CHAPTER ONE

The southbound on-ramp seemed to beckon to her, stretching wide and flat up the small hill until it crested on a small incline, leading to the highway. Emma gnawed her lip, torn. She didn't know whether it was legal to hitchhike on highways in Maine—it was definitely illegal in some other states—but even if it was, the alternative was trekking back to the truck stop in Bangor and trying to con someone there into giving her a ride.

And if I did, I'd end up using my boobs to do it, she thought bitterly. She gritted her teeth, suddenly filled with determination, and strode forward toward the ramp.

Chilly wind whistled from beneath the underpass, and she reached up to pull her tuque lower, snugging it around her ears. Then taking a deep breath, she extended her arm and put up her thumb.

"Anyone but a trucker," she muttered. "Come on."

Cars, pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs alike blew past her for the next hour or so. She saw more than one middle finger raised in her direction, and received a few honks. One jerk in a station wagon even swerved in her direction, forcing her to jump sideways across the shoulder and nearly fall down the embankment.

"Asshole!" she yelled after the squat, wood-paneled car, her heart racing as it revved up the ramp towards the highway.

Maybe it was time to resign herself to the fact that no one was pulling over. Emma hoiked her backpack up, glaring resentfully at the setting sun. The western sky was a symphony of color, fading from a deep yellow at the horizon to a lighter pink above, fluffy clouds surmounting the dark tree line. But all she could think about was how if she didn't get a ride tonight, she'd most likely end up sleeping on a bench in the bus station. Again.

"Sailor's delight, my ass," she said under her breath. She rubbed her hands together, then stuck them under her arms, trying desperately to capture some warmth. Her fingers had long since gone numb inside the gloves. The cold was beginning to reach her guts, too; she shivered, miserably aware that she should really just go back to the truck stop.

And it was then that she saw the tractor-trailer trundling its way up the state route. Her breath caught in her throat—why would a semi be coming in this direction out of Bangor, if not to get on the highway? Emma felt herself sagging, and hesitated. But her desperation got the better of her, and she slowly raised her hand with the thumb up, hating her life with all her heart. Better a truck than no ride, which seemed to be the alternative.

At first the truck didn't seem to be slowing; a black Freightliner with a silver refrigerated trailer attached, it slowly rolled its way up the road and swung to its right to enter the on-ramp. Emma felt her heart sinking as it kept moving.

But as the end of the trailer rounded the corner past her, she saw brake lights beneath the Pennsylvania plates, and the cab leisurely swerved to the shoulder of the on-ramp, the whole kit and caboodle coming to a halt a few dozen yards away. There was a quick, friendly honk, and with a clunk, the passenger door cracked open. Emma didn't hesitate this time; she snatched up her duffel bag and jogged up the shoulder.

Please let it be a woman, please let it be a woman, please let it be a woman, she thought frantically.

She tossed her duffel bag into the cab, then seized the door and hauled herself up. "Thanks," she said, slightly breathless, bouncing onto the leather passenger's seat.

"No problem," said the driver: who was, to her disappointment, a man. But he wasn't a bad-looking sort, youngish and calm, wearing the ubiquitous flannel shirt and padded vest. "Headed south?" he inquired as he buckled his seatbelt, dark brows raised in friendly curiosity.

"Yeah. As far as you'll take me," Emma answered shortly, and reached up to pull the seat belt across her body. The interior of the cab was warm, gloriously so, and smelled not unpleasantly of coffee and the sharp tang of motor oil. She could already feel her exhaustion catching up to her, and pulled off her gloves, running a hand through her greasy, tangled hair, her fingers catching at the ends. I desperately need a shower, but we'll worry about that later, she thought unhappily.

The driver gave a little breath of laughter and shifted into gear, the truck bumping forward and off the shoulder. "Well… First stop is southwest, in Scranton. Then from there, the Midwest—Kansas, if I had to guess. If you'd like to see Portland, I can even accommodate that request. Although, of course, you wouldn't get there 'til the beginning of next week."

Emma realized that his accent wasn't American. She looked over at the driver as he accelerated onto the highway. "Er," she said at last, blinking. He glanced over at her and flashed a grin, white teeth dim in the dusk. "I mean, the further the better," she said, somewhat suspicious. He was awfully attractive, for a trucker.

