Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

E rin's car slid around the corner as powdery white snow coated the blacktop. Soon the plows would start making their rounds, but, for now, only idiots like her were out on the road. Idiots and drunks, as O'Malley's parking lot was packed.

The outside of the bar resembled a truck pull, with multiple four-wheel-drive, heavy terrain vehicles lined up, many suited with their own plow that would see them home tonight. Her vehicle was the only regular-sized car in the lot aside from a silver Audi she spotted in the back.

She looked for Finn's truck, hoping he was already there, but everything was disguised by the dusting of snow. Navigating her way to the entrance in heels wasn't easy, but she made it there in one piece. When she reached the door, she gripped the handle and hesitated.

Did she really want to do this?

She pulled the door open a crack and rowdy voices clashed with the silent night. Something upbeat played from the jukebox and she snapped the door shut.

Those weren't her people in there. She didn't have people. Those people shared a unanimous dislike for her. She wasn't stupid enough to believe everyone in Jasper Falls had a heart as forgiving as Finnegan McCullough. She and Finn shared a past. To the others…she was just a bitch.

She glanced back at her car. Where could she go?

Already regretting her words to her father, she worried she might have irreparably screwed up her life tonight—all because of one stupid slap. That was nothing. She'd taken much worse over the years. When would she learn to simply keep her mouth shut?

Her lashes fluttered, a rush of tears threatening to spoil her makeup. Indecision frayed her insides like a rope battered from a lifelong tug-of-war. She was sick of thinking, sick of feeling, sick of fucking hurting.

Gritting her teeth, she yanked the door wide. No more tears.

She stepped inside and the song on the jukebox ended, giving her entrance an excruciating opening to lure everyone's eyes and halt any conversation for a beat. They were all McCulloughs, Clooneys, and Mosconis. Where was Finn?

Her stare scanned the stools along the bar and the faces surrounding the tables, but she didn't see him. Not that it mattered. He'd be there with his wife and siblings. As much as Finn extended an invitation to join them, Erin knew she wouldn't be welcomed.

He wasn't sitting in a booth nor did she see him at the pool tables in the back. Another song kicked on and anyone staring her way lost interest. Several watched her and cupped their hands around their mouths to whisper something to a friend.

Her stomach roiled. Her inner demons hissed that they were all talking about her, not a single person having something nice to say.

She should go. The instinct to flee weighed heavily in her gut. But where else could she go? She wanted a drink and a moment to think. Refusing to be a coward, she forced one foot in front of the other and crossed to the bar on shaky legs.

Sue and Ryan were bartending. Both saw her, but neither rushed over to fill her order. Erin reached in her purse for some cash and saw her dad's prescription and cursed.

Well, she supposed he would have to fall asleep on his own tonight. What did she care if he slept or not? She wasn't there for him to hassle.

Let him be a tyrant all alone. It was like a tree falling in the woods—the sound was meaningless.

She pulled out a twenty and set it on the bar.

Sue rolled her eyes and tossed a towel over her shoulder, breezing past Ryan. "I'm taking five. You can deal with that ."

Ryan's lips formed a thin line as he approached. "Erin."

"Hi, Ryan." She smiled, trying to be nice, but his expression remained blank. "I'll take a vodka and iced tea, and make it a double."

He got to mixing her drink but didn't bother with small talk like he did with the other customers.

When he set the cocktail in front of her, she asked, "Have you seen your cousin, Finn?"

He raised a brow and watched her suspiciously. "What do you want with Finn?"

"He…invited me."

He gave a disbelieving laugh. "Sure, he did."

Her jaw hardened. "Have you seen him or not?"

"He's probably home—with his wife ."

She was perfectly aware that Finn was happily married to his beautiful wife. She remembered Mallory well. Everyone assumed Erin hated the woman, but she didn't. She was happy for Finn, happy that he finally found someone who could love him the way he deserved.

That person had never been Erin. The kindest thing she had done for Finn was show him how screwed up she truly was and let him get away. She'd hurt him, but it was for his own good. He would have spent years trying to make her happy, but there was just too much pain, too many bad memories he couldn't understand.

Ryan took the twenty and slid her the change. The alcohol hit her system like a welcomed tranquilizer and as she resigned herself to being alone. Figuring Finn got held up with his kids not feeling well and the fact that a blizzard was coming, she downed the liquid courage in less than a minute and ordered another.

Ryan rolled his eyes but said nothing.

The tables were full. She didn't want to sit at the bar facing Ryan and Sue, so when her second drink arrived, she took it to the back wall and hid in the shadows.

