Page 67 of Wild Highway (Runaway 2)

And I wouldn’t put her through reliving that time, especially now when the grip I had on my self-control was slipping. “Okay.”

“My mother didn’t deserve me.”

“That’s a damn understatement,” I muttered.

“The house that I grew up in was my mother’s childhood home. She lived there, even after what my grandfather had done, and after he died.”

“That’s insane.”

“Like I said, she’s crazy. And I want to hate her,” Gemma repeated. “I very much want to hate her.”

I took a few breaths as Gemma stayed quiet, her eyes forward. Jigsaw let out a snort and their footsteps thudded loud against the frozen ground. She tugged her hand free and I let it go, but I stayed close.

Around us, the world seemed so at peace. The snow blanketed everything and the scent of a warm wood fire clung to the air. It seemed so simple. My life seemed so simple. Easy. Blessed.

Gemma was a warrior. She’d fought every day to survive, and I was so proud of her. I was proud that she’d broken the cycle.

“After you ran away, did you ever see her again? Your mother?”

Gemma nodded. “She always knew where I was. I never told anyone, but I went home and checked on her about once a month.”

My jaw dropped. “She knew you were living in a junkyard and didn’t do anything about it?”

Gemma gave me a sad smile. “She did do something about it. She didn’t make me come home.”

Maybe there’d been a shred of sanity in her mother after all.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say. But now you know. When I see your mother hug Katherine and buy her flowers because she knows how much Katherine loves pink, I get jealous. And Katherine deserves that. She deserves a mother.”

“And what about you? Don’t you?”

“I have a mother. She lives in the same house she’s lived in her entire life. And I bought it five years ago so she doesn’t have to work and will never have to move.”

“What?” My eyes bulged. “You still . . . you what?”

She’d kept in touch with her mother all these years. She’d provided for her. She’d funded her life.

She wanted to hate her mother. She wanted to change her own looks to escape her mother.

But she’d chained herself to the woman.

God, she was strong. I’d never known anyone with Gemma’s strength and resilience.

“I moved out,” Gemma said. “I didn’t turn my back on her.”

“Does Kat know?”

“No one does.” There was a warning in her tone.

Gemma had made up her mind about caring for her mother a long, long time ago. And not a soul on earth would make her change her mind, even me.

She tightened her grip on Sprite’s reins a

nd clicked her tongue, picking up the pace and ending the conversation.

I urged Jigsaw forward and caught up, staying silent as I let her choose the path of the ride. Her story ran over and over through my mind, and though I had questions, I kept them to myself.