"All right, then," he said cheerfully.

There was a brief silence as they merged onto the highway, Emma's companion checking his mirrors and continuing to shift through the many gears. She watched from the corner of her eye warily, a hand on the door handle. It had been awhile since she had ridden with a trucker, and past experience had left her dubious (rather ironically) of one willing to stop for a hitchhiker. Even if that pervert in Santa Fe had been the exception rather than the rule, Emma had no intention of getting left at a rest stop in the middle of the night again.

But she found herself instinctively relaxing somewhat in this driver's presence, and glanced back over him again. In the fast-fading light of the scarlet sunset, she could see that despite a heavy dusting of gingery scruff and the familiar mesh trucker's cap (tilted up high to show a shock of unruly dark hair), he was more or less a clean-cut sort of man, wearing his flannel shirt tucked into his jeans, a plain Timex strapped to his wrist. Even the interior of the cab itself was fairly tidy, unlike many other rigs she'd been inside of. Yeah… his oddly good looks aside, she probably could have gotten someone much worse.

"Emma," she said suddenly. He glanced over again, and she saw a flash of intelligent eyes from his lean face. "Emma Swan. Thanks… for stopping."

He grinned again. Not taking his eyes from the road, he lifted his hand from the stick shift and offered it to her. "Quite welcome. I'm Killian Jones—and I'll be your host for the evening, thank you very much."

Amused, Emma found herself snorting at his affected nasal American accent. "Not that I've hitched with a ton of truckers, but… you've got to be the first British guy I've met behind the helm of an eighteen-wheeler," she said dryly, and reached over to take his warm, calloused hand, shaking it briefly before once more curling back into her seat.

He chuckled warmly in response. "One finds work where one can, aye?" he said amiably, shrugging.

Emma made an inconsequential noise in response, nodding. She leaned against the door, drawing one foot up onto the seat and putting her hands on the heater in front of her.

A comfortable silence followed, in which they continued to steadily plunge down the highway. The driver said nothing, reaching forward to politely turn up the heat for her, and to tweak the radio. Emma had once caught a ride from Amarillo to Dallas with a driver—a preacher, nice enough but entirely too serious about his profession—who had insisted upon listening to only Christian radio talk shows. Her stomach tightened now as her companion kept clicking forward, past the drawl of country music and the occasional thumping bass of modern punk rock.

But at last he settled on a folksy sort of station, its acoustic guitar and crooning singers well-suited to the soft light of dusk; then he lowered the volume to a gentle hum. The knot in Emma's stomach unclenched. Now she could only pray that he wasn't the garrulous type. That was even worse: when the driver thought they were entitled to your life story in exchange for the ride.

The cab remained quiet, though; as they reached a good cruising speed, the driver kept his eyes straight ahead, his hand moving to drape loosely over the top of the steering wheel. Emma leaned against the door, and slowly let out a long breath, the buzz of adrenaline beginning to fade from her veins.

She stared out the window, watching the woods slip by them as night drew on. After a few minutes, even the dim light of sunset had faded, and the only lights were the truck headlights, bright on the uninterrupted pavement ahead. The thought of leaving Maine for good broke her heart, but… what was she supposed to do? If she so much as used her credit card before she crossed the state line, Regina would probably call the staties (she had friends everywhere in that state, damn her!) and have Emma arrested and hauled back to the Storeybrooke jail posthaste.

And besides that… the further she fled, the less tempted she'd be to catch a bus back into town just to see Henry one more time. Emma felt her face growing red, her eyes swelling: she knew quite well how motivated a good bail bondsperson could be, and no doubt Regina would hire the best.

She took a deep breath and stared out the window, concentrating on counting the space of her breaths in between mile markers. The feeling had finally come back into her hands, and she stuffed them underneath her arms, wishing she could head south and find some beach to crash on. Flat, dreary Kansas didn't sound terribly appealing, but Emma wondered if the driver would really let her hitch all the way to Portland. She'd been a waitress before; maybe she could do it again there. She'd heard that minimum wage in that city was higher than other places, and she had enough money left in her bank account to rent a place for a little while as she got her feet under her.

Lulled by the dark and the relative quiet, she didn't notice how sleepy she had become until her chin touched her chest. Snorting, she blinked, raising her head. They were still cruising; but suddenly the mile markers had jumped nearly twenty miles ahead.

