Free Crossed: Book Two (A NEW ADULT ROMANCE) by Emma Browning

CHAPTER 1
     
    West or North he told me. Nevada or Montana. That’s where he knows the people who can keep us “under the radar” for a few days. Or a few weeks.
    I’ve never even left North Carolina. Hell, I’ve barely left the forty-five-minute radius of my apartment. My old apartment.  I’d kill to be back in that apartment now. Back to chasing an easier life, getting a job and living like a normal human being. Why did I have to get mixed up with this guy? Why did he have to take me to that cabin? Why is he so dangerously HOT?
    “Watch out for that car. Jesus,” I say as he screams past another one. I’m fully on edge. “I thought we were supposed to be keeping calm and not raising any suspicion for a few days?”
    “I got it,” he says.
    We’ve been going ninety down this highway for about an hour towards Mt Airy. I need to go to the bathroom, am totally starving and I really just want to get out and stretch since we’ve been on the road for a while now.
    “Can we stop and get something to eat? I’m about to perish over here. And I’m sure Bear wants out of that cramped back seat.”
    “Definitely, baby cakes. Next exit, we’re there,” says Tyson, smiling in my direction. “How’d you sleep?”
    How can he be smiling and so happy right now? He just shot and killed a man a few hours ago. Is he demented or something?
    “I didn’t get any sleep, but it was nice to close my eyes for a little while and not hear bullets landing so close though.”
    “I only hit my targets. No need to worry.”
    “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one with bullets flying by your head,” I reply.
    “Here’s the next exit,” he says whipping off the highway.              
    “So, where are you taking me, Cowboy ?” I ask.
    “Ever been to Montana, Cowgirl ?” he responds.
    I fill him in on the tight radius I’m used to keeping and he jumps excitedly into the “beauty and the bounty” of Montana. I have no idea what “the bounty” is and I’m flooded with flashbacks of the tavern scene with Marcus yelling AHOY every chance he gets. “Sounds better than the desert,” I say.
    “Montana it is,” he says. “Nevada sucks ass anyway.”
    Nearly everything I own is in a backpack. I left behind all the furniture in the apartment, which were all college hand-me-downs anyway, and put the rest of my clothes in the hyper small trunk of this sports car. Luckily they didn’t get soaked by Francisco’s dishwasher flooding my shithole apartment.
    “Why do you call me baby cakes anyway?” I finally inquire.
    “Well, it’s because you’re not like the big cake that everybody gets a piece of. You’re the little baby cake that I keep for myself; the one that’s special. You know, like that first birthday party, there’s always a little baby cake, always reserved. Well, I guess I like to dream it’s my birthday and you’re my little baby cake.”
    “That’s actually kind of cute,” I say. “But you don’t really know yet how that dream is going to end, do you ?”
    “Oh, I have some ideas about it,” he replies. “Here’s the store.”
    When we get to a stop, I hit the store and then grab Bear for a walk. Tyson stays behind to “make some important calls”. There is a clearing behind the store and I see a path entering a dense coverage of trees. I take him there.
    We walk for a few minutes and it gives me a chance to think. It’s been a crazy night and I haven’t even had a chance to collect my thoughts on what has happened. The question that comes to mind first: should I just keep walking down this path and go wherever it takes me? That’s a very entertaining thought at this point, but he did save me from rape and an almost certain painful death.
    Do I at least owe him a chance to show me he can provide more than just his fists and guns? Will he get away from his military commitments or is he, well, is he going to be like my dad? On the road forever? Not there for his kids. I