Amid the devastation, I couldn’t fathom where to begin to look for Shepley. I was on foot and had no supplies. He was out there somewhere, and he was waiting for me. I had to find him.
I stood up. Reyes helped.
“Take it slow,” he said. “I’ll try to find you a quiet place to wait for him.”
“I’ve been waiting for an hour. The only reason he wouldn’t have come to the car or here to find me is …” I swallowed the pain, refusing to cry again. “What if he’s hurt?”
“Ma’am”—he stepped into my path—“I can’t let you—”
“America.”
“Pardon?”
“My name. It’s America. I know you’re busy. I’m not asking for your help, but I am asking you to step out of my way.”
He frowned. “You just got your arm sewed up, and you’re going to hike out of town? It’s going to be dark in a few hours.”
“I’m a big girl.”
“Not very smart though.”
I craned my neck at him. “Here’s your blanket.”
“Keep it,” he said.
I sidestepped, but he countered.
“Get out of my way, Reyes.”
I tried to step around him, but he blocked me again, sighing.
“I’m getting ready to go back out on patrol. Give me five minutes, and you can ride along.”
I looked at him in disbelief. “I can’t ride along! I have to find Shepley!”
“I know,” he said, looking around and gesturing for me to keep my voice down. “I’m going out that way. We’ll both keep an eye out for him.”
It took me a moment to reply. “Really?”
“But at dark …”
“I understand,” I said, nodding. “You can bring me back here.”
“I’ll ask around. There will be a Red Cross shelter. Maybe FEMA will be set up by then. You can’t spend the night here. You’ll never be able to sleep.”
I couldn’t smile, but I wanted to. “Thank you.”
He fidgeted, uncomfortable with the appreciation. “Yeah. Cruiser’s out this way,” he said, gesturing to the parking lot.
I slid Shepley’s backpack over my shoulders and then followed Reyes outside, under the stormy sky. My hair still damp, I twisted it and then knotted it into a bun, away from my face. My feet slid against the wet soles of my sandals, my toes already aching from the chilly air.
“Where are you from?” Reyes asked, pressing the keyless entry on his key ring.
We both settled into our seats. The fabric seats felt warm and soft.
“I grew up in Wichita, but I go to school in Eakins, Illinois.”
“Oh, at Eastern State?”
I nodded.
“My brother went to school there. Small world.”
“God, these seats are like memory foam and velvet.” I sighed, leaning back.
Reyes made a face. “You’ve been uncomfortable for too long. They’re more like toilet padding and tweed.”
I breathed out a laugh through my nose, but I still couldn’t form a smile.
His eyes softened. “We’re going to find him, America.”
“If he doesn’t find me first.”
Shepley
Rain spattered on my eyelids, tapping me awake. I blinked, covering my eyes with my hand, and my shoulder instantly complained … then my back … and then everything else. I pushed myself upright, finding myself sitting in a field of green plants. I guessed it was soybeans. Debris was all around me—everything from clothes to toys to pieces of wood. Fifty yards ahead, light glinted off the twisted metal of a bicycle. I grimaced.
My shoulder felt stiff as I tried to stretch it, and I growled when the sting turned into fire shooting through my arm. My once white T-shirt was soiled with mud mixed with crimson at the site of the pain.
I stretched the collar with my fingers to see a dirty mess of a laceration that spanned six inches from just above my heart to the edge of my left shoulder. When I moved, a foreign object moved with it, stabbing me from the inside. I touched the skin, sucking in air through my teeth. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but whatever had sliced open my skin was still in there.
With clenched teeth, I spread the skin with my fingers. I could see layers of skin and muscle and then something else, but it wasn’t bone. It was a piece of brown wood, about an inch thick. Using my fingers like tweezers, I dug inside, crying out while fishing the huge splinter from my shoulder. The squishing sound of blood and tissue combined with the discomfort made my head swim, but an inch at a time, I extracted the stake and let it fall to the ground. I fell back, looking up at the weeping sky, waiting for the dizziness and nausea to subside, still trying to wade through my last memories.
My blood ran cold. America.
I scrambled to my feet, holding my left arm against my side. “Mare?” I screamed. “America!” I turned in a circle, looking for the turnpike, listening for tires humming along the asphalt.
Only the songs of birds and a slight breeze blowing along the soybean field could be heard.
Sunbeams cascaded from the sky to my right, helping me get my bearings. It was mid afternoon, meaning I was facing south. I had no idea which direction I’d been thrown.
I looked up, remembering my last words to America. I’d felt myself being pulled, and I hadn’t wanted her to see it. I’d thought it would be the last thing I could protect her from. Then I had been launched into the air. The feeling had been hard to process, maybe something like skydiving but through a meteor shower. I had been pelted with what felt like tiny rocks, and in the next moment, a bicycle had rammed my legs and back. Then I had been slammed on the ground.