She glanced over at her companion, self-conscious and hoping he hadn't noticed. No such luck. Jones turned his head slightly to meet her eyes, a corner of his mouth creasing in a smile. "You can go in the back and lie down, love. If you like," he said, tilting his head to behind them. "I'm probably not going to pull over and sleep myself until we're past Boston."

Emma shook her head. Hell no, buddy, she was tempted to respond, irritated. As if she was going to crawl into a stranger's bunk, or trust him enough to leave the front seat! And although he'd probably said it with perfect simplicity, the 'love' part had brought back that little uncomfortable clench in her guts. She said nothing in response, staring out the window again; after a moment her companion sighed.

He remained quiet, though, keeping whatever offended thoughts he might have to himself. In the corner of her vision, she saw him reach down and pick up a coffee tumbler for a drink. Emma longed to dig into her bag and pull out one of the battered novels she'd hastily thrown in before fleeing Storeybrooke; but that would entail politely inquiring if Jones minded her turning on an overhead light, and her tongue seemed to have turned to stone.

She resettled herself against the passenger door, watching as they passed a sullenly lit trailer park, just off the highway. It was painfully like the park she'd lived in once, around ten years of age. Not the worst foster home she'd ever been in, but definitely the most uncomfortable, crammed into a three-bedroom doublewide with the parents and their own three kids. And the school there had been abysmal. Emma sometimes wondered how that family had even qualified for the system.

Jones had turned the heating vents down again, but the cab was still comfortably warm, and Emma could feel her eyes growing heavy with exhaustion as she watched the trailer park fade into a pine forest. The hike from Storeybrooke to the Bangor bus station the day before had taken basically all day, and although the sun had stayed out for most of it, making for a pleasant trek, her boots weren't exactly new, and the duffel bag had seemed to grow heavier with every mile. A brief, nervous sleep on a bus station bench hadn't done much to restore her energy. She'd stopped briefly in a suburban travel center before setting out towards the highway to hork down a bag of chips, stock up on cheap granola bars, and buy a couple of water bottles, so at least she wasn't starving or dehydrated yet.

Surreptitiously unzipping her coat pocket and slipping a hand inside, Emma fingered her small wad of cash, rubbing the worn notes as if to make them multiply. Thank heavens she'd actually cashed her last paycheck from the town, instead of putting it into her bank account. She wondered if Regina and whoever the new sheriff was had trashed her old apartment looking for the papers yet, or if they'd even figured out that she had them.

The thought brought a sudden, bitter grin to her face. She'd quickly stuffed all her belongings into her old duffel bag and fled the town to avoid the murder charge Sidney had been hinting at: but there was no doubt in her mind Regina would be far more enraged that Emma had absconded with Henry's adoption file and birth certificate. Which wasn't even illegal, or anything more than annoying, since Regina could easily get replacement copies of every document. It would just infuriate the other woman that Emma was able to take photographs and mementos of her son with her.

And just like that, Emma's grin faded, as did any pleasure she felt at getting that one small revenge on Regina. Inside the same pocket as the cash was her phone, and now she fingered the dull rubber edging of its case, feeling the heat return to her cheeks, and the tears to her eyes.

What's the point of having my son's photograph if I can't call him? she thought, the grief rushing up her throat and threatening to choke her.

To distract herself again, she looked over at Jones, who was still placidly driving and staring straight ahead. The light from the headlights wasn't bright enough to pick out his features, but as a truck passed them in the opposite direction, she caught a glimpse of his light-colored eyes, framed round with thick lashes and surmounted by firm, dark brows.

Emma swallowed. Still trying to dispel her sorrow over Henry, she turned her eyes to the rest of the cab, to the storage compartments above them and the instruments on the dashboard. There was some kind of decorative pendant hanging from the rearview mirror, but she couldn't tell what it was in the darkness. Outside, it had begun to snow, the flakes whirling bright in the headlights, although they hadn't begun to stick. Well… she thought with resignation. At least I'm not in it.

Exhaling deeply, she slouched down in the seat. Somehow she thought Jones wouldn't appreciate her putting her feet up on the dash, so she propped them up on her duffel bag instead. Staring out the window, lulled once more by the soft music and the muted roar of the engine, she let herself drift off.