Page 18 of Quarter Miles (Runaway 3)

Katherine nodded. “Londyn and Karson dated. They lived in this car together. After she got it restored and left Boston, she wanted him to have it.”

“Why didn’t she take it to him?”

“That was the plan, but she got a flat tire in West Virginia, fell in love with her mechanic and never made it to California. Instead, she let Gemma take it.”

“And Gemma got waylaid by Easton.”

“Exactly.” Katherine laughed. “This trip was Gemma’s idea. Londyn passed the car to Gemma. Gemma passed it to me. And I’ll, hopefully, pass it to Aria, who might take it to Karson.”

This wasn’t just a vacation for Kat. It was a sentimental trip. “Thanks for letting me come along.”

She arched an eyebrow over the brim of her new shades. “Did I have a choice?”

“Nope.”

She smiled.

“This is cool. The handoff thing. I guess the only difference is that you’re coming back home when it’s all done.”

Kat shifted in her seat and the smile fell from her face. Her fingers flexed around the wheel. She kept her eyes aimed straight ahead and the sudden stiffness in her shoulders made me pause.

She was coming home, right? This wasn’t the same type of trip her friends had taken. Kat had a life in Montana. A job. A family. With the mountains and the open range and the clean air, she’d always told me that Montana was where her heart had found home.

She was coming home. That’s why she didn’t answer. It was a given.

She was coming home.

“Whose idea was it to come to Montana?” I asked.

“Mine.” Her smile reappeared. “I thought it sounded like an adventure. I saved up some change to buy a map, then I marked the biggest towns. Every day, I’d walk to a pay phone and call the local newspapers in Bozeman, Billings, Missoula and Great Falls, asking for any new classifieds.”

“And they read them to you?”

She nodded. “The receptionists took pity on me. The paper in Great Falls only did twice so I stopped calling them. After a couple of weeks, I heard about the ad Carol had placed for housekeepers. I called her that day and inquired about i

t. She told me that if we could get to Montana, there’d be a job waiting. So we waited until I turned eighteen, because I was younger than Londyn and Gemma, then we left. We saved up for bus tickets and . . . you know the rest.”

Yes, I knew the rest. There wasn’t much I didn’t know about Katherine’s life since she’d come to Montana. “I’m glad you found that ad.”

“Me too.”

I twisted to the backseat, where I’d tossed a baseball cap, and pulled it on, trapping the strands of my mostly dry hair. Then I relaxed in my seat.

There were more questions I wanted to ask. Why was she so insistent about not returning to California? Why had she arranged this last-minute trip and not told me about it? But Kat had confided in me more today than she had in years. When I was training a young horse, I didn’t push my luck. I wasn’t going to with Kat either.

So I flipped Grandma’s quarter a couple of times above my lap. “Oregon, here we come.”

Chapter Four

Katherine

No.

No, Cash.

No, you may not come on this trip with me.

Why was it so easy to say no to Cash in my head but not in person? So much for my trip alone. Damn it. When he’d told me about dumping Dany for me, my resolve to take this solo vacation had disintegrated like wet toilet paper.