The Fate Series Box Set (Robin and Tyler Book 4) Page 4

  “Not fair, you cheated!” I cry, trying to catch my breath.

  “Whatev,” she says, pulling a hair tie off her wrist, attempting to wrangle in her unkempt hair. At this exact moment we both realize the same thing: everyone is staring at us.

  Salt Gap Diner is about the size of my condo. It has ten two-person tables and a bar that stretches from end to end at the back of the room. If I had to choose a theme for it, I would pick antique/rustic/cowboy. Country music plays from the jukebox in the front of the diner where we stand. Half the tables are seated with customers, and all of the customers watch us like we’re some kind of city folk freak show.

  “Shit,” Miranda whispers under her breath.

  A thin girl about my age appears at our side holding two laminated menus. She has beautiful blonde hair that is so perfectly golden it has to be natural, and she’s wearing blue jeans with holes in the knees and a red Salt Gap T-shirt. “Good evening, ladies. Is it just the two of you?”

  I nod. Her voice is twangy but not annoyingly so. She smiles, turns on her heel and walks us to a table in the far corner of the room. This must be where they put the outsiders.

  “Hi,” Miranda says cheerfully to an older woman who gives us a curious look as we walk by. “Can I help you with something?” The woman shakes her head and goes back to eating her food. I try not to laugh. Miranda can be a bit bold.

  “My name is Elizabeth and I’d love to help you with anything you need today, okay?” our waitress says as she places the menus in front of us. Mine has as sticky goo on the corner. “Today’s special is chicken fried steak, but y’all might want breakfast since it’s past midnight, which you can find on the front of the menu.”

  I order a coffee and Miranda orders a Diet Coke. I’m halfway positive that I’ve read in magazines before that caffeine is bad for pregnant women, but I’m not about to say that in front of our waitress and embarrass my niece.

  “So where are y’all from?” Elizabeth asks when she brings our drinks, her welcoming smile revealing crooked teeth.

  “Houston.” I skim over the menu, but I’ve pretty much settled on the chicken fried steak. I don’t care what time of day it is. You can’t go wrong with chicken fried steak, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten anything that’s fried.

  “Wow, that’s a ways off.” She clicks her pen open and closed, open and closed as she talks to us. “What are ya doing way out here?”

  “Oh you know,” Miranda cuts in. “Impromptu road trip. Aunt Robin here lost her mind.” She motions to me and then twirls her finger around her temple in the universal sign for lunatic. “I thought I’d just tag along.”

  Elizabeth nervously bites her lip, unsure if she should laugh or console me. Unfortunately, I don’t know that answer either.

  “I’ll have the chicken fried steak,” I say.

  “Me too,” Miranda echoes. “And can you change the mashed potatoes for cheese fries? And maybe add some hash browns, plus, like two pancakes?”

  I laugh into my hand as Elizabeth’s eyes go wide as she writes down Miranda’s laundry list of an order and leaves our table as fast as she can. I don’t blame her. I kind of don’t want to be around me either.

  The food is delicious and I’m envious of Miranda’s cheese fries. She finishes every bite of food on her plate and then starts leeching off of mine. I let her because I’m not that hungry. There’s a hole in my chest right now, not in my stomach. We stay until two in the morning, when a group of rowdy twenty-one year old guys barge in, having just celebrated someone’s birthday by drinking a little too much.

  As I’m paying for our meal, it dawns on me that I have no idea where we are going after this. We still have a few hours until dawn but I could probably drive for a few more hours before I pass out at the wheel. But, do I want to keep driving? Not really. Miranda taps her fingers on the glass window in front of the diner, her eyes far away. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but it can’t be anything pleasant.

  “Are there any hotels around here?” I ask Elizabeth as she swipes my debit card through their ancient machine. She’s also watching Miranda’s expression with a pained one of her own. I wonder what she thinks we’re doing out here, away from home and looking like something the cat dragged in.

  “We have a B&B just down the road about a mile and a half away,” she says, taking a cell phone out of her back pocket. “Just a sec, I’ll get you a room.”

