When Romance Prevails (The Dark Horse Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  Good, because I don’t have any. Kerri had been bailing her mother out of situations lately. Little things, like paying the electric bill or getting groceries. Where was their money going? “I’m scared, Hunter. I’ve never done something like this before. What if it blows up in our faces?”

  “It might. There are no guarantees. But we have to try.”

  Kerri didn’t want to agree. But the longer she was confined in her home, never to be let out of anyone’s sight again, she realized how dire her situation was. They can’t keep me contained like this. She wished she were willful enough to walk out on her own. To give her parents the middle finger and walk out the front door right in front of them. What would they do? Illegally restrain her? Probably. It was easier to say she would leave them than to actually do it. This would be her first real action against her parents, and it scared the soul out of her.

  “I will contact you when we’re ready to go. Please be careful. I love you.”

  I should be saying that to you! Kerri held onto the phone long after Hunter hung up. Maybe if she kept it to her ear, it would ring again, and she could hear his reassuring voice in a room of self-doubt.

  But she couldn’t. Kerri had to put the phone in her bag, pick herself up off the bed, and get to work packing her things.

  Only small bags. She would stuff her handbag to the brim with small things, like soap, medicine, and all of her IDs. If she got creative, she could even stuff a Ziploc bag full of underwear and socks into the bottom of her bag. It was heavy, but bearable. And her mother would never notice a large handbag stuffed with items. For everything else… She only had the tote bag that zipped on the top. Taking a backpack was not her usual style and would stick out. Suitcases were out of the question. She only had enough room in the tote to pack a few shirts and a pair of sleep pants. She would just wear the same pair of jeans every day. I will live. Unlike if she stayed in that house that was determined to break her spirit.

  By midnight she was packed. By dawn she was still tossing and turning in bed, fearful for the future.

  “What do you think of this one?” Brenda held up a blouse dotted in rhinestones. “It would look good for election day. Flashy for the cameras, but casual enough that you don’t look, I don’t know, scary.”

  “It’s fine.” Kerri kept her hand clasped over her side pocket, where Hunter’s phone threatened to buzz into life at any moment. “Although I don’t know why we’re shopping for clothes when we don’t have any money.” She was testy today. It’s the nerves. Still, she didn’t mean to say that, and Brenda looked at her as if she had grown a pair of fangs and was about to rip her mother’s throat out.

  “We have money,” she insisted in a hiss. “Not much right now, but I tucked some away just for today. Your father can’t get to it. Family has to eat…”

  “And you haven’t found out what’s going on yet?”

  “What is there to ask? Your father must be using it for the campaign. Ever since that… event… he’s been working doubly hard to rebuild his image. Our more conservative constituents threw a fit to find out about… oh, never mind.”

  “I’m sure.” Kerri hoped it would end there.

  Of course it didn’t. “I just don’t know what you saw in that boy.” Brenda continued searching through a rack while her daughter sat in a chair. “He wasn’t even that good looking.”

  Turn around and say that to my face. Hunter was gorgeous, with his fit body, his kind face, and the handsome way he kept his hair. And those eyes. Kerri had never noticed a man’s eyes so much before she fell in love with Hunter. Truly the windows to the soul.

  “No good can come from someone in that family. Not just because they’re like that either.” Brenda sniffed as if just thinking about them gave her allergies. “Who’s to say they even have any real morals? I heard his mother was quite loose in her day. Who knows if that boy is even really his father’s son? You don’t want to get roped in with someone like that. Not only will they ruin your reputation, but they’ll just break your heart when they use you.”

  Kerri stared at the back of her mother’s head as if she could ignite it. I don’t even care about his parents. She had never met them, and wasn’t sure if she would like them any better than her own parents from what she heard. I only love Hunter. Just like she was independent of her parents, he was too. Perhaps that was the biggest thing bringing them together. At the end of the day, they were the only ones who could understand that about each other. “I don’t know why you’re bringing this up. You did a pretty bang-up job of putting an end to it.”

