Devney Perry's Blog - Posts Tagged "devney-perry-runaway-series"

Wild Highway, the second standalone in the Runaway series, is available now! Here's a special excerpt to enjoy.

Wild Highway

* * *
CHAPTER 1
Gemma

“I’m sorry, what did you say? Where are you? Kansas? As in Dorothy and Toto? That Kansas?” Benjamin’s string of questions came in his signature style—rapid-fire. “What happened to West Virginia?”
“I was in West Virginia,” I said into the phone. “Now I’m in Kansas.”
“B-but why?”
I didn’t need to see his face to know it was agape with shock. For too long, Benjamin had tracked my every move. He’d stood by my side as I’d created my empire and had executed my directives with precision. The rigidity of my schedule wasn’t just for my benefit. He’d managed it flawlessly for the past six years.
This trip of mine was going to freak him way the hell out.
“I have something important to tell you.”
“No.” He groaned. “I’m still dealing with the mess you left me the last time you had something important to tell me.”
“Sorry.” I hadn’t meant to shake up his world. But since I’d completely torpedoed mine, changes to his were inevitable.
Three weeks ago, I’d called Benjamin into my office and told him that I was no longer the CEO of Gemma Lane. That I’d sold my beloved cosmetics company and namesake to Procter & Gamble. The monster corporation had purchased my brand and skin care formulas for the bargain price of twelve million dollars.
The sale had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. I didn’t make those, not anymore. And ever since, I’d been waiting for a ping of regret. It hadn’t hit me yet.
Instead, I’d felt free.
Selling Gemma Lane had been the first spontaneous decision I’d made in years. The floodgates were open now and these past three weeks had seen countless decisions made entirely with personal motivations.
For eleven years, I’d given every shred of my concentration and energy to my businesses. I’d worked my ass off to make sure I’d never be poor or homeless or hungry again. I’d lived my life with extreme control, shutting out any added emotion that wouldn’t increase my bottom line.
Then I’d just . . . walked away.
All because of a pasta and breadsticks lunch with a former colleague.
I’d gotten a random phone call from my friend Julie. She’d worked with me selling real estate years before and we’d loosely kept in touch over the years. Neither of us had stayed in real estate, and while I’d chosen to create my own company, she’d worked her way up the executive ranks at Procter & Gamble.
We’d met for lunch to celebrate her recent promotion. And she’d asked me, point-blank, if I’d ever sell Gemma Lane. The word yes came from nowhere, shocking us both. We’d negotiated over the meal and Julie had taken my bottom-line number to her superiors.
Five hours later, I had the legal agreement in my inbox.
My life had flown out the window, like a ream of paper being tossed from my fourteenth-floor office on a windy day. Benjamin had been trying to catch the pages and stack them neatly again, except I just kept tossing more.
“I’m taking some time away,” I told him.
“In West Virginia. You’re supposed to be in West Virginia visiting Londyn. Wait, what’s that noise? Are you driving?”
“Yes. About that . . .” My best friend Londyn was the reason I was in this car. “I was in West Virginia visiting Londyn. But remember last year when I told you she was taking her Cadillac and driving it to California?”
“I do. Except she met Brooks in West Virginia and married him. What does this—” Benjamin stopped. He was a brilliant man and normally our conversations went this way—I’d start explaining and he’d jump to the end before I could finish my story. “No. Tell me you’re not taking this car to California yourself.”
“I’m taking the car to California myself.”
“Are you serious? You’re driving from West Virginia to California? Alone?”
“Yes, yes and yes.” I held my breath as the line went silent.
“You really have lost your goddamn mind.”
I laughed. “You’re not wrong.”
“Gemma, what is going on with you?” The concern in his voice tugged at my heart. “Is this a you-turned-thirty-this-year crisis? Should I call Dr. Brewer?”
“No.” I didn’t need my therapist getting involved. Dr. Brewer would dredge up the past, and my childhood was the last thing I wanted to discuss at the moment. “It was just time for a change.”
“A change? This is not a change. This is a nuclear explosion. You sold the company. Your baby. Gemma Lane was your life. You were there from five in the morning until eight at night every single day. Now it’s gone.”
I nodded, waiting for him to continue. This wasn’t the first time he’d reminded me of exactly what I’d done. Yet, I still didn’t feel like I’d made a huge mistake.
“Two weeks ago, you handed me an entirely new list of job duties, including managing all your assets and capital ventures while you disappeared to West Virginia. Now you’re driving to California? This isn’t you.”
