Obsession (Explicitly Yours 4)

“Life is short,” Lola said in summary.

“That’s right. We’d better try to have a good time while we’re here.” He rubbed his hands together, warming them. “So, what’re you running from, California?”

“What makes you think I’m running at all?”

He raised his brows at her. “My family’s owned this bar since before I could walk. Seen a lot of people pass through this town because it’s quiet. Hidden. Sometimes women trying to escape with their lives.”

“It’s not like that.” Lola shook her head. Running away was weak. She was taking back her life, fortifying herself after years of living for others. “I’m starting over.”

“That’s what a lot of these women say. Sometimes they get caught. Most of the time they go back on their own. But they’re almost always hiding.” The man raised his coffee cup at her. “Somebody were going after my wife, I’d want to know about it.”

Lola slid her wallet out of her back pocket. Suddenly, she wanted to be alone the way she had been her whole trip. It felt as if she were on the verge of understanding what all this had been about. She didn’t want to lose that. “How much do I owe you for the coffee?”

“On the house. As for Moose Lodge, you’re going to take this road down another mile and turn right. It’ll be on your left.” He returned her guidebook. “Get home safe, wherever home is.”

Lola didn’t have a home anymore. Johnny had come close, but that feeling of safety had vanished quicker than she thought possible. Now, only one idea came to mind—but an empty shell was no place for anyone to call home.

* * *

Lola found the lodge easily, and it was a good thing, because the storm was picking up. Her Converse crunched snow as she walked up to the lobby. Inside, she removed her hood, plucking her sweater to rid it of flakes.

“Early this year, isn’t it?”

Lola looked up at a young girl, whose eager smile gave her chipmunk cheeks. “What?”

She nodded behind Lola. “The snow. I thought we’d have a few more weeks.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t know. This is my first time in Missouri.” She approached the front desk. “First snowfall too.”

The girl clapped her hands and wiggled her pink-tipped fingers. “How exciting. I don’t even remember my first. I was a baby.”

Lola laughed a little at that. Enthusiasm was infectious in this friendly town. “I would’ve called ahead if I’d realized there was a storm coming. Do you have a room for tonight?”

“We sure do.” She grabbed the computer mouse and began clicking. “King bed all right? All the rooms are one-fifty plus tax.”

It was the most Lola’d paid for a room yet, but she wasn’t about to go hunting for something else in this weather. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the money. “I’ll take it.”

“Great. Just give me a sec while I set you up.”

A wailing noise came from outside. Lola left a couple hundred-dollar bills on the counter with her license and went to the window, drawing the curtain aside.

It was dusk now, but the pine trees surrounding the Moose Lodge glowed white with powdered branches. A little boy in a puffy jacket and knit cap cried noisily, gulping air. His mom stood by their car, hunched over her phone to protect it from the snow. Lola had the urge to go pick him up, comfort him, anything to stop his bawling.

After a minute, the mom snatched a toy airplane from her purse and handed it to him. His face smoothed immediately, and he took off running, his arms planed at his sides as he weaved through the tree trunks. She’d done the same with her doll, Nadia, as a little girl. She’d dressed it up for imaginary tea parties. At home alone, that was her friend, and that was enough to content her. Children played games for themselves, not their opponents.

Lola crinkled her nose with an unexpected wave of tears. Either she was hormonal or homesick, because thinking of her past wasn’t the kind of thing that usually moved her.

The boy jumped into fresh snow with both feet. If Lola’d brought proper boots, she would’ve joined him. She decided when she had a kid, she’d make sure he or she got a chance to play in the snow. And she’d be right by his side.

His mother stayed in the parking lot, tapping at her cellphone. Lola’s cash-filled car was ten feet away.

Johnny’d had a mantra—no kids until they had the money. Well, Lola was sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars now. That kind of money was a new home, a college fund, clean clothes and never missing a meal. Lola had put all that and more on the line just to spite Beau. She’d not only lost touch with the future she’d once wanted, but every day that money wasn’t in a bank, she’d also risked it. For what? To hide out in motels in hopes of making Beau suffer? Who was actually suffering?

Lola’d been avoiding thinking of where and when her trip would end, but she had to start making decisions. She’d hoped to get some answers from the road, and in that moment, one came to her—Los Angeles was her home. Before Bea

u, before Johnny, it’d been her first true love, and it was where she one day wanted to watch her own son or daughter run around in her backyard.

She’d been looking for the wrong thing. True freedom would never come with revenge. Lola had spent a decade angry with her mother for reasons she couldn’t even pinpoint—she didn’t need that shadow at her back looming larger. She wanted herself and those she loved to live in light.

“Oh, shoot,” she heard from behind her. “We don’t accept cash.”

Lola turned back to the front desk. The lodge was a step up from the motels she’d been crashing at, but not a huge one. “You don’t? My credit card is…” Lola hesitated as she returned to the counter. “Is there any way you can make an exception? I’ve been traveling for over a week and haven’t had a problem paying cash anywhere else.”

“My dad, he’s strict about it.” The girl shook her head. “We need to swipe a card at check-in and have it for incidentals and stuff. We had some problems before.”

Lola took the money back and nodded. Finding another place at this time of night and in these snowy mountains wouldn’t be easy, but it wasn’t impossible. She could even go back to the big man at the small bar and ask for his help.

But Lola was beginning to question the fact that she’d taken so many chances already. She took out an emergency credit card hidden in her wallet and handed it over. The girl grinned again and swiped it.

Lola decided in the morning, she’d deposit her money in a bank. Driving around with as much cash as she had in her trunk had been reckless. One day, she’d have a family, and she had put them at risk. The price for revenge suddenly seemed much too high.