Two months earlier, Paradise, Saskatchewan
She’d hit the asphalt and kept running, not toward town like people might’ve expected, but away from it.
The edge of the road was slick with ice where the plows had scraped away the recent snowfall and left behind a thin layer. The clothes she’d stolen weren’t warm enough to fight off the weather, but she kept moving fast enough it didn’t matter. Her exertions sent her heart pumping, her breath escaping rapidly.
Whenever a set of lights appeared in front of her, she’d duck into the ditch and hide. The fewer people who saw her on the road, the better. The way she wanted to go was west, and every time a set of high beams showed in the distance at her back, she’d glanced behind to see if it was a possible ride.
She’d taught herself what big-rig lights looked like, and that was the only thing she’d dare to flag down. Anyone else might be related to the family, or think she was being delusional.
Or worse, they might insist on taking her to the police, and that wouldn’t end well either.
It was probably four in the morning before she finally heard the rumble of a diesel. Her fingers were numb, and her toes icy cold, and she’d settled into a shuffling trot because she had no energy left to run anymore. She turned and raised a hand, waving at the fast-approaching truck.
His brakes engaging was the most terrifying and wonderful sound she’d ever heard in her life.
The truck came to a stop on the edge of the highway far enough ahead that she had to hurry forward. The high door swung open, and she glanced up as warmth poured out of the cab, and she shivered involuntarily.
Blue eyes in a weathered face looked down at her. An older man, with a baseball cap on his head and serious expression on his face. “What the hell are you doing out here at this time of night, girl?”
“I need a ride.”
He looked her up and down, and she was dreading further questions. Thankfully, he nodded briskly and motioned for her to join him.
Becky scrambled into the cab as quickly as possible, closing the door behind her and pulling the seatbelt across her body without thinking too hard that she might’ve stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire.
“Where are you headed?”
She couldn’t read his emotions, one way or another, in the gruff tone of his voice. She’d planned this part out. “Calgary. But if you’re not going that far, you can drop me wherever.” Her fingers tightened on the backpack clutched in her lap. “I can give you gas money. I appreciate the ride.”
He nodded, slipping back onto the highway, then they sat in silence for a bit while the road stretched in front of them in a razor-straight line. She stared out the window at the mile markers, and the snow fences, and tried to will her heart rate back to normal.
“Are you hungry?”
She snapped her head to the side as something jabbed her arm. Her ride held a granola bar. It was obviously what he’d used to get her attention.
He nodded toward it. “Go on. We won’t be stopping to eat breakfast for over an hour, so you may as well have this now.”
She promised herself to get through this she’d do anything to make it somewhere safe. And if that meant taking a bit of charity along the way, her ego would have to get over it.
She pulled the snack from his fingers gratefully. “Thank you.”
The heat inside the cab, the exhaustion from her escape, plus a little food in her stomach meant her eyes were rocking closed before too much longer.
It wasn’t until the noises changed that she woke from her hazy sleep. The wheels were slowing, and the turn indicator clicked in a steady rhythm. She looked out the window, horrified to discover they weren’t outside the gas station. He was pulling off in a way station in the middle of nowhere, with no signs of another vehicle.
Becky dropped her fingers to the seatbelt release, ready to make an escape if needed, as he brought the massive vehicle to a complete stop.
He glanced her way and swore softly.
“Damn, you should see your face. I’m not going to hurt you.” He shook his head. “I wish to hell I could go back and give whoever put that look in your eyes a taste of his own medicine.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Why’d we stop?”
He stared at her with those blue-edged knives. “Because I want to know what the hell I’m doing before I pull into a truck stop and get arrested for kidnapping some teenager. It doesn’t matter that you were hitchhiking, no one will believe me if you decide to start screaming for help.”
“I won’t. I mean, I’m not.” This wasn’t something she had considered in her plan. “I’m not a teenage runaway. I’m twenty-one, and I—”
He choked. “Twenty-one? Shit. Okay, that helps. But why were you on the road at four a.m. willing to get a ride to Calgary or wherever?”
She forced herself to look him in the eyes. “I don’t want to tell you.”
He grunted, his lips twisting into a wry smile. “At least you didn’t give me some bullshit story about going to see family.”
Rebekah shivered. “I don’t want to tell you anything. I’m not trying to make trouble, but I think it’s best I do this on my own, except for the ride. I need a ride.”
“As far away from here, as fast as possible?”
She nodded.
He stared back, his expression sad and yet kind. He didn’t say anything for the longest time, and she fidgeted on the spot, seconds away from bolting before he finally nodded. “Girl, you need more than a ride, you need a friend. Let’s see what we can do to get you straightened up.”