She stared at him, and her mind went far astray thinking how undoubtedly his car had gone off the road in a split second, just as it had been a split second when she had almost run him down while she’d been lost in thought and music.
How quickly things could happen, lives go all askew, when one was just going along.
Bringing herself back to the present, she took the bottle of water from his hand, wet a couple of napkins and handed them to him to cool his face. He said a hoarse thank-you.
Thinking it prudent to get an assessment of the wound, she boldly bent close and gently parted his hair with her fingernails. “You have a pretty good goose egg here,” she said.
Blood matted a spot about the size of a silver dollar. Luckily it was on the hard bone well above his temple. His hair was silky, thick and the color of mahogany. She felt the life of him beneath her fingers and her nose.
“We’d best get you to the hospital,” she said, quickly stepping back.
“I’m all right. I don’t need to go to a hospital.”
He spoke in a drained voice that was hardly assuring. She did not think she should take his word for his condition.
“Oh, I really think you had better.”
“I’ll be all right. I just need a few minutes,” he said in a sudden sharp manner that she did not think was called for.
She clamped her mouth tight against a retort. And as she couldn’t see wrestling him into her truck to rush him to the hospital, she waited for him to either collapse or to regain what she considered full composure.
Another minute and he took the bottle of water from her and again rinsed his mouth several times, each time spitting out the water in a forceful manner that succeeded in greatly easing her tension. Obviously he had enough strength that he was not likely to die any moment. Although there could be long-term ramifications from a good blow to the head.
“I think you could have a concussion. You passed out in my truck and threw up. Those are definite signs.”
“I slept,” he said, this time taking a swallow of the water.
She watched him for a long minute, and then she said, “You should go to the emergency room, and the police can be called from there. You’ll need to report your car. And possibly we should report about my almost running you down. I might have added to your injury.”
It probably wasn’t too sterling on her part, but she did think drearily about a big rise in her insurance premiums; undoubtedly his insurance company would find a way to put a lot of it on her. It was seeming like a bigger mess all the time. She imagined a hospital, the empty halls at this time of night, painful fluorescent lights, and reams of forms to be filled out. They would likely be there all night.
The next instant she noticed him looking up at her, his expression saying clearly that he considered her a very bossy woman. She might have jumped in with a good comment that these things really needed to be done, but a Trans Am flying around the rear of the trailer distracted her. The sporty black car, music booming, zipped up to stop with a squeal of tires in front of the nearest fuel pump, an action that irritated Rainey no end. She didn’t know why people had to speed into gas stations. Had she been crossing the lot, she could have been run over.
Then her stranger—somewhere along the line she had started thinking of him as her stranger—suddenly stood.
“I’ll just go in to the men’s room there and wash up,” he said, indicating the store. He started away, rounding the Trans Am and fuel island with a stiff but steady enough stride.
She snatched her purse from the truck and hurried after him, asking, “Are you sure you should move a lot?” She tried to get close enough to be ready should something happen, like his keeling over, and when he stopped to open the door, she was so close that she bumped up against him.
“I’ll be fine, if you don’t manage to knock me down,” he said and went on into the men’s room.
She took the opportunity to go into the ladies’ room, where she combed her wind-blown hair. If she had one vanity, it was her hair, her best feature in her own and everyone else’s estimation; auburn, verging on true red in the sunlight, it waved and swirled to her shoulders. It always seemed to draw a man’s eye. She checked her makeup to make certain she didn’t have any mascara smudges, and she freshened her lipstick, a natural dusky peach. With relief, she noted that the finish on her fingernails still looked respectable. There were few things she disliked more than tacky chipped nails.
When she emerged from the ladies’ room, she saw her passenger walking down one of the aisles. Going directly to him, she noted that he appeared to have regained his full strength. His hair was damp, freshly combed back and shiny.
“Do you feel better?” she asked. In that split second she realized she was as disappointed as she was relieved—her ministrations would not be needed.
When he turned to her, she saw that his eyes were a soft brown, like a buckeye seed, with very long lashes for a man. They had cleared completely, but she was somewhat jolted by a shadow of sadness within them.
“I’m okay,” he said, averting his eyes. “Except for a headache.” He took a box of ibuprofen from the shelf.
“Maybe you shouldn’t take any before you see a doctor—in case you have a concussion.”
“I’m awake and responsive, and I have a headache,” he said, then walked to the counter to pay.
She went slowly after him, feeling a disquieting sensation—a sense of being dragged along by circumstances that wanted to get out of hand. She watched him shake three ibuprofen tablets into his wide palm and pop them into his mouth before she could point out that the directions on the bottle said one, two maximum, unless instructed by a physician.
She halfway expected him to start coughing, the pills lodging in his dry throat. Then she realized that he was very tall. She herself was just over five foot six, and she was looking up at him. A thick strand of his dark hair had fallen down over his forehead. He rubbed his hand over the back of his hair in an absentminded manner.