  “Thank goodness too. But this is why I suggested you get out and explore the world a little. Stay too close to home and you’re bound to go for the wrong guy. Not like you have a lot of choice in our circles.”

  “So you’re saying that you don’t even want me to date one of Father’s friends’ sons?”

  Brenda chortled and tossed a blouse back on a hanger. “It would be more preferable, but I’m not gonna line up to tell you it’s a great idea, especially in this day and age.”

  “So who should I date? Because I hate to break it you, but any Italian guy or whoever I hook up with isn’t going to pass muster.”

  “I didn’t say bring him home for all to see. I said have some fun away from the local media. Don’t let your dirty laundry air out at home.”

  Kerri crossed her legs. “What do you know about that? I bet you haven’t had any dirty laundry in your life.”

  “Now that’s not true. Not lately, sure, but I was young once and got into quite the bind a time or two. But that was in another era when it was harder to get caught. Back before camera lenses could find your pimples from a mile away, or the whole world knew two seconds after the fact. Thank goodness too, or else I may have never made it as far as I have now.”

  Kerri still didn’t believe it. Her mother had always been too straight-laced to actually be alive. As a child conceived shortly after marriage – and as far as she knew, Raymond was her mother’s first – there wasn’t a single thing Kerri could think of in regards to her mother kicking up a huge scandal somewhere.

  “Don’t give me that look. I was young and dumb just like you once. You think hormones didn’t exist twenty-five years ago? I had boyfriends. Some of them secret because I knew my parents would explode. I met your father through one of those boyfriends.”

  Kerri couldn’t bite back the question she was dying to ask. “Yeah, but you didn’t sleep with any of them, did you?”

  Her mother’s voice rarely sounded so curt. “It was a different time. Young ladies didn’t do that.”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  “Kerri!”

  She stood up, hoisting her large bags over her shoulder under the pretense of going to the bathroom. “Hate to break it to you, Mother, but Hunter wasn’t my first. Not by a long shot. You don’t want to know how much dick I’ve had.” It wasn’t that much. But let her mother stew in it for a few minutes.

  “Don’t say that so loudly! Do you want someone overhearing you?”

  Kerri looked around the boutique. Aside from a couple of employees talking in the corner, there was no one else in there. Oh, look, a security camera in the corner. Now everyone knew she had been there. Scandal. “Maybe I do. Stop trying to sell me as some virginal princess who belongs to my father. I can’t play that game anymore. Let someone find my birth control in my purse. Maybe they’ll think I’m a full-fledged human being. The kind that has sex and likes it.”

  “The hell did that boy do to you? You’ve never talked like this before.”

  Not to you. Not to anyone but myself. And now Hunter. He would love to hear her talk like that, and say it right back to her. “This will shock you, but I actually want to make my own choices. I’m not against getting your blessing, and God knows it would be better for all of us if you would accept some things or at least overlook them. And in return I really don’t want you knowing about my sex life. No thank y
ou.” Kerri opened her mouth again before her mother could retort. “Hunter didn’t ‘do’ anything to me. Other than make me fall in love with him.”

  “Oh, Kerri!”

  “That’s okay. Because he loves me too.”

  The look on her mother’s face was everything Kerri could have hoped for. Shock, anger, disbelief… who knew Brenda’s lips could curl like that and her eye twitch with such conviction? Is she going to say it? That Hunter couldn’t possibly love her? That he had only been using her? That he had taken what he wanted and would never want to see her again? There were so many possibilities. As much as Kerri was dying to hear them all in one breath, she took her bags and flew off to the bathroom. Latching the handle behind her had never been so satisfying.

  Perfect timing. The cell phone buzzed in Kerri’s pocket.

  “I’m here. Sneak out into the alley by the west exit as soon as you can. It’s dark enough that you should be covered. Better hurry. Text back if delayed.”

  Kerri splashed some water from the sink into her face. You can do this. All she had to do was sneak out of the bathroom, then the store, and hope no one noticed. So simple in theory.