“But it used to be,” I said.
I used to be impulsive and adventurous. Money and success were to blame for the caution that had invaded my life. A month ago, I’d had hundreds of employees counting on me to make the right decisions. They’d needed me to take care with my actions to ensure they had jobs. In worrying about them—for hours, days, years—I’d lost myself.
Now those employees would be working for Procter & Gamble. It had been part of my agreement that every one of my employees had future employment. Except for Benjamin. He’d always worked for me personally.
“I need this,” I confessed. “I used to be fun. I used to be daring and reckless. You wouldn’t even recognize that version of me.”
Benjamin had only known the Gemma consumed by work. He didn’t recognize me without the meetings, conference calls and galas. He didn’t see that the charity balls I used to love—the ones where I’d smile as I sipped champagne because Boston’s elite had let a lowly, runaway kid into their midst—were now suffocating and dull.
“Where is this coming from?” Benjamin asked. “I’m not buying this ‘I needed a change’ explanation. Something happened and you haven’t told me.”
Yes, something had happened, and I hadn’t told anyone, not even Londyn. “Remember Jason Jensen?”
“The guy who used to work in marketing?”
“Yes. He asked me to marry him.”
“What?” he shouted, the volume making me wince. “When? How long were you dating? How did I not know about this?”
“We dated for a few months. Obviously, we didn’t tell anyone because I was his boss’s boss. We agreed to keep it quiet, and I didn’t think we were serious. But then one night about a month ago, he took me to this fancy restaurant, got down on one knee and proposed.”
“Oh, Gemma. I’m sorry.” As always, Benjamin jumped to the end of my story.
“Don’t pity me. Pity Jason. He was sweet and handsome and kind. But I just . . . I couldn’t say yes. I didn’t love him.”
So in a restaurant full of people watching, I’d broken a good man’s heart.
“That’s why he quit,” Benjamin said.
“Yeah.”
The day Jason had left, I’d sat in my office alone, giving him space to pack his things and say goodbye to his coworkers. I’d stared out my wall of windows and wished I’d loved him.
He was gracious and caring. Jason hadn’t hated me for turning him down, he just couldn’t work for me any longer. I didn’t fault him for that. He’d loved unselfishly, not complaining that I’d been in the spotlight.
And I’d felt nothing but guilt.
“He just wasn’t the right guy,” Benjamin said. “That doesn’t mean you had to sell your company, your car and your brownstone. You gave up your life.”
“Was it really that good of a life?”
He sighed. “So what now?”
“I’m taking a road trip in this incredible car. Then . . . I don’t know.” Most of my belongings had either been donated to charity or put into storage. My house I’d sold furnished. What I had fit into the trunk of this car, and for today, it was enough.
I’d deal with tomorrow, well . . . tomorrow.
“What can I do?”
I smiled. Maybe Benjamin didn’t understand what I was doing, but he’d support me, nonetheless. “Exactly what you are doing.”
He was managing my assets, paying my bills and dealing with any questions that came up with my other business ventures. It was all work I’d done myself before the sale. It had been the second job I hadn’t needed but something to fill the lonely nights. Work had always been my forte.
Now I’d handed it over to Benjamin.
Since he no longer had to manage my hectic calendar and activities at Gemma Lane, he’d watch over my numerous real estate holdings, acting as the liaison to the property management company I’d hired years ago. Benjamin would step in and be the go-between with my financial managers.
The restaurants that had needed my influx of cash to get up and running were now some of Boston’s finest. They ran on autopilot. I owned an interest in a car dealership, one that peddled foreign luxury as opposed to the classic Americana I was currently driving. And I was also a partner in a fashion design company, the one that had designed the black sweater I was currently wearing along with a handful of others packed in my suitcase.
Benjamin would ensure we received regular profit and loss reports from my investments along with my annual dividends, then alert me to any red flags.
“Okay,” he said. “It will be in good hands until you get back.”
I bit my tongue, because as the open road stretched before me, there was a good chance I wouldn’t be back. I was on a new path now. Where it was going, I wasn’t sure. But the excitement, the freedom, was something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
“Call if you need anything. And, Benjamin?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“Drive safely.”
I tossed my phone aside and put both hands on the white steering wheel.
Londyn’s cherry-red, 1964 Cadillac DeVille convertible was a dream to drive. The car sailed down the interstate, the wheels skimming over the asphalt as the body sliced through the air.
