CHAPTER SIX
AINSLEY

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Carly’s voice comes through the speakers in my car as I focus on the highway in front of me. “It’s a long drive.”

“No,” I say, almost feeling bad for not wanting her to come. It’s not that I don’t want her with me, I just don’t want to be around anyone right now. “I think I need to go by myself.”

Her sigh comes through from the other end of the phone. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say to reassure her, even though I’m not confident in my answer. “I need to face the demons hiding in my closet, you know?”

“And going to a maximum-security prison halfway across the state—alone—is the best way to do that?”

“It couldn’t hurt.” The mile marker tells me I’ve got about two hours of driving left to go. “I should’ve left earlier and not waited until last minute, then I could’ve grabbed a hotel for the night. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to see her after the last conversation we had.”

“I know. Maybe they’ll have something available.”

I doubt that. “I’m sure all the other visitors grabbed their rooms.”

“Hey, I’m trying to stay positive here.”

“My bad.” The signal starts to break up, and all I can hear from her side of the conversation is a series of cracks and gargles. “I think I’m losing signal. I’ll have to call you back.” The button on my steering wheel ends the call for me, as I wait 

for music to come flooding back through my speakers. My favorite Amaryllis song had just started when she called, causing it to shut off abruptly.

Silence.

I tap the buttons on my dash to switch inputs and then back again. Still nothing. Just as I’m ready to give up and resign to continue the rest of this drive with only the road noise to keep me company, the engine loses power, refusing to respond to my foot pushing on the accelerator. It slows down more and more as I try to make my way to the shoulder with it coming to a full stop on the side of the road. “Great.” A beep comes from the rearview mirror.

“Onboard here. We’re checking to make sure everyone in the vehicle is all right.”

“I’m fine, but my car won’t go.”

“Yes, ma’am. We recorded the malfunction and have someone in route to pick you and the vehicle up.”

“Thank you.” I sigh and let my head sink back into the leather headrest. If I were a superstitious person, I would take this as a sign to stay home, but… I grab my phone and pull up Uber. Just as I’m about to book the ride, there’s a loud tap on my window. “Holy shi—,” I scream.

On the other side of the window, Nash is laughing so hard he’s doubled over. He still looks strikingly handsome in the black worn ball cap perched on top of his head with mirrored chrome designer sunglasses hiding his eyes. “You screeched louder than a cat that’s had its tail stepped on.”

“I’m glad you find my near heart attack so amusing.”

He holds a hand up as a sign of peace. “I’m sorry,” he laughs. “Okay, I’m done.” I refuse to respond while his face turns a bright shade of red as he tries to fight back his amusement at my embarrassment. Luckily, a loud honk breaks the moment. I don’t miss the opportunity to get out of the awkward exchange by waving to the driver who’s here to haul my car back to the shop. “I think this is for me,” I say, nodding toward the truck that’s currently backing up the shoulder aiming right for my car. “Is he going to hit my car?” I clutch my chest and just as I’m about to yell at the driver, he stops a few inches from my front bumper and a middle-aged man in a blue work uniform jumps out of the cab of the truck. “Are you Ainsley Meyer?”

“I am.”

He nods and pulls out his phone, pointing to the screen. “I just need you to sign here, allowing us to tow your car. Your warranty will take care of everything from there.”

I scribble my name on the screen.

“Where were you headed?” Nash asks, shoving his hands in his pockets.

My words stick in the back of my throat. Something inside of me won’t let me tell him I was on my way to see my sister. Because I know where that conversation will lead, and it’ll end with him finding out where she is and I’m the reason she’s there. With how protective he is of his brothers, that feels like it would be the unforgivable sin to him. A metallic clank followed by the loud thump of my car being attached to heavy chains shakes me back into the moment. He’s staring at me with a smirk on his face. “It doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere,” I say, nodding toward my car.

His eyes narrow as he studies my reaction. “I can take you.”

“Uh-uh.” The last thing I want is to have to explain to this man why I need to be taken to the prison. No thanks.

“Okay, but your other option is to ride in that tow-truck and I’m just guessing here, but I’d bet it smells a like a boys’ high school locker room.”

My nose wrinkles as I remember the smell of my cousin’s gym socks. “Are you telling me that yours doesn’t smell like, eau de dude?”

He bobs his hand back and forth in the air. “Maybe a little,” he admits with a laugh.

