In Tune (Red Bird Trail Trilogy Book 3) by Laramie Briscoe Read Free Book Online

that was exactly what he was trying to do. He’d never bought a woman a gift for Christmas, but he knew he was going to have to buy Harper one this year. He wanted to get her something good, something meaningful, and in his experience that cost money. Money they didn’t have.
    “The crowd is a little thin.”
    Cash looked to his left, noting Slim had come to stand beside him.
    “Yeah, but what do you expect? It’s two weeks to Thanksgiving. Most honorable people are either saving, buying, or have bought Christmas gifts. It’s much busier than I thought it would be. There’s a chance we could make some money here tonight.”
    Rodrigo came up to them. “The purse is light, but the people that are here expect a good race. At least make it interesting for them.”
    Cash hated when Rodrigo acted like he had a say in how the race ended. It wasn’t pre-scripted. No one he knew worth their car would hand over a race to someone else. They did this because they loved it and needed the money. Sometimes, he would admit, he craved the adrenaline rush. He figured that was what people who did drugs felt like. The ever-elusive high they sought—he got one every time he got behind the wheel of his car and revved the engine.
    “The race will be what the race will be. There’s no way either of us can predict it, and if that’s what you’re asking us to do, well you know how I feel about that.” Cash let a lazy, but lethal grin spread across his face.
    Once before, when he’d first started running the Trail, Rodrigo had asked him to throw a race. Cash had thrown a right fist, laying Rodrigo flat on his back. He’d never been asked again.
    “Understood.” Rodrigo told him. “You might wanna get into your car, amigo; we’re about to start.”
    *
    Harper ran her sweaty hands over her jean-clad thighs. Cash was running the Trail, and she was here, with a therapist. Doc Jones had suggested they meet separately a few times, and she’d told the two of them she’d be willing to meet them no matter the time. Late at night was sometimes what it would have to be.
    “What do you feel like is the one thing holding you back from being happy in your life?” Doc Jones asked, watching Harper with a sharp eye.
    There were many things that many people would say, and all of them would probably be true, but she knew exactly what hers was. It wasn’t money, it wasn’t worrying about her grades, it wasn’t worrying that her car might one day give up and not start on her. “The fear that my dad is going to come back and punish me for putting him in jail. He could have killed me, probably should have since I was the only witness to his crime, but he didn’t. Now, I live with that niggling sense of fear at the back of my neck every goddamn day, and I never relax.”
    There she’d said it. Never before had she admitted that out loud. Not to anyone.
    Doc Jones frantically made notes in the same yellow legal pad she’d had the first time Harper had come to visit. She took her glasses off and looked Harper square in the face. “I have to admit, I didn’t think you’d be this forthcoming with me, even without Cash here, but I’m glad you have been. I think easy is a relative term, but that was much easier than I thought it would be. Which tells me you’ve been thinking about it a very long time.”
    “I have.” Harper breathed. “I can’t even put my finger on when it was, but at some point, I became sick of living my life in fear. Fat good it did, because I still haven’t figured out how to let that fear go.”
    “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you’ve owned up to it; it’s your fear. It’s not some being floating out there on a mental plane that you can’t identify. This is yours. Now the question is how do you work through it.”
    “I have no idea.” Harper shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
    “You wanna know what I think?”
    “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I’m open to this because I want to move past