  Miranda and I exchange glances as Elizabeth calls someone named Shelly and tells her she’s sending over two guests. She snaps her phone closed and gives us that warm welcoming smile again. “Gotcha all set up,” she says. “You’ll get a discount since I referred you.”

  I thank her and turn to go, only to be stopped with a loud yelp from Miranda. The door to the diner slams open, knocking Miranda in the face and silencing her scream as a man in an undershirt and sweatpants storms inside. Miranda drops to the floor holding her hands up to her face. Yelling and chaos erupts all around me as I fall to my knees to check on her. She writhes in pain as blood drips out of her nose.

  Of all the voices going on around me, the only one I recognize is Elizabeth’s. She’s saying the name Will and the word no over and over again, her voice growing more desperate by the second. When I’m positive that Miranda will be okay despite what’s probably a broken nose, I rock back on my knees and try to figure out what’s happening.

  Undershirt guy, Will I guess is his name, is going on some kind of roid-rage rampage right in the middle of the diner and Elizabeth is his target.

  “I give you everything!” he yells, jabbing his finger on her chest. “Everything!”

  “I know, baby,” she pleads with him, making an attempt to grab his arm but he shakes her away. She grabs for him again. “Baby let’s talk about this at home, okay? I’m about to leave.”

  “Where is he?” Will looks around, knocking chairs out of his way, even bending to look under a table. Miranda lets out a whimper and I turn my attention back to her. She reaches for me with one hand while the other one cups her nose. Blood drips from under her fingertips. I take her hand and help her pull up on her feet.

  Elizabeth and Will are still arguing, and I’m looking around for a paper towel or something to help Miranda. I can’t believe no one tries to help us. So much for southern fucking hospitality.

  Miranda chokes back tears, her breathing coming in a huff now. I look her in the eyes. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “Like fuck we do,” Miranda snaps. With one arm, she pushes me out of her way and walks right up to the roid-rage guy as if he’s not screaming and not two hundred pounds heavier than her.

  “You better fucking apologize!” The shrillness in her voice sends chills down my arms. Will’s features flicker with what might actually be fear but it only lasts for a Nano second. The very next second he shrugs a hand toward my niece. “Go away, girl. This isn’t about you.”

  Miranda straightens to her full height. Blood drips down her nose and over her lips. “You broke my nose, you piece of shit. I can have you arrested.”

  “Yeah?” He drops his hold on Elizabeth’s arm. “Who is this?”

  “They’re just passing through,” Elizabeth says, giving us a weak version of her charming smile. Her features don’t look as beautiful right now. “Y’all should go,” she says, her eyes pleading with me.

  “Miranda, drop it,” I say, trying to gain control of the situation. Sure, I feel sorry for Elizabeth, but this is her problem. I can’t beat up this guy and my cell phone has no signal out here, so short of MacGyver-ing some way to take him down with laminated menus and kid’s meal crayons, I’m useless. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re a piece of shit,” Miranda snaps at him, her hands balled into fists at her side. She looks like some kind of natural disaster survivor, in her dirty pajama pants, knotted hair and swollen nose to match her swollen eyes. Something in the way she shoots daggers at Will makes me think of Maggie and how she would react at seeing w
hat happened to her daughter since I took her under my wing.

  With the imagined image of Maggie’s face burned into my brain, I grab Miranda’s arm and pull her toward the door. We’re not staying here tonight. We’re getting back on the interstate and driving for a long, long time.

  I push open the door just in time to see a hooded figure slam a baseball bat through my windshield.

  What the hell is wrong with Salt Gap, Texas?

  Chapter 7

  “Hey!” I yell, my voice choked up and useless because hey is the only word I can manage to think of in my total shock. The man wears jeans and a black jacket, its hood pulled tightly closed around his face. He glances back at me when I yell but then grabs his bat off my hood and slams it into the left headlight.