Still a little concerned about the ibuprofen, she suggested a snack. He tersely declined food of any sort but said he would have some coffee. He stepped to the coffeemaker, but she was closer and got it for him, while he stood beside her. She got herself a Coke. He dug into his pocket for money to pay, but she came up with bills first. After she paid, she turned to see him frowning at her. He said a brusque, “Thank you,” and she said equally tersely, “No problem.”
Without further comment, they took their drinks back out to her rig. Okay, Lord, now what? Rainey thought. How did she manage to get herself into such situations? It occurred to her that she didn’t know his name.
When the puppy yipped at them as they approached, she recalled him with some surprise. He had shown amazing restraint in not getting out of the truck. She thought that if he got out, she could just drive off and leave him. He probably had that all figured out.
Turning, she went to check Lulu, feeling a little guilty for not looking in on the mare first thing upon stopping. Lulu was dozing and disinclined to stir enough to look out the open window, once she saw there was no forthcoming Twinkie.
Rainey returned to her pickup, where her stranger stood looking down the street and again stroking the back of his hair in that absentminded fashion.
“My name’s Rainey Valentine,” she said.
He blinked, then gave his name as “Harry Furneaux” and offered his hand. She thought the name suited him perfectly.
“Do you remember the accident? Do you know how it happened?”
He nodded. “Deer in the road—a line of them came running across in my lights. I swerved to avoid them, hit the gravel, I guess.”
“Deer can total a car. One of my friends had one come through the windshield and almost kill her.”
He repeatedly raked his hand through his thick hair. “My head feels like a watermelon.”
“Jell-O gettin’ old,” she offered. “That’s what my ex-husband Monte said when he hit his head once
. He fell off an oil rig and was knocked out, and when he came to, he was muddled for half the day, wasn’t even certain who I was.”
Watching him, her anxiety began to rise again. “You really should see a doctor. Vomiting like you did could mean a concussion, and there can be long-term ramifications from a blow on the head. We should make a report to a doctor and the police, so that there’s an official record for my insurance company.”
“There’s no need,” he said and downed the final bit of his coffee. “I’m fine. See—one finger, two fingers. I’m at a convenience store in Texas, America, and I don’t think I’m the President or God. I’m not, am I?”
“No.”
“There. The doctor would say take aspirin and rest, and I’m doin’ that, so there’s nothin’ more to be done.”
She thought that he had the best command of sarcasm of anyone she had ever known, not counting her mother.
He also had a stubborn look that she thought was really pushing it, considering the circumstances; however, she had to agree with his point. Rest and aspirin had been about all the doctors had told Monte to do, too.
And she did not consider his attitude about not wanting to go to a hospital uncommon. All the men she had known had an aversion to hospitals. With the exception of her mother’s death, her father had steadfastly refused to even set foot in one, even when each of his children had been born. When Robert had had his appendicitis attack, he’d lain around moaning and groaning for half a day before giving in and letting her take him to an emergency room, where he’d had to go directly into surgery. Monte, who had climbed oil rigs for a living and raced Harleys for self-expression, had been inclined to run on seeing a nurse with a needle.
“Look,” her stranger said then. “I appreciate you picking me up out there.”
“You’re welcome.”
They gazed at each other. Rainey felt a quickening inside herself, a very strong sense that she did not want to quit looking at him. As she tried to hide it, she wondered what was called for on her part, and what was behind the sad weariness in his beautiful brown eyes. And what it might feel like to kiss his lips.
“What are you goin’ to do about your car?” she asked, averting her eyes to sip on her Coke. “Don’t you think you need to make a report to the police for insurance purposes?”
“I think it’s fairly evident that I crashed.” He was looking in the distance again. “The car’s not going anywhere. I’ll call someone to go get it tomorrow.”
So he was not concerned about his car.
“Do you think you could drive me to a motel?” he asked.
“A motel?” She had an odd difficulty imagining any point beyond that moment in the Texaco parking lot.
Then, before they could proceed with their conversation any further, a fight broke out over at the Trans Am that was still beside the fuel pumps. There were four young men, of the type that wore lots of black clothing and silver rings in their ears and on their fingers. Two of them immediately went to blows. Rainey recognized one as being the driver of the Trans Am.
It was a very short-lived altercation, breaking up before anyone could step in, when the driver of the Trans Am was punched in the nose and cried out and turned away. Two young men drove off in a roaring Mustang, leaving the injured young man on his knees on the pavement, his friend hovering over him.
Rainey immediately got the napkins from her glove box and hurried toward him. A clerk came jogging out of the store. The young man—boy was what Rainey thought—was holding his nose and crying that he was bleeding to death.
“It just seems that way,” she told him, pulling his hands from his nose and stuffing napkins in their place. Blood was indeed gushing in an alarming amount.
Then her stranger was beside her. “Here…put this penny under your upper lip,” he instructed, and when the boy fumbled, her stranger did it himself, while the young man looked at him with wide, teary eyes. Her stranger told the young man to press hard on the penny and hold his head back and that the bleeding would quickly stop.
Within seconds, the boy said, “It’s stoppin’,” in a tone that indicated he now believed he would live after all.