As much as I hate to admit it, I would much prefer a ride back to town from Nash than from a random guy I don’t know… in a tow-truck. “I was going to see my sister,” I blurt out, to my surprise. Why did I tell him that?

“Where’s that?”

“McAlester.” Gulp.

He nods. “Well, I can take you back to your place, or I can give you a ride to see your sister.”

“That’s a really long drive.”

He shrugs, jingling the keys in his hand. “I’ve got nothing else to do today.”

“What were you doing out here, anyway?” I ask him. “This is kind of off the beaten path.”

“Which is exactly why I was on it. I’m still trying to process everything that happened yesterday, and driving helps me work out the stress.”

“Is that so?”

“When you have to focus on the road, you don’t have time to focus on the raging thoughts in your head.”

Hmm.

“What?” he asks, holding his arms out wide, putting the colorful artwork wrapped around his forearms on full display.

“Nothing.” I slough off the instinct to decipher what each design is and turn my attention back to my poor car, which is creaking like the Titanic. “It’s nothing. I had just said something similar to Carly when she asked if I wanted her to come with me.”

His smile widens. “Maybe we’ve got more in common than we thought, huh?”

“Maybe,” I admit, wondering how much else I might have in common with Nash Miller.

“All right, Miss,” the driver says as he wipes his hands off with a shop rag. “I’ve got you all set up. Are you going to need a lift back to town, or are you covered?”

Nash watches me with one eyebrow raised over the mirrored lenses of his glasses as I consider my options. As much as I’d like to pretend, I had to mull it over, it was never a question.

“I’m covered,” I say with a playful roll of my eyes. “Thank you.”

He nods and takes off toward his truck, leaving me standing on the side of the road with a gorgeous rock star and no idea what I’m doing.

“Hop in,” Nash says with a goofy grin plastered to his face. “So, which way am I going?” he asks as soon as my seatbelt clicks into place.

“Just go straight, for now.” I motion, flicking my finger towards the windshield.

“You got it.” The engine roars to life, then settles into a gentle hum as he pulls onto the highway. “I haven’t been here that long, so you’ll have to tell me when we get close to the exit.”

“Don’t worry,” I laugh. “You’ve got about an hour and a half before we’ll need to worry about it.” The song coming through the speakers is one of my favorites, so I lean over the center console with my fingers hovering around the volume button. “Can I turn it up?”

“You can do whatever you want.” He keeps his hands on the wheel and his eyes hidden by those damn lenses, but I catch a glimmer of humor in his expression as I lose myself in the music. Once I start to sing along, he can’t contain himself anymore and covers his mouth to hide his amusement; but a deep belly laughs comes rolling out.

“I can’t help it, it’s my song,” I say, defending myself with the air microphone still held to my mouth.

His smile softens and I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking until the chorus kicks back in and I sing along again. When the song finishes, I pack away my air microphone and settle back into the passenger seat, watching the lines in the road through the windshield.

“So, when you’re not jamming out with air microphones and instruments to your favorite songs, what do you do for fun?”

“Fun?” I purse my lips together and force my eyebrows down. “What’s that?”

“I guess you don’t get a lot of down time with your job at the hospital, huh?”

Blah. “That’s pretty accurate. It’s always been hectic, but it’s gotten a lot worse over the last year and a half.”

He makes a grimace and flinches. “I guess that makes sense. Do you still enjoy it?”

“I think so…”

“You sound like me, now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I’ve said before, there are things about this job I love. There are also things about it that I absolutely hate. It’s like I’m teetering somewhere between undying commitment and burnout.”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “That sounds about right.”

“Do you think you’d ever want to do anything else?”

I shake my head no. That’s the one thing I know for sure. “Whatever I do, it’s going to be in the medical field. I’m just fed up with how the people in charge keep treating us like commodities, instead of like living and breathing human beings.”

“I’ve heard there’s a break in the system, but I have to admit ignorance,” he says with a hint of embarrassment in his tone.

“It’s a business, like anything else. Money decides everything for everyone and that means we get overworked, while they let staff go who could’ve relieved us, which also means we don’t get to go home or rest after a twelve-hour shift of saving lives. Instead, we’re short staffed and if our relief isn’t there, or there isn’t one scheduled, we get to stay.”

“And if you go home, anyway?”

“People die.” The back of my head rests against the cool glass of the window. 

“Do you plan on quitting and going somewhere else?”