  I want to run, to grab his arms and pull him away from my car, but I’m paralyzed against the door of the diner. Miranda pushes past me, stepping in front of me almost protectively. “What’s going on?” she says, peeking over the hand that covers her nose. The asshole with the baseball bat runs around the passenger side of my sixty thousand dollar vehicle and takes out Miranda’s window, then the back window. Miranda lets out a little gasp. I hear her suck in a deep breath through her mouth. “Oh hell fucking no,” she says, stepping forward and grabbing a handful of rocks from the gravel parking lot.

  “What did we do to you, you disgusting backwoods hick?” She spats, the ripped fabric of her pants dragging along the ground as she strides toward him in total confidence. I guess I could be that confident too if I looked like the walking dead. I call her name but she doesn’t listen. He ignores her insults and moves around the back of my car, slamming his bat into each panel of metal like he’s making a home run. Miranda yells louder, “You have a problem with people having nice things?”

  My back presses against the wall of the diner. I’m paralyzed with shock. In the back of my mind I know I should try dialing 9-1-1 or run back inside and ask for the police. But I can’t do anything but stand here watching this surreal chain of events unfold, making me question everything about this stupid move.

  The guy takes out my tail lights, each swing of his bat causing an equally sized hole in my heart. I’m calculating the cost of my insurance deductible when the guy stops swinging his bat and gets a good look at Miranda. “Fuck you,” he hisses. His throaty voice makes him sound way older than he is. With one expert swing of her pitching arm, Miranda rears back and hurls her handful of rocks right at his face.

  He ducks, but not quick enough to avoid them. There’s no mistaking the sound of rock-on-tooth as one collides with his mouth and he cries out in pain. This is bad. The thought of having Miranda get beaten to a pulp by this lunatic is enough to make me peel myself off the wall and march into the parking lot.

  Having no idea what I’m going to do or say when I get there, I ball up my fists and square my shoulders. If this were Houston, the cops would be here by now. “Thanks for ruining my car,” I say, trying to sound lighthearted. Do lighthearted people make psychos a little less psycho? It can’t hurt to try. “I guess we can exchange insurance information now?”

  He throws his bat in the bed of an old Ford pickup truck parked next to me and pops open the driver’s side door. “Your car?,” he murmurs under his breath, stepping behind the door as if to let it shield him from me. “Guess the bastard has a new family and is sending a woman to do a man’s job. Figures.”

  “With all sexism aside,” I say, crossing my arms. “Who do you think sent me here?”

  Our eyes meet for the first time. He’s not just too young for his voice—he’s entirely too young in general. A teenager. He spits on the ground and wipes lips with the sleeve of his jacket. “Houston.”

  My heart stops cold. Miranda’s jaw cracks as her mouth falls open. I take a step forward. “You know I’m from Houston?”

  He gives me a look like I’m a little slow. “Uh, no.” He enunciates each word slowly and with an extreme amount of mockery. “You were sent here by Jared Houston.”

  Miranda and I exchange confused glances. “You little shit, you beat up the wrong car,” Miranda says with a delirious snort of laughter. “We don’t know anyone by that name. We don’t even live around here.”

  “What?” he asks. Fear flickers across his eyes as he surveys the damage he caused to my car.

  A line of blood drizzles out of Miranda’s nose and she winces and smiles at the same time. “You are in so much trouble,” she says between laughing and gasping for breath.

  “We’re on a road trip,” I tell him. “Just passing through.”

  “Oh, shit,” he says. “I—I’m sorry.” His hard exterior crumbles with each word. His cheeks flush red. “I—I thought you were Jared.” He slumps into the driver’s seat, his head resting on the steering wheel. “Oh God I screwed up. They’re gonna kill me.”

  “Not if I kill you first,” Miranda says, but the venom has left her voice. She’s all giggles now.

  I step up to my car and place my hand where the glass used to be. Now it’s pooled on the dash in hundreds of little glass shards. I guess my car is still drivable, minus the use of the headlights.