I blinked, feeling panic rise in my throat. The turnpike was either in front of me or behind me. I didn’t know how to find myself, much less my girlfriend.
“America!” I yelled again, terrified she’d been sucked out as well.
She could be lying twenty feet from me or still tucked in the crevice at the overpass.
I decided to just walk south, hoping once I reached some sort of road, I’d be able to determine how far I was from the last place I’d seen my girlfriend. The soybeans grazed my wet jeans. My clothes were weighed down by the inch-thick layer of mud, and my shoes were like two blocks of concrete. My hair was caked in wet gravel and grime, and so was my face.
As I approached the edge of the field, I saw a large piece of tin with the words Emporia Sand & Gravel. As I crested a small hill, I saw the remains of the company, the piles of materials scattered from the wind—the same wind that had carried me at least a quarter of a mile from where I had taken shelter.
My feet slugged through the rain-soaked soil and sand, over the large pieces of wood frame and metal that had once been a large building. Trucks were overturned more than a hundred yards away.
I froze when I came upon a group of trees. A man was twisted in the branches, every orifice filled with pea gravel. I swallowed back the bile bubbling up in my throat. I reached up, barely able to touch the sole of his boot.
“Sir?” I said, barely able to speak above a whisper. I’d never seen anything so gruesome.
His foot swung, lifeless.
I covered my mouth and continued walking, calling out America’s name. She’s okay. I know she is. She’s waiting for me. The words became a mantra, a prayer, as I crossed the countryside alone, trudging through the mud and grass, until I saw the red and blue flashes of an emergency vehicle.
With renewed energy, I ran toward the chaos, hoping to God I wouldn’t just find America, but that I would also find her unscathed. She would be just as worried about me, so the urge to calm her fears was just as strong as the need to find her safe.
Three ambulances were parked along the turnpike, and I ran to the closest one, watching paramedics load up a young woman. Seeing that it wasn’t America, relief washed over me.
The paramedic glanced at me and then did a double take, turning to me. “Whoa. Are you hurt?”
“My shoulder,” I said.
“I pulled a splinter out of it the size of a Sharpie.”
I looked around while he assessed my wound.
“Yeah, that’s going to need stitches. Probably staples. You definitely need to get it cleaned up.”
I shook my head. “Have you seen a pretty blonde girl, early twenties, about this tall?” I asked, holding my hand up to my eye.
“I’ve seen a lot of blonde girls today, pal.”
“She’s not just a blonde girl. She’s gorgeous, like epically beautiful.”
He shrugged.
“Her name is America,” I said.
He pressed his lips together in a hard line and then shook his head. “Girlfriend?”
“We slipped off the turnpike and went into a ditch. We took shelter under an overpass, but I’m not sure where I am.”
“Vintage Charger?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“Must have been that overpass,” the paramedic said, nodding to the west. “Because your car is three hundred yards in that direction.”
“Did you see a pretty blonde waiting close?”
He shook his head.
“Thanks,” I said, heading toward the overpass.
“No one is over there. Everyone who took shelter at the overpass is either at the hospital or the Red Cross tent.”
I slowly turned around, frustrated.
“You really need to get that cleaned out and sewn up, sir. And we still have weather coming in. Let me give you a ride to the hospital.”
I looked around and then nodded. “Thanks.”
“What’s your name?” He closed the back doors and then knocked one door with the side of his fist twice.
The ambulance pulled forward and turned a one-eighty before heading toward Emporia with its lights and sirens on.
“Uh … that was our ride.”
“No, this is your ride,” he said, showing me to a red-and-white SUV. The door read Fire Chief. “Get in.”
When he climbed behind the wheel, he gave me a once-over. “You got carried off, didn’t ya? How far do you think?”
I shrugged. “To the other side of that gravel plant. There was a body … in the tree.”
He frowned and then nodded. “I’ll call it in. You were flung a little over a quarter of a mile, I bet. You’re lucky you got away with just a scratch.”
“It’s a hell of a scratch,” I said, instinctively stretching my shoulder until I felt a twinge.
“I agree,” he said, slowing as we approached the Charger.
I stared at it as we passed, seeing that it was still submerged. America was gone.
My throat tightened. “If she’s not at the overpass and she’s not at the Charger, she went to the hospital.”
“I agree with that, too,” the Chief said.
“Hopefully, for shelter and not because she’s hurt.”
The Chief sighed. “You’ll find out soon enough. First, you’re going to get that wound cleaned.”
“I don’t have much daylight left.”
“Well, you’re definitely not going to find her at night.”
“That’s why I can’t waste time.”
“I’m not your dad, but I can tell you now, if infection sets in, you’re not going to feel up to looking for her tomorrow. Get yourself taken care of, and then you can look for your girl.”