She’d paid a small fortune to restore this car from the rusted heap it had once been. Gone were the torn, flat seats. They’d been replaced with thick cushions covered with buttery, white leather that matched the wheel. The air-conditioning kept the cab from getting too hot, and when I felt like blasting music, the sound system was deafening.
This car’s look was different but the inside would always feel like Londyn’s home. As an old, abandoned wreck destined for the scrap pile, Londyn had chosen this Cadillac as her shelter in a junkyard we’d called home.
The junkyard in Temecula, California, where Londyn, four other kids and I had lived after running away from our respective homes.
The six of us had made our own family in that junkyard. I hadn’t lived in a car, instead choosing to build myself a makeshift tent. I’d tried to talk Londyn into a tent or structure too so she’d have more space, but she’d fallen in love with the car.
And with Karson.
He’d lived in this car with her while they’d been together. Londyn hadn’t seen him since we’d moved away from California, but he was the reason she’d set out to take this car to California in the first place.
Karson would always hold a special place in her heart. He’d been her first love. He’d been our friend. He’d always hold a special place in mine too. Londyn had wanted him to have this car and see it restored to its former glory. That, and I think she wanted to know that he was all right.
If delivering the Cadillac to him would make her happy, I’d gladly drive the miles.
And I could use the time to figure out my next move.
Figure out who I wanted to be.
I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror. My chocolate-brown hair was piled in a messy knot on top of my head. I hadn’t bothered with makeup in my hotel room this morning. I looked a far cry from the corporate tycoon I’d been last month.
Gone were the posh and polish. They were somewhere in the miles behind me, strewn across the interstate.
I’d left West Virginia two days ago, heeding Londyn’s advice not to rush the trip. The first day, I’d driven for six hours before stopping in Louisville, Kentucky, for the night. I’d eaten dinner alone, not unusual for me, then went to bed. The next day, I’d crossed into Missouri for a stop in Kansas City. Then this morning, I’d awoken refreshed and ready to hit the road.
So here I was, hours later, in the middle of Kansas on a warm September day.
Flat fields spread like a golden ocean in every direction, only disturbed by the occasional barn or building. The road stretched in an endless line in front of me and rarely did I have to turn the steering wheel. Traffic on the interstate was crowded with semitrucks hauling loads across the country.
As the day wore on, I found myself relaxing to the whir of the tires on the pavement. I studied the landscape and its subtle changes as I approached the border to Colorado. And I breathed.
Truly breathed.
There were no emails to return. No calls to answer. No decisions to make. Benjamin would deal with any emergency that came up. As of now, I was the blissfully silent partner.
Walking away from my life had been relatively easy.
What did that mean? What did it mean that the only person who’d called me since leaving Boston was my paid employee?
Lost in my head, it took me a moment to notice the flash of red and blue lights racing up behind me. When their flicker caught my eye, my heart jumped to my throat and my foot instantly came off the gas. My hands gripped the wheel at ten and two as I glanced at the speedometer.
“Shit. Don’t pull me over. Please, please, please.” The last thing I needed was another speeding ticket.
The police car zoomed into the passing lane and streaked by. The air rushed from my lungs and I watched him disappear down the road ahead.
Thank God. I set the cruise control to exactly the speed limit.
Why did I always speed? When the limit was seventy-five, why did I push it to eighty-nine? When was I going to learn to slow down?
I’d never excelled at going slow or taking my time. I’d always put in twenty times the effort as others because I hadn’t had an Ivy League education or family pedigree to rely on. But give me a dollar and I’d turn it into ten through sheer will and determination. I worked hard and fast, something I’d been doing since running away from home at sixteen.
If you wanted to survive on the streets, you didn’t act slow. I’d figured out quickly how to care for myself. Granted, I’d had help. In the beginning, Karson had been my lifeline.
He and I had lived in the same shitty neighborhood. As kids, he’d walked with me to school and had played with me at the neighborhood park. It was a miracle neither of us had contracted tetanus from the swing set. Whenever I ran from my home crying, I’d often find him at that park, avoiding his own home.
Karson had been my closest friend. The day he hadn’t showed up at school, I’d gone to check on him. When I’d peeked through his window and saw his backpack was missing, I’d known he’d finally had enough.
When I’d hit the same breaking point, I’d sought him out. There hadn’t been a lot of other options. Karson had already made the junkyard his home. Then he’d helped make it mine.
A month later, Londyn came along. I’d found her digging through a Dumpster behind a restaurant, picking off a piece of wilted lettuce from a sandwich and actually opening her mouth to eat the damn thing. I gagged remembering that stench.