The wavy tilt of the room warned her to slow down, but she anxiously welcomed the thought of drunk oblivion. She scanned the bodies filling the bar, spotting several old classmates, a few randoms she'd used for a fling, the cliquey girls who excluded her because she grew up wearing her brother's hand-me-downs, and the new wives and husbands she'd never met. Those new folks somehow hated her all the same, thanks to the warnings from the locals.

None of them paid her any mind. She was invisible to all of them, a truth that both pained and infuriated her. Anger was always easier than sadness so she glared at them from the shadows, despising them so their dislike of her wouldn't hurt as much. She lifted her glass and toasted them, mentally assigning every hateful label she could imagine on them as a whole.

Perrin appeared on the stage and welcomed everyone. The music cut off and the crowd clapped. The McCulloughs were so loud. They hooted and howled and banged pint glasses and beer bottles on the tabletops as soon as Giovanni was introduced.

Erin slipped deeper into the shadows, once again wondering why she was there. Sipping her drink down to the ice, she ignored Giovanni's big entrance and took the distraction as an opportunity to measure the competition.

They weren't her competition, just her enemies. Her mother's rejection was the first of many. Her teenage years were pocked with humiliating moments, the result of never having an older female around to guide her.

When her childhood girlfriends started to mock her clothes and make fun of her knotted hair or personal hygiene, Erin reflected their disgust, picking at any sore spot she could find. If she rejected everyone, no one would have the chance to reject her.

She'd said and done enough cruel things—a defense mechanism in the face of rejection. But, as a result, not a single person there would piss on her if she were on fire.

Fuck ‘em all.

She shuffled back to the bar and flagged down Sue. The bartender's dark, guarded eyes held her at a distance. "What are you drinking?"

"Vodka and tea." No point in niceties they didn't mean.

Once she had a fresh cocktail, she turned. Her head foggy, and her feet no longer hurting in her four-inch heels. Her lips lacked their usual control as she sipped from the straw, but she wasn't as upset as she'd been earlier.

"So I'm single," Giovanni's voice echoed through the bar.

"Shocking," Erin muttered, chasing her straw with her mouth.

"And I've been traveling a lot. Being from a small town, you forget the rest of the world's different. At home, the qualities you look for in a woman are simple. She should be a non-relative— because we aren't that sort of small town. She should have all of her teeth. And she had better know how to cook a good cobbler. But out there." He whistled. "Standards are different. Clean is the new sexy."

The crowd chuckled and Erin's brow crimped. That wasn't even funny.

"I was recently on a date with a girl and thinking things were going pretty good until we're at dinner and she whips out this huge canister of pot—I mean buds and buds of giggle dirt, gummies, and vape pens. We were at a four-star restaurant!"

His anecdotes were too long to follow so she simply glared at him, picking apart everything she saw. His clothing didn't fit in with Jasper Falls. His jeans looked designer and his T-shirt was made of something more than the expensive shirts sold in six-packs at McGinty's. Plus, he wore a navy blue blazer over his T-shirt. What a pretentious wank.

"Next thing I know, we're twisted up like pretzels, my memory of last night is a jigsaw clip of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas , and I'm pretty sure I might be pregnant."

She scoffed. Why were people laughing at this?

"I mean, I thought I was getting a bit of class with a stripper's ass, but in the end, I'm pretty sure things got Coyote Ugly and my night looked more like a scene from Deliverance ."

When the audience laughed again, he took a swig of water and smiled.

He still looked the same, just older. Like Erin, he didn't get married in his twenties. She found that strange, being that he'd left Jasper Falls. She supposed Giovanni was annoying no matter where he lived.

She always assumed if she got out of Jasper Falls she could find someone, but her fear of being undesirable everywhere held her back from trying. It wasn't a comfortable thought, but an honest one. Maybe it wasn't her reputation as much as it was simply her.

"Yeah, women are crazy. I was with this young chick who said she only had outercourse. Outercourse? I mean, what the hell is that? She spent weeks torturing me. It was so bad, when we broke it off, I was relieved. My rating system for pleasure was so skewed, masturbation with my own hand ranked up there with a chick offering birthday anal."

"Maybe date someone your own age, dumb ass," Erin grumbled into her cup, once again chasing her straw with her mouth.

"What was that?"

Looking up from the ice in her glass, realizing she might have said that a little louder than intended, her stomach bottomed out. She sank deeper into the shadows until her back hit the wall.

Giovanni shaded his eyes against the spotlight, and everyone looked toward the back of the bar. "Holy shit, is that Erin Montgomery? There's a blast from the past. Figures, you'd be the one to heckle me in my own town."