  I lean against the cold metal of my precious car, with its leather interior, upgraded sound system and voice activated navigation system. A tear rolls down my cheek, and I’m reminded of this old memory from back when Miranda was a baby. She wasn’t old enough to walk yet and had a fever. Maggie was staying with us at our Mom’s house for the Christmas holidays and had to go to the twenty-four hour pharmacy to get her fever medicine. I was about seven years old. Under Maggie’s strict rules, I was to sit on the couch with baby Miranda and not move a muscle until she came home with the medicine.

  After a little while, I ended up falling asleep on my back while lying on the couch with Miranda resting on my chest. I woke up to the sound of her coughing and the feel of warm baby vomit oozing down my neck, into my ears and through my hair. The vomit just seemed to keep coming and coming, covering both of us with the smell of sour milk. I jumped up and held her at arm’s length, crying and coughing and freaking out. I remember thinking at that moment that I had absolutely no idea what to do. I couldn’t clean the throw up out of my hair and neck without putting Miranda down, and I couldn’t clean Miranda without cleaning myself. The situation was hopeless and I had no idea where to start.

  The same desperate feeling of hopelessness falls over me now. I can’t stay here because Miranda needs medical help, but I can’t leave because my car can’t be driven. I can’t fix my car without leaving. We’re in the middle of nowhere and our cell phones have no signal.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I blurt out to no one in particular.

  “We’ll go to the bed and breakfast place,” Miranda says. Her hand touches my shoulder. “My nose is fine, I don’t need a hospital.” Even as she says it, she sounds like her vocal cords are projecting through a fog horn.

  “The bed and breakfast is a mile and a half away. We can’t walk there in your condition and we can’t drive there with no tail lights.” I say the last two words louder for the benefit of the juvenile delinquent sitting in his truck, tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel.

  “I’ll drive you,” he says, letting his hood on his jacket fall to his shoulders. He has a mass of curly brown hair and bright blue eyes. “It’s the least I can do. My name’s Marcus, by the way.”

  When we arrive at the Salt Gap Inn a few minutes later, Marcus hops out of the driver’s seat and grabs our bags out of the bed of his truck. He’s such an eager beaver now, you’d think he was a member of the peace corps and not some jack ass who ruined my car.

  “My parents will kill me,” he says, shifting the two bags to one arm and pulling open the inn’s door with the other. “But I’ll have the money to fix your car. Assuming I’m not dead first.” He smiles, but it isn’t very convincing. Maybe he will be dead first. I’d kill him if he were my kid.

  He sets our bags on the floor in the foyer of the inn. It�
�s a massive three story Victorian style home with a wraparound porch and antique wooden filigree decorations in every corner. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon wraps around us in that warm Southern welcome I had started to think wouldn’t happen in Salt Gap. There’s a guestbook to our right and Miranda goes straight for it as if this were an ordinary vacation where ordinary vacation-like things were necessary.

  When she’s finished signing both of our names, Marcus takes the pen and writes his name, address and phone number on the diner receipt he had in his pocket. “Here’s my information,” he says, handing me the paper. “I’ll have my dad come here tomorrow and talk to you. He will probably write you a check or something.”

  “Er, thanks,” I say. The little jerk is too well-spoken to be so apt at vandalism. This will officially be the weirdest car insurance claim ever.

  He gives a tiny wave and heads toward the front door to let himself out. Although I do want the little shit gone and out of my sight, I can’t help but stop him. “So what did this Jared Houston guy do to piss you off so badly?” I ask.

  He runs a hand through his wild hair and glances at his feet. “He was my sister’s fiancé. She had their baby and he left her. Just packed up his shit and drove off in the middle of the night, not telling anyone.” He takes his eyes off the floor and looks at me. “She’s been raising that baby for a year all by herself and it kills me. When I saw his SUV with a U-Haul at the diner, I figured he moved back here and I couldn’t help myself. But…I guess that wasn’t his SUV.”

  “You’re a good brother,” Miranda says. “I wish I had a brother like you.”

  Marcus gives her a weak smile and then apologizes to me again before leaving. I’m glad I asked why he vandalized my car. Hearing his explanation put the first real smile on my niece’s face tonight. And even if everything has gone to hell, at least we’re somewhere safe for the night—and that’s really the best outcome I could have hoped for.