Freight Trained

by Sarah Curtis

  "Baby, please, tell me where you are." He was fucking thrilled to hear her voice, but it wasn't enough. He needed to get to her, make sure she was safe. He put the phone on speaker and held it so Sam could read the incoming number.

  "I don't know. I just started running. I'm in a forest."

  Her voice was fading in and out as if she looked around while talking. He took the phone back off speaker so he could hear her better. "Do you see anything? Any kind of landmarks?"

  A small hitch escaped her throat, and her words were thick as she replied, "All I see are trees."

  "Okay, baby. Now listen, this is very important. Are you well hidden?"

  He heard a rustling noise and she responded with a slightly frantic edge to her voice that wasn't there a moment ago. "I don't know how far I ran, and it's so dark I can barely see anything. I'm crouched behind a bush." In a whisper he barely heard, she said, "It was Chad."

  "I know, baby."

  And then with a whimper, "I think I might have killed him."

  Cole ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair, closing his eyes. "Try not to think about that right now, sweetheart. Let's concentrate on getting you out of there safely."

  "Okay."

  "Okay," he sighed, not sure if he were trying to reassure her or himself. "Now, this is even more important. Be sure to keep the phone on. We're tracking it, looking for your location." Cole could hear Sam in the background, his voice urgent as he spoke to the mobile service provider.

  She made a little whimpering noise that nearly broke his heart. "The battery is going low. It made another little warning beep a few seconds ago."

  Cole closed his eyes. The emotions coursing through his body like a giant melting pot—frustration, anger, helplessness, fear, love, hope—all warred for position as he forced the next words from his lips. "Then we need to hang up now. Save the bat-life to give them time to track you."

  "Okay." He heard her determination. His little mouse, so brave and him? The piece of shit that let her down.

  "Okay, baby, we'll be to you soon."

  He was taking the phone away from his ear when he heard her shout, "Cole!"

  "Yeah?"

  "I love you."

  He closed his eyes, hitting the end button. He gripped his phone so tight, he was surprised it didn't shatter in his hand. "Fuck," he yelled up at the ceiling, spinning around to face Sam. "Please tell me you have something."

  Sam made eye contact and held up a finger silently telling him to wait a minute. He paced the small expanse of Sam's office, but nothing could burn up the antsy energy coursing through his body.

  After what felt like an hour, he heard Sam say, "Thank you for your help." He slammed the receiver on the cradle with a loud clatter. "Got the coordinates." He ripped off the top piece of paper from the pad on his desk. "Let's go."

  Cole stared at Abby's sleeping face as she laid cradled in his arms. They were in the back of Sam's cruiser headed for the hospital. Abby had insisted she was fine, but Cole wasn't taking any chances.

  She had a few light scratches on her cheeks, a deeper one across her forehead, but it was the welted, red marks around her neck that set his temper boiling. An anger directed solely at himself. He'd left her vulnerable. He'd fucked up, again, but no more. He wouldn't take the chance of hurting Abby ever again. He loved her too much and needed to put her safety before his desires. He was a shitty excuse for a human being.

  Things could have gone so differently. He didn't even want to think about how this night could have played out. Thank fuck it ended well, with no thanks to himself, it was all because of his brave Little Mouse.

  She deserved better than that, better than him. He couldn't take the chance that he wouldn't fuck up again, because at some point he knew he would and next time, Abby might not be so lucky.

  * * * * *

  Abby came awake to the sounds of beeping and the squeaking of rubber. She opened her eyes and saw the backside of a nurse exiting the door. She was in a hospital. She knew Cole had planned to take her, but she didn't remember arriving. She scanned the room as best she could, lying flat on her back. She was hooked up to some kind of machine, the source of the persistent beeping. An IV stand stood beside her with its tubes disappearing into her left hand. Oxygen was fed by another tube into her nostrils. Cole slouched in a chair on her right, long legs stretched out, vanishing under the bed, head tipped back, asleep.

  She swallowed, her throat on fire, and she brought her hand up to lightly touch the abused skin at her neck.

  Her eyes snapped back to Cole as he stood, coming to the side of the bed, and taking her right hand. "Thank fuck, you're awake. You've been out a long time. I was starting to worry."

  "What time is it?" The raspy quality of her voice was unpleasantly harsh to her ears.

  "Try not to speak."

  Abby minutely shook her head, her neck as sore as her throat. "It's not that bad. Maybe just some water."

  "I call bullshit," he said, pouring water from a plastic pitcher into a small, matching plastic cup.

  He adjusted her bed into a sitting position then held the straw for her as she took a sip. The cool water sliding down her throat felt like heaven. "Thank you," she said when she'd had enough.

  He set the cup back down then sat in his chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked as though he hadn't slept in days. His eyes were bloodshot with red rimming his lashes and the small crinkles at the corners looked deeper than usual. His hair was disheveled with little random locks sticking out at odd angles as if his fingers had been busy running through it, and his facial hair had turned into more a short beard than his usual five o'clock shadow.

  He tipped his eyes up enough to look at her and sighed. "Your parents have been called. They should arrive soon but before they do, we need to talk."