Everyone chuckled and Erin's molars locked. Giovanni smiled as if stepping up to a challenge.

"You guys know Erin, right? She's the only Jasper Falls resident whose birth certificate included an apology."

Howls of laughter bubbled from the audience. The sound muffled and time slowed as they laughed at her, just like they had years before.

"You still single, Erin?"

"Fuck off, asshole."

"Ouch. Who lit the fuse on your tampon?" More laughter. "Seriously though, don't they teach locator spells in witch academy? I figured you would have trapped a husband by now."

She glared at him, too drunk to think of a decent comeback.

"No, but really, I have a question for you, Erin. Does the broom fly well in blizzards? Because you might be onto something."

"God, come up with new material already."

"Hey, if it ain't broke…"

"Speaking of broke, what happened? New York send you back?"

His smile twitched and she sensed she hit a nerve. He glanced around the stage. "It's nice up here. Feels good to be back home, good to be back in front of friends and family. You can always tell when someone has no friends. They blend into the shadows."

He paced for a moment and took a long sip of water. "I'll tell you what, Erin, for the sake of old friendships, how about I set you up with someone?"

She stood so stiffly, her body could have been made of steel.

"Seriously, I think I know the perfect guy for you. He's a psychiatrist."

Riotous laughter exploded from the audience. An arrogant smirk curled across his face. Her body shook and she couldn't breathe. She hated all of them. She hated this town!

Shoving her glass on a nearby ledge, she slithered through the shadows and shoved out the door. She should have never gone in there. What had she been thinking? Why would she ever think she'd fit in at a place like that?

A tremor of rage rattled through her, and she realized she was standing in half a foot of snow. She rushed to her car. Her eyes watered from the wind, but also from the ache in her chest.

She started the car and cranked the heat, putting the wipers on high. As the blades scraped off the fluffy snow, she screamed and beat the shit out of her steering wheel.

Where the hell was she going to go?

Waiting for the car to warm, she dug through her purse for her phone. Her father's pills rolled out onto the passenger seat and she stared at the bottle. A dull temptation formed in her belly as she pictured herself swallowing a handful.

Time stilled.

No…

Do it…

Wait…

Make it stop…

Please…

Stop it…

She was losing her mind and she probably shouldn't be alone. Glancing at the cell phone in her hand, desperate for a lifeline, she tried to think of someone she could call. Harrison? No, he wouldn't answer. She should call someone, but who. She didn't have Finn's number and—what the hell was wrong with her?

Finn. Had. A. Wife.

She was not his job! And if he cared at all about her, he would have been here tonight. Instead, he convinced her to walk right into the lion's den alone. Well, they sure made a meal out of her.

She shoved the pills into her purse and cursed. She shouldn't be driving. A spike of guilt stabbed through her, but as she stared through the sweeping wipers at the empty road, she debated if anyone else was even out there on a night like tonight. She couldn't bear this town one more minute and needed to get away.

As she backed out of the lot, her car slipped over the snow. As she suspected, no one was on the road, so she kept going, some deep seated need pushing her to get as far away from Jasper Falls as possible.

Tonight was the night. She was finally escaping. She didn't care that she might be putting herself in danger. She only cared about getting away. She could leave and never look back.

If she just disappeared, would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Would her dad?

An empty ache ruptured in her chest as tears streamed down her face. Careless of her makeup, she wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm and focused on the white stretch of road. The falling snow narrowed her view to only what her headlights could see. Drunk and seeing in tunnel vision, she watched the white path turn over for a mile as if she were driving into space and on some untraveled path.

She sobbed and blubbered, falling into complete hysterics as she sped down the road. Once out of town, she hoped to suffer a modicum of relief, but the pain in her heart only grew. She raced onto the highway, not bothering to yield at the top of the jug handle, and sped onto a sheet of ice.

"Fuck!" Her foot slammed on the brake and the car went spinning. Light flashed and her body flung out of the seat when the car flipped up on two wheels and slammed down.

Her heart pounded like a stampede running through her chest. She braced for the roll, but the car collided with branches and slid down a steep ditch, throwing her body into the passenger door.

She groaned, disoriented, as snow covered her side windows and pine needles pressed into her windshield, darkening the interior and blocking any view of the outside world.

The car ticked and hissed. Her head swam and she wondered if she'd hit it. A trickle of warm blood seeped into her eye. She cradled her face, trying to think. With a shaky hand, she shut off the engine, unsure what to do. Then she shut her eyes.