Flame & Kate

Chapter One

Kate sighed as she watched the large blue bus drive off down the narrow street. She closed her eyes and bit back tears. Coming home to the small town of Meadow Falls, Washington was not what she had planned when she sped out of this tiny town almost six years ago.

Back then, she had fancy dreams in a big city. When she shot out of Meadow Falls at the age of nineteen, with her then boyfriend, Max, she was convinced that her small-town country charm, subtle good looks, and small, petite frame would land her a career as an actress in no time. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

After getting to Los Angeles and realizing that every girl with t**s and hair thought the same as she did, her hopes and dreams became far… far out of reach.

She spent the next six years working at a diner on the side of the highway, trying to make ends meet. Max had vanished as quickly as her dream of being an actress did when he saw that Los Angeles had far more interesting women to play with.

After her fifty-year-old, divorced boss had grabbed her ass for the last time, she kneed him in the balls, poured iced coffee over his head, and walked out on her job and life in the big city.

With little to no friends in the city of angels, she decided she needed a reset on her life. And the only way she would get that, is to go back to the moment it all went so horribly wrong. She had to go home.

Her father would be overjoyed to see her again, but she knew he would have a few stern words for her about her life choices and the fact that she was still single and unmarried at almost twenty-six years old.

She sighed again, knowing she would have to call him sooner or later. As much as she dreaded going back to the town she was born and raised in, she couldn’t stand at the deserted bus stop in the middle of nowhere forever.

Kate adjusted the strap of her oversized rucksack on her shoulder and dragged her feet as she made her way towards Isaack’s Gas station about a mile towards town. No cars passed her as she inched her way closer and closer to her hometown, already seeing the white steeple of the little church poking out above the trees.

How had her life gone so wrong? She was jobless, broke, depressed, and single. She could deal with most of the emotions that pulled her in every direction, but it was the loneliness she felt inside that really gutted her the most.

Kate found it difficult to trust men again after Max made his heartbreaking departure from her life, and the few friends she had in Los Angeles always felt distant to her. As though they tolerated her more than liked her. They definitely didn’t love her. Not like her clan from her childhood.

A grin pulled at her lips as she remembered how she and six of her closest and best friends had torn this little town apart as kids, finding adventures in every corner.

Then her smile faded as her mind flashed the day her clan shattered the day Rebecca, the oldest of the group, had drowned in the lake on the outskirts of town.

She missed her dear friends with a burning pain in her chest. She wanted to see them again. To go back to a time when life was easy and free. When all they had to worry about was riding their bikes or camping out by the lake.

The sound of a car flying down the road from behind her tore Kate back to her dragging feet on the gravel-covered road.

A fancy, blue, two-door sports car rushed past her, stirring up a gust of wind that tossed her thick, curly brown hair into a tangled mess.

“Jerk!” She called out after the whizzing car. A deep frown creased her brow as the car slammed on its breaks, making it slide a little to side before it came to a dead stop several feet ahead.

Kate stopped walking, glaring at the car that was now surrounded by a thick cloud of dust. She took a step back when the car began to back up, moving closer to her. It stopped next to her, but Kate couldn’t see anything inside through the dark tinted window of the driver’s side.

She let out a breath and dropped her bag on the ground. If this asshole wanted a fight, she was so in the mood to let out her frustrations on some spoiled rich asshole.

The window began to slide down, and Kate saw her own face reflected in the large, dark glasses covering a woman’s face. Thick black hair hung around her face in neat waves, before a polished finger rose to pull the glasses down.

“Ho… ly…. s**t! Kate!” A familiar voice screeched in excitement.

Kate’s heart leaped at the sound of Trisha Winslow’s excited voice.

“Trish?” Kate exclaimed, a huge smile splitting her face. She jumped back as the door to the car flew open, and seconds later, she was being squeezed tightly by the woman in the middle of the road.

“Oh, my God, Kate, I can’t believe it’s you!” Trisha cried out, making Kate’s ears ring from her high-pitched excitement, “What are the chances I run into you on my way into town?”

Trisha finally pulled away enough to look at Kate, a beaming smile on her face and the hint of tears in her eyes.

“I just got off the bus. What are you doing here? I thought you moved to New York?”

Trisha’s smile faltered and Kate didn’t miss the pain in her best friend’s eyes, before she schooled her features.

“Yeah I did. After my grandfather died and my trust fund opened, I moved to the big city. I’m only back in town for the weekend. Jackson is graduating high school, if you can believe that.”

Kate’s eyes went wide at her friend’s words. The last time she had seen Jackson, Trisha’s baby brother, he had been only a young boy. Now, he was graduating high school. Kate groaned as she realized just how old she felt at that moment.

“You drove all the way from New York for a high school graduation?” Kate asked, instantly falling back into the memories and all-encompassing familiarity of one of her best friends. Trisha had always been a terrible liar, and by the look on her face, nothing had changed.

“I have a few things to take care of here as well, but mostly I came back for Jackson. He really took dad’s death hard.”

A loud honking from behind them made both women jump and turn to find a furious Mr. Lynch glaring at them from the driver’s seat of his old pickup truck. Kate giggled when she realized that Trisha had left her car in the middle of the road, and they had stood cackling like two old hens without a care in the world.

