. He knew because he was counting the markers, waiting for her to speak.
“I thought it was the right thing to do.”
The right thing to do? “Were you pregnant or something?”
She sighed heavily. “No. You were gone. I was living in my father’s house. Things were worse than they’d ever been. David was nice to me.”
“So what, you just married him? Like hey, boom, want to get hitched?”
“Stop it. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Goddamn, he was frustrated, and he would have punched the steering wheel with his hand if it wouldn’t have woken Fiona. He wanted answers, and all she wasn’t telling him was what he really wanted to know. “Did you love him?”
His hands were sweaty on the wheel, his heart racing. This mattered to him more than it should, but he couldn’t back away from the conversation any more than he could stop a freight train with his hands. “Because just a few weeks before that, you were supposedly in love with me, remember?”
“I remember we broke up. I remember you didn’t want to be with me.”
“I was a kid, Jo. I was scared to get married before the ink dried on my high school diploma. That didn’t erase two years together. It didn’t make my feelings for you go away. But a hot minute after that, you hitched your apple cart to the next guy in line.”
He couldn’t stop, couldn’t hold back the words that demanded to be said. “Tell me you loved him. Tell me you fell madly, crazy, deeply in love with him like you’d never felt for me, and that’s why you married the bastard. Because maybe then I wouldn’t hate you so much for doing it.”
“Why did you hate me? Why did you even care?”
“Because I was in love with you, damn it!” He lowered his voice on the expletive. “And you married somebody else!”
“I wanted to marry you, remember?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ. This is ridiculous. No, this is maddening. Do you know that? You are maddening. Forget I asked. Forget I said anything.”
According to his GPS, they had an hour to go before arriving at the campground. When they got there, he’d take a long walk. Put some distance between himself and this Griswald family vacation. If he was lucky, Joanne would be asleep when he returned, and he might actually get some quiet time alone.
She cleared her throat. “No.”
“No, what?”
“I didn’t love him. I was desperate. My dad’s stepbrother moved back in with us—”
“Uncle Bobby?” Fuck. He was a hardcore drunk who grabbed Jo’s ass and talked about her tits like he was discussing the weather. He’d damn near raped her when she was fifteen, and her dad didn’t even care, which was when Jo started sleeping over at Sloan’s house nearly every night.
Her uncle moving back in was the worst possible thing that could have happened to Jo, and he hated himself for not being there to help her. “Jesus, Jo. I’m so sorry.”
“I moved out. I found a roommate and a place that wasn’t too bad up over a bar on Main Street, and I was doing okay for a little while. I had to drop out of school because I needed to work, but then the diner burned down and I lost my job, anyway.”
If he’d known for one second what she was going through, he would have been there in an instant, and he cursed his own stupidity for leaving her alone. But he needed to hear all of it, the entire story. “Go on.”
“David was nice to me. He used to come into the diner, then when that burned down, he showed up at my house. He brought me flowers. He stood there in his chinos and button-down shirt, talking to my drunk-ass father like it was a totally normal conversation.
“I was so damn sad,” she said quietly. “David was there for me. He was going to college in Chicago and wanted me to come with him. He wanted to marry me. I wanted a new life, Sloan. One where I wasn’t the poor kid from the wrong side of town, I wasn’t just a high school dropout, alone. I saw the chance for a fresh start with a man who loved me, and I took it.”
He could hear the tears in her voice, feel the mirrored tension in his own tight throat, and he swallowed against it. “I came back for you.”
“What?”
Why was he telling her this now? Nothing good could come of it. The past was the past. It couldn’t be changed. But it was clear to him he’d been holding on to it, refusing to let go of the woman who’d given up on him so easily.
There had been no serious relationships in his life, and while he’d told himself it was because he liked to keep things light, not be weighed down, he could see now that was utter bullshit. Once bitten, twice shy. It was time to let this wound heal so he could have a real life for himself, unravel this knot and move on. Maybe have an RV full of his own kids one day.
He looked away from the road to meet her stare, then turned back. He needed to finish this once and for all. “When my training ended. I came home from basic with a ring in my hand. I came back for you, Buckley.”
12
With those six words, Sloan took Joanne’s entire history and turned it on its head. The past thirteen years had seemed like an inevitable course of events, every decision forcing her into another situation where she had no control over what would happen next.
She stared out her window as they drove into the dark campground, the winding road white with salt residue and flanked by snow-covered evergreens. They came to a small parking lot and Sloan got out to register, her eyes fixing on a fallen tree at the edge of the forest.
Once, she’d stood tall as those trees, believing in herself and the possibilities. But she’d married David in a blind leap of desperation, needing an escape route from her home life and grabbing on to him like a life preserver in a storm. There’d been nothing but emptiness after Sloan left, no h
ope for any improvement in the future. At least with David, there’d been a chance.
She could see now, she should have been stronger, should have stood tall on her own instead of marrying him to escape. But David’s offer had played off Sloan’s rejection in her mind like the perfect cure for the hole in her heart. Life had taken away one man but had given her another.
How foolish she’d been.
Her eyes burned, but she held the tears at bay, refusing to bend under the weight of this revelation. Sloan had come back for her. He had loved her, after all.
The words were crushing, making her feel like she couldn’t breathe despite the air that filled her lungs and rushed out again. It was such a shame, a waste, an ironic twist of fate, and she wondered what terrible thing she must have done to deserve it.
She ached to hold on to him, to fall apart and let him shore her up like he used to, to have him tell her everything would be okay, to lean into his body and take strength from it. But she couldn’t do it. That kind of weakness had knocked her life off course, the desire to be protected forever paramount over the desire to stand straight and tall.
She had to do better this time. Her life and her children’s lives were at stake. It was time to be brave, even if that meant being alone.
The driver’s door opened, the cold air blowing in as Sloan sat down. “Only two other campers in the whole place. We’ve got half the lake to ourselves.” He drove to a three-sided shed some fifty feet up the road, a lighted wreath gracing its peak and the inside stacked high with firewood, and got out again.
Her mind worked to pull up the date. December eighteenth, seven days until Christmas. She couldn’t even wrap her head around the idea that it was Christmastime.
“I don’t see why we have to stay here,” said April. “Who goes camping in December?”
Joanne forced a lightness into her tone she didn’t feel. “We have a Winnebago. It seemed like a good idea.”