Her stranger, straightening, advised the boy to get the earring out of his nose, as it was already swelling.
Once more back at the pickup, they stood there watching the boy leave in his Trans Am. She said, “I don’t know what makes boys think fightin’ is so much fun.”
“He didn’t think it was fun, but the boy that hit him sure did,” her stranger commented in a knowing manner. And then he was looking at her with a crooked grin. “He’ll have his turn…every boy likes to say he has punched some guy at least once.”
She shook her head and allowed that it had to be a guy-thing.
Then they were standing there again.
“Well, do you suppose you could take me to a motel?” he said.
“Sure,” she said. There was nothing else to say.
She asked him what motel he would prefer. He said any one that was convenient. When she suggested the La Quinta, he said that would be fine, and he thanked her with the utmost politeness for going out of her way.
“It’s not out of my way,” she told him. “I’ve got to go right by it.”
Her mind was filling with all sorts of conjecture about him. Surely he wasn’t some sort of criminal, although how could she really know?
As she pulled the truck out onto the highway, she asked him where he was headed. “I might be going near where you were goin’. I’d be glad to drive you, if I can.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere in particular. I was just driving,” he said in a weary voice, his eyes directed out the windshield but seeming to look a lot farther than down the immediate highway.
She thought he seemed to be doing what her mother would have called looking painfully backward.
She did not want to leave him at a motel. She justified this overwhelming urge by telling herself that he should not be left alone, in case he had had a concussion. And there was still the matter of those three ibuprofen he had taken on an empty and unsettled stomach. What if he started to vomit and there was no one there to wipe his face with a cool cloth and make certain he did not choke?
She wore herself out with the worrisome thoughts during the ten-minute drive over to the motel. Her fertile mind drew a disturbing picture of him alone in a motel room, one with bleak off-white walls and a wide bed with a gaudy spread and sheets all tangled, staring mindlessly at a television set until the hotel clerk came pounding on the door, which her stranger wouldn’t open, as he was either zoned out from a concussion or contemplating ways to hang himself with his belt.
She was growing quite panicky by the time she saw the La Quinta sign. And then her gaze fell on the restaurant next door, an all-night Denny’s, as if it had been plopped down on earth for the sole purpose of being an answer to her worries.
“I’m starved,” she said. “I think I’ll go over there and get somethin’ to eat. Would you like to join me? I really hate to eat alone. I’d sure appreciate it if you’d join me.”
She knew he was a gentleman and would not be able to refuse, which he didn’t. He seemed, in fact, to take hold of the opportunity. Freddy, and sometimes even Charlene, was forever telling her that she imagined all sorts of things, but in that moment Rainey was certain she was correct in her estimation of the man and the situation. She was here at this particular place in time for a reason, and so was he. Nothing happens by coincidence, her mother had forever told her, and she felt in that moment that her path and this man’s were destined to cross.
They went inside and sat at a booth next to the night-black window that reflected their own images. Seeing him wince when he swiped back his hair, she got up and examined his head wound. He probably allowed this because he was so surprised by her boldness.
“It’s fine,” he told her. “It’ll just be tender for a few days.”
She was satisfied to see the broken skin already sealing itself
.
“You’ll need to wash it good, though,” she said and slipped back to her seat.
He still did not want to eat, but she talked him into getting a piece of pie, pointing out that he should eat something on top of all the ibuprofen he had taken.
“I’m a pharmacist’s assistant,” she told him, wanting him to realize that she knew what she was talking about when it came to tending the body. “I’ve just taken a few weeks off to do a bit of barrel racing.”
The way it came out, it sounded like she was on a vacation. She didn’t mention that when Mr. Blaine would not give her a leave of absence, she had quit, and Mr. Blaine had been so annoyed that he’d told her not to let the door hit her in the butt on the way out, so therefore she was really out of a job. She was reluctant to sound like an unemployed drifter to him.
The waitress came and took their order, smiling at him as if he were so much candy. He didn’t seem to notice. Possibly women always looked at him in such a way, Rainey surmised.
She learned that he took his coffee black—indeed, he raised an eyebrow at how much sugar she put into hers—that his favorite pie was cherry, that he was from Houston, that he was observant enough to notice the name written on her trailer was the same as her own, and that he could sit very still and watch her eat.
When they finished their snack and umpteen refills of coffee, and walked out into the cooling night, she gave in to saying, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? I really think you should have your head looked at. I’ll be glad to drive you.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.” His eyes were on hers with some intensity. “I appreciate all you’ve done.”
She thought it was time to say goodbye, but what came out was, “You aren’t goin’ to kill yourself, are you?” She would rather feel foolish than regret.
He looked shocked, and then he shook his head, “No. It might have crossed my mind in the past weeks, but I never seriously entertained the idea.”
He gave an amused grin and gazed at her for a moment.
“I just need a little time away from things for a few days. That’s what I was doing when I wrecked my car—getting away. Guess I got pretty far, too,” he said, his crooked smile widening a bit.
Lost Highways (A Valentine Novel) Page 4