  "Why does that sound so ominous?" Her lips turned up at her jest but when he didn't return her smile, hers faded. "Oh." She kept her eyes trained on him, refusing to look away. Her stomach clenched, and she felt like she might throw up as she waited for him to speak.

  He didn't hold her gaze but looked down at his hands. "Listen, I've had some time to think and decided it would be best if we parted ways."

  "I see," but she didn't, not really. "And why do you think that?"

  He looked up at the anger he must have heard lacing her voice. His eyes softened. "Let's not make this harder than it has to be."

  "Harder? You think explaining things to me will make this harder?" Her chuckle was sarcastic with a slightly bitter edge. "Yeah, well, I guess it would, for you. But I'm going to make you do it anyway. I deserve to know why you no longer want to be with me."

  He stood abruptly, knocking his chair over in the process. "Everyone I've ever loved has died," he yelled. "My parents, my best fucking friend. Now, I almost lost you, and God knows what will happen to you the next time I screw up. Face it, Abby, the farther away from me you are, the better off you'll be."

  Abby felt her anger melting away at the sorrow she heard in his voice. "None of those things were your fault, Cole. They were just tragic accidents."

  "Was it an accident that I selfishly drowned myself in a bottle, feeling sorry for myself because I can't cope with the guilt of killing my best friend, leaving you alone and vulnerable?"

  No, she wouldn't let him place the blame all on himself, what she'd done was just as stupid. "No, but it was a mistake. Just like it was a mistake when I left the security of your house and foolishly thought it was safe to go home. Everyone makes mistakes in life, it's part of being human."

  "I'm sorry Abby, but this is the way it has to be."

 
"So you're just going to give up on us?" she asked as loud as her voice would allow.

  "Don't you get it? I don't want to be responsible for another lost life, and I don't think I can survive losing you."

  "But you can survive leaving me?" she asked in a small voice.

  He didn't answer, just started for the door.

  Hooked up to machines, she had no way to stop him other than with her words. She had to try to get through to him, make him understand that none of those previous events had been his fault, but anger at his casual tossing away of their relationship had her spewing questions that were sure to break her heart instead. "So that's it? You're just going to walk out without a backward glance and not even try? Don't you think I'm more important than that? Don't you think the love we have is more important than that?"

  He stopped turning to face her. "Nothing is more important than that. I should've learned my lesson when I couldn't save my parents or my only friend. I selfishly decided to take one more chance in life, a chance on us and look where that got me, you almost dead. Death follows me like a dark shadow, and I refuse to let it suck you in.

  "You once told me that the sun was a powerful force that would beat back the dark clouds but what you didn't realize, the darkness that follows me comes from a place so deep the sun's rays can't touch it. You made me forget that for a while, but I'll never forget it again."

  She couldn't let him walk out the door. If she did, she knew it would be over for good. She had to try to get through to him one last time. "But you are forgetting something."

  "Yeah, what's that?"

  "You did save me. I didn't die. I'm sitting right here."

  "Are you fucking kidding me? You fought and escaped that lunatic and hid in the woods. All I did was find you and even then, I needed the help of the sheriff. I didn't fucking save you, you saved yourself." He quickly turned on his heel, his strides quickly eating the distance to the door.

  "Cole." He stopped, but he didn't turn to face her. A sob escaped though she tried to hold it back, making it difficult to get her next words out. "Maybe fate didn't bring us together for you to save me, maybe it was for me to save you."

  Still facing the door, he hung his head while he grabbed the handle. "Yeah, well maybe I'm not worth saving."

  Tears flowed down her cheeks as she watched the door slowly close, latching with a final click. Even over the beeping of the monitor, the finality of the sound seemed to resonate in her ears. She raised a hand to her chest surprised she could feel the steady beat of her heart, sure Cole had just left with it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Abby looked at the time on her phone and did a quick calculation in her head—being a math teacher did have some perks. It had been exactly forty-five hours and forty-seven minutes since she'd last seen or spoken to Cole. It felt like a lifetime.

  Her parents had arrived at the hospital about a half hour after Cole had left. Then it had taken another few hours for her to be released. She'd feigned sleep on the hour and a half drive home not wanting to interact with her parents while still reeling over Cole, whom they knew nothing about.

  Once home, her dad had boarded up her window while her mom cleaned up the glass. Not wanting to sleep in her bedroom, she'd given it to her parents while she'd slept on the couch because her spare bedroom didn't have a bed. Lucky hadn't been there to greet her, so she could only assume Cole had him, which had been a double blow to her heart.

  "I feel like pie," her mom said, from her perch at the opposite end of the couch, pulling Abby from her thoughts.

  Abby raised her head from her phone, which she'd checked for the billionth time. Forty-five hours and fifty-two minutes and no missed calls. She sighed disgusted with herself. Setting her cell on the coffee table, she covered it with a magazine, hoping the adage out of sight, out of mind proved true. Although it hadn't worked for Cole. He was very much out of her sight but constantly on her mind.

  "I don't have any pie, Mom."