  She cracked open the bedroom door and saw Brenda sitting on the other side of the boutique, facing the window with her head pointed down. None of the employees seemed to be around. Kerri opened the door wider and didn’t see a single soul. Now was her chance.

  Footsteps as quiet as a mouse’s crept across the store, careful to hide behind a rack here and a display there. I’m so close to the door. A few more feet and she would be out in the sunshine. Kerri pulled a hat over her face – because that worked so well before – and stepped out the door, her eyes constantly on her mother who continued to be dead to the world.

  I probably hurt her feelings. That was the last thing Kerri thought before letting the sunshine hit her skin.

  The alley wasn’t too far away, but she had to keep her nose pointed down and her steps quick if she wanted to avoid detection. This late in the campaign season, there could be reporters anywhere. Kerri wasn’t taking her chances now. She definitely wasn’t going to give her mother any time to realize she was missing.

  However, Kerri had the scare of her life when she turned into the western alley and did not see a single soul there. Nor Hunter’s car.

  Her heart racing and her adrenaline pumping like she was on drugs, Kerri pulled out her boyfriend’s cell phone and smashed her fingers against a few buttons. “Where are you???” she sent more than once.

  The city pressed in on her. There wasn’t a safe place she could go, nor was there anyone she trusted enough to go to for help. I’m alone. Kerri held herself against the alley wall, her bags weighing down her shoulders as she looked around in helpless despair. Perhaps there was no other choice than to go back in the boutique and hope no one had noticed she was missing yet.

  A car honked. Kerri glanced up and saw Hunter’s car squeezing down the alley, his hand waving at her from behind the windshield. Kerri picked herself up and sprinted toward him, her heels slapping against the asphalt while her tote bag bruised her side. The lock on the passenger side door popped open the moment she reached it.

  “Hurry,” Hunter said, his foot ready to slam on the gas. “I had to ditch because I think someone saw me. Can’t be too sure. You okay?”

  Kerri flung her bags in the backseat and climbed in so quickly that her leg banged against door and made her cry out in pain. “Been better than at this moment,” she mumbled as soon as the door shut. “We better go. They’re gonna notice I’m gone soon.”

  Hunter hit the gas and wheeled out of the alley. They hit the first line of traffic they could find heading north, and once they were clear of the downtown intersections, Kerri relaxed into her seat and realized what she had just done. Thinking about it was already giving her a headache.

  “You okay?” Hunter asked again. They caught up to some traffic as they headed out of town. “I…” He closed his lips again.

  “I’m fine. Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere safe and secluded. Think of it as a romantic getaway.” Hunter put his hand on hers in between the seats. His eyes as they gazed at her were almost reassuring. “Nobody will bother us. I’ll see to that.”

  Kerri held back what she initially wanted to say. A romantic getaway? Was he kidding? Kerri had just run away from her parents like a disgruntled teenager hell bent on teaching them a lesson. No, I just want to be with him. Still, the last thing she had said to her mother… had Brenda been crying as she stared at the floor? And now her daughter has disappeared. Runaway? Or kidnapping? Doubtless, a missing person’s report would be filed as soon as possible. Since she was the governor’s daughter, many resources would be spent at least on Raymond’s end to make sure she was found. Who was Hunter kidding? He couldn’t see to anything with the force of the state government backing up her father.

  But she wanted to try. This was her first step in declaring her independence – as frightening as it was. Hunter took his hand out of hers as traffic picked up again.

  It felt like they drove for hours, touring down the interstate and then taking a rural exit out to the middle of nowhere. Hunter was careful to not get too close to other cars around here, lest they were recognized in face or license plate number. They did not stop anywhere, although Kerri needed to go to a bathroom. “We’ll be there soon,” Hunter said more than once. After a while, Kerri stopped believing him. He’s trying to protect me. It should have soothed her, make her trust him more… and she did, but as the sun began to set she found it difficult to believe him.