Trisha gave him an apologetic wave before she jumped into her car and pulled it off the road.

Without getting out of the car, she smiled at Kate.

“Do you want a ride into town?”

Kate grinned wide.

“Hell yes!”

She grabbed her bag off the dirt on the side of the road and shook her head when the trunk of the car opened as she approached. She tossed her bag in, shutting the trunk, and jogged over to the passenger side of the car.

When she had her belt strapped in tight, Trisha smiled at her with a hint of something in her eyes Kate didn’t quite understand. It looked like longing.

“I can’t believe that old grouch is still kicking,” Trisha said as the car lurched forward, making Kate’s stomach rise as they sped down the empty road.

“When last did you speak to the others?” Kate asked after a few moments of trying not to lose her breakfast at the way Trisha was weaving down the winding road with speed.

Trisha’s smile faded and she let out a long breath.

“I spoke to Jessy about a week ago. Sammy and Ella were in New York last year for Christmas and I met up with them for a few hours. I haven’t seen or spoken to Mickey since she deployed the last time. What about you?”

“Jessy called me this morning. She said she needed to talk to me about something important. I told her I was about to get on the bus coming here, and she just said we would talk later. I’ve seen Sammy a few times. I can’t believe she’s a cop now. I remember her being the one with the sticky fingers when we were kids.”

Trisha laughed at the memory of their tiny, grey-blonde friend running out of the local store like she was being chased by wolves with a huge bag of cheese balls gripped tightly in her hands.

“I haven’t seen Ella in a while.” Kate said, her smile falling.

“I still can’t believe what happened to her.”

Kate frowned, looking at her beautiful friend’s face as she stared at the road.

“What do you mean? What happened to Ella?”

Trisha let out a long breath, only glancing at Kate for a second before her eyes focused on the road again.

“If you don’t know, then I don’t think I should say anything, Katie bear. It’s not my place.”

An uneasy feeling swelled inside Kate at the thought of something happening to the sweetest, quietest one of the group. Ella was the shy, quiet, delicate flower to Kate’s impulsive outspokenness, Trisha’s incredible beauty, Sammy’s naughty mischievousness, Mickey’s tough girl, no-nonsense attitude, and Jessy’s wonder at everything around her.

They were the perfect blend of everything. A six-sided scale that balanced itself perfectly whenever they were together.

The thought of something happening to one of them made a physical pain grow in Kate’s chest.

“What happened, Trish? Tell me. You know my brain is thinking the worst right now.”

Trisha stopped the car at the only traffic light in town and turned to look at her with a somber gaze.

“It’s worse than that, Kate. I probably shouldn’t tell you this. Hell, Sammy didn’t want to tell me, but she was so drunk when she confided in me about it. It’s killing her that she can’t do anything about it.”

“Please, just tell me.”

Trisha took in a long, hitching breath, then met Kate’s eyes.

“About three years ago, Ella was attacked on her way home from college. She was beaten and…”

“And what?” Kate asked as a wave of ice filled her veins at the thought of the baby of the group, Sammy’s little sister, being hurt.

“She was r***d, Kate. By three men. She closed up even more after that. Sammy said that she hardly leaves the house at all now. She dropped out of college and lives with Sammy in New York.”

Tears burned at Kate’s eyes at the thought of something so horrible happening to someone she loved so deeply.

She swiped at the drop that spilled from her wide, hurt filled blue eyes. Trisha did the same, not hiding her own pain at their fragile friend being hurt like that.

“Oh, God.” Kate breathed out, reaching for Trisha’s hand.

“She’s being so brave though. She’s starting to go out into the world again. Sammy said that she even went on a date a few weeks ago. She’s strong, Kate, she always was. She may have been quiet, but she was the sanity and reason that held us all together.”

“I just can’t think of it. Ella is such a pure and loving soul. How could someone do something like that to her?”

“I don’t know. It’s killing Sammy. She has been working herself into the ground trying to find the men that did it.”

Kate rested her trembling hands on her knees as Trisha pulled away from the intersection. She was silent in the car. Her mind flooding with memories of them all together as kids. Ella never said a bad word about anyone. She had the patience of a saint and would usually end up being the one that talked the others out of doing something stupid.

She made a mental note to call Ella the first chance she got, just to hear her sweet voice again. She would never betray Trisha’s trust. She could tell that it was hard for her friend to tell her that, but if she hadn’t she never would have known.

Trisha pulled up to the old white walled house standing back on a small piece of land and turned the car off.

Kate glanced up at the house, taking in how the color of the paint had faded and looked grey and dirty. The grass was long, like it hadn’t been cut in weeks, and the old, broken toys and bits of junk laid out all over the front yard made her sigh.

Her father was getting old, and he lived alone. He couldn’t take care of the house like he used to when she was a kid.

“Let’s meet up later for a drink,” Trisha said before Kate could get out, “I think we both need a stiff one.”

Kate gave her a sad smile. “Pick me up at eight?”

Trisha smiled. “You got it. Say hi to your dad for me.”

With a quick kiss on the woman’s cheek, Kate got out of the car, grabbed her bag from the trunk, and made her way to her childhood home.