The Four Stages of Loving Dutch Owen - Debra Kayn Page 0,22

was looking for her.

"Oh, God." Rachel's shoulders heaved, and she sighed loudly. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't want you to know. Not yet."

"No." Her heart pounded. "You're lying."

"Oh, God. What am I doing?" Rachel turned and held out her arms. "Marla, I'm sor—"

"I hate you." She rushed to the front door, flung it open, and ran.

Tears blinded her, burning her eyes. Pure panic pushed her forward. Rachel was lying.

Her mom wasn't dead. She was gone. She'd come back. She always came back.

Running down the road, she tried to escape the information. She wouldn't go back to Rachel and Skull. She'd find her mom on her own.

She ran off the road, jumped over the ditch, and sprinted into the woods. Deflecting tree limbs with her arms, she dodged around the thick tree trunks, not thinking about where she was going but knowing what she was running from.

She couldn't trust anyone. No one cared about her.

A branch hit her face. She cried out and kept going.

Her lungs burned. Her heart hurt.

She tripped, scraping her hand on the ground. Pushing to her feet, she stumbled. For once, getting back to Moses Lake wasn't her goal.

Her only need was to escape the lies.

She hated Rachel. She hated Skull. She hated Dutch.

She fell to her knees, heaving through her sobs. If it wasn't for Dutch, her mom would've come back.

He'd stolen her, and then her mom couldn't find her.

A low rumble vibrated the ground underneath her, erasing the vision of her mom waiting for her in the house, opening the door, and welcoming her home. Of sitting on the floor, watching her mom sleep on the couch. Of taking care of her mom and making sure she was covered with the blanket that always remained on the back of the sofa. Of the few times her mom would hold her hand as they walked to town. Of waiting outside for her mom to come out of a friend's house. Of the way, her mom would laugh and act silly, always in a better mood.

She pushed away the times she couldn't wake her mom or the times they'd gone without food. The secrets that she'd kept from her teachers. The men. The needles. The drapes always staying closed.

"I see her," shouted a man.

Marla rubbed her arm across her eyes and sat up. Every night, she wished her mom would find her, and she'd belong to someone again.

But she couldn't depend on anyone. She was alone.

"Marla!" Skull barreled through the underbrush.

Dead inside, she watched him pick her up as if she wasn't there. She accepted his hug and his clumsy hands brushing back her hair and looking at her face.

More WAKOM members joined Skull in the woods. Their attention on her.

All the voices blended into a low rumble, much like the motorcycles they rode. Hollow inside, their concern bounced off her. They were going to keep her here. Having them take her back had nothing to do with her and what she'd learned.

Skull put her on her feet and grabbed her hand, leading her through the woods. His rough, strong hand nothing like the thin, fragile hand of her mother.

Chapter 11

DUTCH STORMED INTO Rachel and Skull's house without knocking. "Where is she?"

Because of shit going down within WAKOM, it'd taken him a week to get back to Bellevue after Rachel called him about her blowup with Marla Marie.

Rachel held her finger to her lips and whispered, "In her room but don't go in there yelling."

"She needs her ass whipped," he muttered.

"If anyone does, it's me." Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head before looking at him again. "I never meant to tell her about her mom, but she kept mouthing off and..."

"Not your fault." He stepped around her. "I should've told her a year ago when it happened. I thought waiting until she was older, she'd understand better."

"It was her mother," whispered Rachel. "You know what it's like to believe in a parent. We never gave up on mom when we were taken away from her. We didn't care that she had no money or help in raising us."

There was a difference. Their mom tried her hardest to support two kids. Marla Marie's mom was a heroin addict who put the drug before her child's health and welfare. He'd protected a ten-year-old child from any more harm coming to her by a neglectful mom. If another man had found a starving child as beautiful as Marla Marie, she wouldn't be sitting in her room pissed off