  They wound up into the mountains, far away from civilization. The sort of place a person would take their family camping for the weekend to get away from it all. I always wanted to go camping growing up. Kerri never had much chance to experience the outdoors. Her mother found it vulgar, and her father was always busy. The few summers she went to a camp as a kid, it was the sort of bourgeois crap that prevented anyone from getting dirty. Now that she was here in the mountains, looking at the sunset through large, sprawling evergreen trees, she didn’t know whether to be enthralled or not.

  They finally pulled up to a cabin off the county roads. Kerri gauged that there were a few cabins around there, all isolated and forgotten. Hunters and outdoorsy honeymooners probably rented them at certain times of the year. This ain’t no honeymoon. Kerry was grateful to stretch her legs as she got out of the car for the first time in hours, but Hunter went straight to the door, a duffel bag over his shoulder. While he unlocked the door, Kerri reached into the backseat to grab her things. She and Hunter still had yet to chat about what was going on.

  Inside, the cabin was sparse but pleasant. It was big enough for just the two of them, with a studio layout that was more cozy than claustrophobic. On one side of the cabin was a small kitchen nook, with burners, a small fridge, and a tiny microwave next to a sink. The living area encompassed tables and chairs, and a sturdy queen-sized bed nestled against a modest balcony, overlooking a clearing that hunters probably adored.

  Kerri put her bags on the bed. “No TV or radio,” she noticed. Hunter locked the front door to the cabin and turned on the lights. Or light, really. A simple globe light hung from the ceiling in the middle of the cabin, illuminating only the space directly beneath it. Everything else was still in shadow.

  “I thought it best we stayed away from the media. It would probably just upset us.”

  “Yes.” Kerri sat on the edge of the bed and tried to think positively about this. “We need to talk, Hunter.’

  After he finished closing the curtains and testing the front door handle, Hunter joined her on the bed, his extra weight making the weak mattress sink beneath their bodies. “What’s wrong? Are you regretting this?”

  “Yes… no….” So much for talking. The moment Hunter put his hand on her shoulder, Kerri doubled over and let out the sobs she had been holding in since she ran away from the boutique earlier that day
.

  She didn’t mean to cry. She wanted to be strong and brave for Hunter, to prove that she was mature enough to handle this situation. I don’t want him thinking I would rather be at home. Quite the opposite. She wanted to be with him, here in his arms after he wrapped them around her, his heat and his love bringing her the solace she craved.

  “I love you,” he said, his strength nearly crushing her as he tried to make her believe it. “I wouldn’t put us through this if I didn’t think it would be worth it. But we need to do this both for ourselves as individuals and as a couple. Remember, they don’t own you.”

  No matter how many times he said something like that, Kerri still had trouble believing it. Perhaps her parents really had done such a number on her after all those years. She could go off to college, she could volunteer with animals, and she could even go on a trip to Europe… as long as they said so. It had never dawned on Kerri to simply make arrangements and pack her bag to go somewhere. She supposed that most people would at least tell their families they were going, whether they liked it or not. Kerri didn’t have that luxury. By now she and Hunter were probably plastered all over the news as both conveniently being missing at the same time. Kerri was glad she had left the cell phone her parents gave her back in that boutique bathroom. They couldn’t bother her, nor could they trace her.

  There was no telling how long they would be able to hide there. Hunter said they weren’t even in their state anymore, but when the two most high profile political children of the region went missing, people were going to look. They weren’t Romeo and Juliet making plans to escape Verona in a time when cameras didn’t even exist. Juliet never even made it out of Verona. Not alive. And not with Romeo.

  Regardless of their fates together, Kerri became determined to make the most out of this. Even if she and Hunter parted ways sooner rather than later, she would still come out on top as a better, bigger person than she ever was before. Love had both ruined her life and enriched it in ways she could have never expected. She embraced Hunter now, refusing to cry more tears of a wounded little girl who was lost from her mother. It was time to be someone who did what she wanted. And right now she wanted to be with Hunter, the only man to make her realize how stunted her growth had been all along. From the way he kissed her, full of vigor, she garnered that the feeling was mutual.