I’d ripped that sandwich out of her hand and tossed it back in the trash where it had belonged.
We’d been best friends ever since.
After saving her from the sandwich, I’d hauled her to the junkyard, made her a peanut butter and jelly, and introduced her to Karson. It had taken them three months to finally admit they liked each other. And another three months before Karson began spending his nights in her Cadillac.
A lot had changed since then. Life had split us all apart, though Londyn and I had always stayed friends. We’d both spent years living in Boston, meeting for drinks and manicures on a weekly basis. But Boston hadn’t been right, for either of us.
I was happy she’d found Brooks and a home in West Virginia. Had the others found happiness too? A few years ago—driven by curiosity or nostalgia or both—I’d hired a private investigator to look everyone up. It had taken him a few months since I hadn’t given him much to start with besides names, but he’d found them. Karson had still been in California, Clara in Arizona, and Aria in Oregon.
And Katherine was in Montana, where I’d left her behind.
The sound of my ringing phone startled me and I stretched to grab it from the passenger seat, seeing Londyn’s name on the screen.
“I was just thinking about you,” I answered.
“Good things?”
“I was thinking about how we met.”
“You mean how you saved me from food poisoning and ultimate starvation?”
I laughed. “Yep.”
“Ah, good times.” She giggled. “How’s the trip?”
In the background, I heard her husband, Brooks. “Ask her if the car is running okay.”
“Did you hear him?” she asked.
“Yeah. Tell him it’s running fine.”
“She says there’s a strange knocking sound every few minutes. And if she gives it too much gas at once, the whole car lurches.”
“What?” His voice echoed to my ear. “I just tuned it up. Give me that phone.”
I laughed at the sound of her swatting him away.
“I’m kidding,” she told him. “The car is fine. Now go away so we can talk. Ellie needs her diaper changed. I saved it just for you.”
“Gee, thanks,” he muttered. Through the phone, I recognized the sound of a soft kiss.
Jealousy would be easy if I wasn’t so happy for her.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I crossed into Colorado about twenty miles ago. I’m hoping to get to Denver tonight. Then maybe tomorrow, I’ll put in a long stretch and see if I can get to Las Vegas.”
Londyn sighed. “There’s no hurry, Gem. Why don’t you stay in Colorado for a week? Explore and relax.”
“Maybe.” Did I even know how to relax?
“When was the last time you took a weekend off?”
“Um . . .” It hadn’t been in recent years. “Montana, I guess.”
“That was—what?—eleven years ago? I’d say you’re overdue,” she said. “So you were thinking about the junkyard days, huh? Why?”
“I don’t know. Reminiscing, I guess. Wondering where do I go after this trip. Things were hard, but life seemed easier back at Lou’s.”
Lou Miley had owned the junkyard where the six of us kids had lived. He’d been a loner and a gruff old man. Unfriendly and irritable. But he’d let us stay without question.
“Are you okay?” Londyn asked. “Should I be worried?”
“No,” I promised. “I was just thinking about how we all scattered. Everyone but Karson. I wonder how everyone is doing.”
“You’re still upset about the Katherine thing, aren’t you?”
“I screwed up.”
Londyn sighed. “You were nineteen years old and jumped at an opportunity to make some money. I highly doubt she holds it against you. Considering where we all came from, Katherine, above all people, couldn’t fault you for wanting to better your life.”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled.
I’d broken a promise to a close friend. I’d ditched her, choosing money over that promise and the decision had haunted me since.
This was a fresh start for me. There was nothing holding me back. Londyn wanted me to take an overdue vacation. Maybe what I really needed before I could concentrate on the future, was to make an overdue apology for a past mistake.
An idea stirred in my mind, calling and demanding some attention. It was like a flashing light, one that would keep blinking until I gave it my focus. This feeling was familiar, and usually, it meant another successful business venture.
But not this time.
This idea had nothing to do with money.
“Would you care if it took me longer than planned to get the Cadillac to Karson?” Because my intuition was screaming at me to take a massive detour.
“Nope,” she said. “It’s your trip. Make the most of it.”
“Okay.” I smiled. “Thanks, Lonny.”
“Of course. Call me soon.”
“Bye.” The moment I ended the call, I pulled up my digital map and punched in a new destination.
These spontaneous decisions of the past few weeks suddenly made sense. They had purpose. They had meaning. They were to get me here, in this moment.
I was setting out to right a wrong. To find myself again.
On the wild highway.