I shrug and let out a defeated sigh. “Right now, isn’t the time for me quit with the health care system stretched so thin already; but once the pandemic is over…”

“You’re going to spread your wings?”

I make a whoosh sound and pretend my hand is an airplane taking off. “The second it levels off, I’m gone.”

“I hope you find somewhere that knows how lucky they are to have you.”

A twinge in my stomach reminds me it’s not just about the workload. “Every time I walk through the doors at the hospital, I’m reminded of what my sister did.”

“Oh, she worked with you?”

I nod. “We went through nursing school together. We started rotations at the hospital on the same day. That’s the way it’s always been with us—or how it was before…”

“I’m sorry,” he says with a heaviness in his tone.

“I caught her handing the pills to—a patient, who wasn’t authorized to have them.” A tear stings the corner of my eye and I try to blink it away, which just makes my nose burn. “And when I confronted her about it, she denied it. I tried to get her to turn herself in, but she wouldn’t.”

He reaches across the console and wraps my hand in his. The warmth of his touch is comforting, and I want nothing more than to let myself melt into the feeling of his skin against mine. “It’s not your fault. You know that, right?” he asks.

“It is, though.” I use both hands to wipe the tears away from underneath my eyes before they streak their way through my foundation, and I miss the feeling of his hand wrapped around mine almost immediately. “The… patient, had been mine at first. He came into the ER with some lame bumps and bruises and tried to get me to hook him up with some opioids.”

“Oh, man.”

“Of course, I refused. As a nurse, I can’t give out prescriptions, anyway; but I smarted off and told him to try his game on a rookie.” That’s the mistake I can’t forgive myself for. “In the time it took me to get the security guard’s attention, he had gotten to my sister.” He baited her with his fame and pulled the sexy rock star card. “She was young and inexperienced. I guess we both were.”

“She gave in?”

I cup both hands over my face and let out a slow, steady breath. “Yep.”

“That was not your fault,” he says matter-of-factly.

“I know.” I know that intellectually, but emotionally… “While she was mixed up with… him, and in the time that it took me to realize she would never turn herself in, she got hooked too.”

“That’s not your fault,” he says, in almost a whisper.

If I had turned her in sooner, maybe she would’ve stayed clean. It would’ve only been once, instead of a repeated offense. Her sentence would’ve been lighter. “I let her down.”

His face shifts from a look of concern to consideration, making me regret letting myself open up so much.

That was way too much to put on any one person who isn’t directly connected to the situation. Hell, it’s too much for me and I am directly connected. “What are you thinking? Is it something like get this crazy woman and all her baggage out of my car?” I ask, half-kidding, to lighten the mood in here.

“No, it’s not anything like that.”

I knew he was handsome before, but the dark brooding thing looks really good on him. Just saying.

“I was thinking about how you’re stuck in a habit of taking responsibility for your sister and I’ve been stuck in the same habit of taking responsibility for my brothers for almost as far back as I can remember.”

“Something else we have in common?”

“I spent so much of my life being responsible for my brothers and trying to carry their loads for them; now I’m wondering if it’s helped them or made it harder on them.”

“Sometimes it seems like there’s never a right answer.”

His smile returns and he reaches up to turn the radio back up. “Maybe that’s the key.”

“What is?”

“There is no right answer, which means there can’t be a wrong answer.” I see my confusion staring back at me in the lenses of his sunglasses before he turns his attention back to the road. “Maybe there are only answers and it’s up to us to decide which ones are right and wrong.”

Hmm. “That’s not what they teach you in the medical field.”

“No,” he snickers. “I suppose it’s not.”

As we get closer to the next town, the rest stop signs become closer and closer together. “Since I single handedly brought the mood of this whole adventure into the basement, how about we do something about that?”

“You didn’t—”

“Shh.” I hold my hand up and nod toward the windshield. “Look.”

“Do you need to pee?” he asks with an awkward look on his face.

“Didn’t you ever go on a road trip as a kid?” I gasp. “It’s a tradition.”

His mouth twists into a lopsided scowl. “What is?”

He’s killing me. “Stopping at each major stop along the way to pick up a souvenir, so you always remember the trip.” Even though something tells me I won’t need anything to remember this one.

“I have never heard of this tradition before, but I’m game,” he says, pulling into the far lane so we can make the exit.

“Good. Once you start, you won’t be able to take a road trip without it.” I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to take a road trip again without thinking about Nash Miller and that smile he’s wearing right now.