Run To You

next car. Used, of course.
    All that was left to do was drive the ten-foot U-Haul she’d rented to her storage shed tomorrow and pack it up. There was a hand truck in the back of the U-Haul, and she figured if she needed more help than that, she could leave the items behind. Anything of real value to her had been boxed up and taped shut by Beau’s friends.
    Stella moved away from the window and grabbed her phone off the bed. She checked for calls and e-mails and text messages. Nothing. Nothing since the last time she’d checked an hour ago.
    Beau hadn’t tried to contact her in five days. She’d received nothing from him since the envelope he’d sent in the mail. The jerk-wad. He really hadn’t loved her. He’d spun her head and broken her heart and turned her life upside down. He’d made her love him, but he’d never loved her.
    I care about you , he’d said, and she’d never felt so foolish. Never. Not even that time she’d streaked through a Tennessee bar, only to realize, once she’d raced outside, that she’d left her clothes back in the women’s bathroom. In her own defense, she’d been highly intoxicated and a friend had bet her twenty bucks.
    With Beau, she didn’t have an excuse. Not money or booze or double-dog dare.
    She tossed the phone on the bed as someone knocked on the door with what sounded like a key.
    “Housekeeping.”
    Housekeeping? Most housekeepers were women. This voice clearly belonged to a man, and she quietly moved to the door and looked through the peephole. She half expected to see Lefty Lou, not a pair of gray eyes staring back at her from beneath a Marine baseball cap. Her heart thumped in her chest and ears and she held her breath. Afraid to move. Afraid to make a sound. Afraid to blink and he’d disappear.
    “I know you’re there, Boots. Open up.”
    How did he know?
    “I’m not going away.”
    She knew him well enough to believe him. Part of her heart screamed a steady Yes yes yes! while the other part yelled, No no no! She compromised and opened the door, but she left the guard on just in case. “What are you doing here?”
    He moved his face closer to the opening. “The question is, what are you doing here? I told you not to come back to Miami.”
    “Well, I don’t take orders from you, Sergeant Junger.”
    “That’s obvious.” His familiar frown settled into place as he rocked back on his heels. “Why didn’t you answer my phone calls?”
    The ones he left five days ago? “That’s obvious.”
    He wore a bright white T-shirt and his usual cargo pants. Her stomach got its usual tight feeling. “What are your plans?” he asked.
    God, she hated him. No, she loved him. No, she hated that she loved him. “None of your business.”
    He tried to smile, like he was all Mr. Friendly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Humor me, Boots.”
    Fine, what did it matter? She’d tell him and he’d leave and then she could go pass out from anxiety. “I’m packing up a U-Haul tomorrow and driving to Lovett. I talked to the manager of Slim Clem’s and he’ll give me a job working nights. And I’m taking a few classes at West Texas A&M in Amarillo this spring.”
    All pretext of happy smiles vanished. “Slim Clem’s is a dive.”
    “I’ve worked in worse.” Just the sound of his voice stabbed at the wounds in her heart.
    “This hotel is a dive. The security isn’t worth shit.”
    “I’ve stayed in worse, too.” She cleared her throat to cover the waver in her voice. “I’ve got to go now,” she said before the tears pinching her eyes blurred her vision and the yes yes yes part of her cracked heart won and she threw open the door. “Good-bye, Beau.”
    He raised a hand. “Stella—”
    She slammed the door as her eyes flooded. “Go away before I call the cops.” It was an empty threat but it apparently worked. She heard his footsteps, then looked out the peephole. He was gone. He’d just left. The a-hole.
    She moved to the bed and the strap of her blue sundress slid down her arm. She couldn’t believe he’d left. That easy? Like when he’d left Lovett. One minute he’d been in town and in the next he’d vanished. Like the super-secret spy he assured everyone he wasn’t. His brother had left with him, too. Which had been good. The last thing she’d needed was to run into a carbon copy of Beau.
    She brushed her tears from her face and rose to check the peephole once more. Yep. He was gone. She turned and leaned her back against the