  "Well let's find your father and go to that cute little diner I saw while driving through town."

  "I'm not very hungry, but you and Dad should go."

  "Abigail, you haven't left the house in two days. It's not healthy. You need some fresh air."

  "I'll go sit on the porch."

  Her mother exhaled a dramatic sigh. The same sigh Abby had heard since she was a child every time she'd done something her mother didn't like. "You need to get out and socialize. Go back to work. You can't live in fear forever. That man is dead and gone and can't hurt you anymore. You need to get over it."

  Abby shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. She didn't like to think she'd killed a man, so she tried not to. She'd tucked the knowledge away in one of her many mental boxes. Unfortunately, even with industrial strength tape, the lid to that box wouldn't stay closed, and it couldn't be contained. Just like Cole, she couldn't contain thoughts of him either. "Nice of you to be so sensitive and supportive. And I'm not going back to work until the bruising on my neck is gone."

  "You know I was never one to baby you, Abigail. I'm a true believer in tough love."

  Abby snorted. She didn't know why she bothered arguing. Her mother would get her way in the end, she always did. Even her hardheaded father gave in to her demands just to stop her nagging. "Fine. Let's go" She stood her eyes flashing to the magazine on the coffee table. Guess the adage wasn't true. She quickly tucked the phone in her back pocket, pretending she hadn't checked the time before she did so. Forty-six hours and two minutes.

  She started for her front door intent on getting pie eating done so she could come back home and wallow some more in private. God, she was pathetic.

  "You going to wear that?"

  Abby looked down at her faded, gray sweatshirt and old, comfortable jeans that had a large hole in the knee. Her clothing should have been too warm for a summer day in September, but she'd been cold since she'd come home from the hospital. A chill so deep in her bones that no amount of clothing could seem to abate. "Either take me as I am or don't take me at all." She drew the line at "gussying up" just to go into town.

  Her mom's lips compressed into a flat line before she muttered, "Very well."

  Abby knew better than to show a smile, but she smiled on the inside. Winning a victory against her mother felt great.

  Her mom decided they should walk to town, declaring the fresh air and exercise would do them all good. In her current state, Abby wasn't sure she had the energy to walk all the way to the diner though it was only a little over a mile from her house. But it was even more exhausting arguing with her mother, and she knew she didn't have enough energy for more of that. So picking the lesser of the two evils, looked like she was walking to the diner.

  Now that she was out in it, Abby had to admit, it really was a beautiful day. The penetrating heat of the sun felt good soaking into her skin, and the fresh air did seem to liven her spirits a little.

  Spirits that took a massive nosedive when she entered the diner.

  Cole sat at his usual corner booth but thankfully had his back to the door and didn't turn in his seat when the bell jingled upon their arrival. She didn't have as much luck with Sissy and Becky, who sat opposite him and spied her before she could take three steps in. She was surprised at the quick jab of jealousy she felt, seeing Sissy and Cole together. Not so much because she thought anything was going on between them, but more because Sissy had something she so desperately wanted, Cole's time and attention.

  She locked eyes with Sissy, silently begging her not to do or say anything that would alert Cole to her presence. She must have read the "Silent Eye Lingo" handbook because she turned her gaze back to Cole and ignored her completely.

  Preteen Be
cky obviously had some reading to catch up on because she smiled while frantically waving her hand. Then to add insult to injury, shouted, "Hey, Abby."

  Becky's shout drew all eyes. Cole's penetrating green gaze to her, and her parents' to them.

  "Are those friends of yours, dear? Let's go say hello, you can introduce us."

  Abby frantically clutched at her mom's arm. "They look busy. Let's go find a table."

  "Nonsense, don't be silly." She went to take a step, but Abby pulled harder at her arm. "Abigail, what is your problem?" She tugged her arm, pulling it from Abby's grasp. "I promise not to embarrass you." Spinning on her heel, she marched off. Abby, slowly shuffling her feet, followed in her wake.

  An awkward silence descended on the table at their arrival. Abby refused to meet Cole's eyes again, they were her greatest weakness so instead focused on her sneaker clad feet. She felt the nudge of a bony elbow gouge her upper arm before her mom stage whispered, "Introduce me to your friends, Abigail."

  Seeing no way out of it, she took a baby-step closer to the table. "Mom, that's Sissy and her daughter, Becky," she said, gesturing in their general direction. She semi-turned her body and executed another awkward hand gesture at Cole, "And this is Cole Garrison. He owns the ranch about a mile down the road from me. Everyone, my mom, Kathrine O'Neal."

  After a round of handshaking and pleasantries, Abby's mom turned to Cole. "You have a lovely family."

  Abby promptly choked on her spit, which started a round of uncontrollable coughing that her mother thought to cure by slapping her repeatedly on the back. That, in turn, only managed to knock out the bit of oxygen she'd been able to breathe in. When she'd gotten herself under control, she swatted at her mom's arm, taking a step out of her reach.

  She chanced a glance at Cole and was surprised to see a look of concern on his face. A small wrinkle had formed between his brows, and his lips were tipped down at the corners.