They hung up and Maleah headed for the shower. She packed a couple bags with enough clothes and essentials to get her through a few days. After locking the apartment, Maleah made it to her car without tripping or falling. That had to be a sign that today would be better than the day before. Any day had to be better than yesterday, she thought as she started a playlist on her phone. A road trip couldn’t begin without music. The hangover lingered like a cloud of smog polluting her brain and her bloodstream, but she had a mission to complete, and as long as she focused on helping her aunt, she could ignore her other woes.
Three
BEN CRANKED UP THE stereo and rolled the windows down in his truck. The workday had been long and productive, just the way he liked it. The heaviness of tired muscles in his arms and the stiffness in his neck meant he’d worked his ass off and had earned a beer and a few hours of relaxation before doing it all over again tomorrow.
Things were finally returning to normal after all the unnecessary drama of separation, divorce, and accompanying heartache of splitting up with Kinsey. God, that woman was something else. He shifted his thoughts to the road and the view of the mountains surrounding the Copper River Valley. His family’s ranch lay behind him and to the west. The Ericksons settled here in the 1880s and found a love for the mountains that couldn’t be shaken. Ranching had its ups and downs, but the Ericksons had persevered through decades of good and bad years. Ben had not been born with the call to work the cattle, and that was all right, because the ranching gene ran strong in his older brother, Jeremiah. Ben wanted—no, he needed, to make his own way and earn his own success. His roots were deep in Three Peaks and the Copper River Valley, but he wouldn’t own and operate the family ranch.
Rebuilding his business after Kinsey had claimed, and been awarded by the court, half of his construction company had eaten up every ounce of his energy and all of his time. What a hellish and drawn-out nightmare she’d created with her need to destroy him. He’d offered her a cash settlement, not that he’d had the liquid assets. His money had been tied up in the business, but he would have come up with the cash to get her name off of it. Instead, she wanted to make his life as miserable as possible, and the judge had given her everything she wanted.
Rather than playing games and continuing to be manipulated by his shit-ass crazy ex, he’d sold the remaining half of his business for next to nothing and walked away, leaving her with a less-than-desirable partner. He also gave Kinsey the house. It wasn’t worth the fight or the headaches. Besides, his daughter lived in that house and he wouldn’t take that away from Skyla.
Kinsey had lost her freaking mind when she found out Ben had sold his share of the business to a stranger, and she’d refused to let him see his daughter for three months. He realized after the fact that the price of being cut off from his daughter was too high, but Ben had made his choice. He never thought Kinsey would take Skyla away from him. The depth of Kinsey’s revenge was seemingly bottomless. Had he known Kinsey would ignore the court ordered visitation schedule, he might have chosen differently, but selling the business had been his best option at the time. Fighting his ex in court for a second time only compounded the misery. But Ben won the second round, and visitations with Skyla had finally begun again.
One step at a time. One day at a time. This was the advice his mother gave him as he experienced the hardest part of his twenty-eight years on the planet. His daughter was ten, old enough to see, hear, and know everything that transpired between her screwed up parents.
Ben didn’t want to think on what his life had been like for the past two years. Today had been a great day. Despite competing against his former company, his new construction company was growing and doing well. It helped that his brother had decided to remodel the family homestead and rebuild the old bunkhouse, but that was one of his four contracted projects. He was set for the year, and he was looking forward, not back.
Looking forward, literally, Ben took in the view of the mountain range with their remaining patches of last year’s snow. Fall was on the way. At the high elevation, the grass tops were heavy with seed, and the stalks turning gold. The sedge had darkened along the riverbanks and already showed tinges of burnished copper as it completed its life cycle. Back at the ranch, Jeremiah had baled the last cutting of hay for the year in the highest meadow. Ben looked forward to a break from the summer heat. Last winter brought more snow than usual and a wet summer, but the August heat had been right on target. A good thing too, as the hay needed to be dry before baling. The past weekend had brought a couple cold nights, and it had been a relief, even if he’d had to listen to a few of the older ladies downtown complain that they weren’t ready for the snow or having to scrape ice off their windshields.
Ben was about five minutes outside of town when the golden hour of sunset struck the peaks and warmed the expansive views. He was caught up in appreciating the weather and the vastness of sky and land and clouds and he nearly missed the half-naked woman prancing around in the ditch next to a black car alongside the road.
Curious wasn’t a strong enough word for his intrigue. He was downright captivated by what he saw. Her dark hair flew in all directions, covering most of her face as she hopped and flailed in the weeds. Her screeching and yelling overpowered the music and road noise. Something was definitely wrong. Ben stared so hard in the rearview mirror he almost missed the curve in the road. He hit the brakes as the passenger side tires went off the edge of the pavement and into the gravel.
Ben stopped the truck in the berm, executed a three-point turn, and returned to see if she needed help. Maybe an ambulance? When the dogs acted like that, he’d been known to turn the hose on them. I could call the fire department. She was barefoot and slapping at bare legs while yelling like a banshee. Can people get brainworm?
Ben stepped out of his truck and approached with caution. Her back was to him, and she didn’t appear to notice his arrival on scene. Living in the sticks with a small population, few roads, and limited emergency services meant everyone depended on each other for help. This was civic duty, he told himself. Approaching a crazy lady from behind, and unarmed, might not be the smartest thing he’d ever done, but he was at least trying to be helpful. And as far as he could see, and unless she had a small weapon tucked under her shirt, she was also unarmed.
“Hey there!” he called. “You doing all right?”
No kidding, the woman didn’t hear him, or she was completely deaf. She whipped off her shirt and threw it on the roof of her car. He now saw that the car had a flat tire, which helped explain why she was parked in the weeds along Route 9. As far as bodies go, hers was better than average. She was long-limbed, and her smooth curves were in all the right places. The thong back of her undergarment made his mouth go dry, and he swallowed. Her flawless skin widened his eyes and warmed him in places he shouldn’t be feeling any heat when she was obviously in a vulnerable state.
Ben cleared his throat and tried again. “Yo, lady!”
Her head whipped around and her hands moved to cover up the pretty lady parts. Not that her attempt at modesty did much good. The bra and panties were tiny and some kind of colorful print he thought looked cute. He needed to stop staring now.
Ben shifted his gaze out across the field to his left. Jesus, she looked familiar, but he couldn’t come up with a name. Was she an old client? An acquaintance of Kinsey’s? He’d been looking at her undies and the most perfect figure he’d ever seen and hadn’t taken a good look at her face, if he were being honest about it. He’d take a second look now, but he’d already been caught staring at her in a way that would make any woman uncomfortable given the circumstances.