I sighed and then pounded the door with the side of my fist. It was a lot harder than the Chief had hit on the ambulance door.
He shot me a side-eye.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“’S’all right. If it were my wife, I’d feel the same.”
I peeked over at him. “Yeah?”
“Twenty-four years. Two grown girls. Are you going to marry this girl?”
I swallowed. “I had a ring in my bag.”
He gave a half smile. “Where is it?”
“I handed it to her before I was blown out.”
“Good thinking. She’s holding on to it for safekeeping, and she doesn’t even know. She’ll get two good surprises when she sees you.”
“I hope so, sir.”
Chief made a face. “Hope? Where were you headed?”
“Her parents’ house.”
“She was introducing you to her parents? Sounds like your chances were pretty good.”
“I’ve met her parents,” I said, staring out the window. I was supposed to be going in the other direction with America, and instead, I was heading back to Emporia to find her. “Several times. And I’ve asked her to marry me—several times.”
“Oh,” Chief said. “You were going to ask her again?”
“I thought I’d try one last time.”
“What if she says no?”
“I haven’t decided. Maybe ask her why. Maybe ask her when. Maybe prepare myself for her leaving me one day.”
“Maybe it’s her turn to ask you.”
My face screwed into disgust. “No.” I laughed once. “She knows I wouldn’t be happy about that. Things were good. Now, it doesn’t really make sense that I was so upset. We were working toward it. We’d just moved in together. She was committed to me. She loves me. I made us both miserable over it.”
Chief shook his head. “Shacked up, huh? That explains it. My wife always says to my daughters, ‘Why buy the cow if you get the milk for free?’ I bet she woulda said yes if you woulda made her wait to share your bed.”
I breathed out a laugh. “Maybe. We practically lived together anyway. Either I was in her dorm room, or she was at my place.”
“Or … if she agreed to move in with you, it’s possible she’s just taking things at her own pace. She didn’t say good-bye. She just said no.”
“If she says no again, I’m pretty sure it’s going to mean good-bye.”
“Sometimes, good-bye is a second chance. Clears your head. Anyway … missing someone makes you remember why you loved that person in the first place.”
I choked and then tried to clear the emotion from my voice. I couldn’t imagine walking away from America.
I wasn’t just in love with her. It was like taking my first breath, then the second, and then every breath after that. America had come into my life, and then she was the reason for it.
“She’s special, you know? She’s a daddy’s girl, but she’ll tell you where to stick it if she doesn’t like what you have to say. She’ll slap a giant to protect the honor of her best friend. She hates good-byes. She wears this little gold cross around her neck and cusses like a sailor. She’s my happily ever after.”
“She sounds like a firecracker. Maybe she said no to make sure you’re not going to leave at the slightest sign of rocky shores. I’m surrounded by girls, and I’ll tell ya … sometimes, they take shots at you to see if you’ll run.”
“I was fooling myself.” My voice broke.
Chief got quiet. “I wouldn’t say—”
“When I find her, I’m going to ask her. I’ll ask her as many times as it takes, but just being with her is enough. I had to literally be ripped away from her to understand that.”
Chief chuckled. “You wouldn’t be the first man to need a knock on the noggin.”
“I have to find her.”
“You will.”
“She’s okay. Right?”
Chief looked over at me. I could see he didn’t want to make a promise he couldn’t keep, so he simply nodded, the wrinkles around his light eyes deepening.
“You’d better find a garden hose first, or she won’t recognize you. You look like you lost a fight with a pottery wheel.”
I laughed once. I tried to resist the urge to rub the dried mud from my face, not wanting to make a bigger mess in Chief’s truck than I already had.
“You’ll find her,” Chief said. “And you’ll marry her.”
I offered an appreciative smile and then nodded once before turning to look out the window, searching the faces of everyone we passed on the way to the hospital.
America
Reyes was tending to a grandmother and he
r teenage grandson who’d crawled out of the wreckage of their double-wide trailer home. Reyes had been patrolling up and down the highways and byways within a two-mile radius of where he’d picked me up, but we hadn’t come across Shepley or anyone who had seen him. I was pissed that I didn’t even have a picture of him. They were all on my phone, and my phone was drowning somewhere in the river. The battery had been in the single digits when I checked the weather, so it was probably dead.
Explaining what Shepley looked like was difficult. Short brown hair, hazel eyes, tall, good-looking, athletically built, six foot with no distinguishing marks made my description of him fairly vague even though he was anything but. For the first time, I wished he were a tattooed giant like Travis.
Travis. I bet he and Abby were so worried.
I returned to the cruiser and sat in the passenger seat.
“Any luck?” Reyes said.
I shook my head.
“Mrs. Tipton hasn’t seen Shepley either.”
“Thanks for asking. Are they okay?”
“A little banged up, but they’ll live. Mrs. Tipton is missing her terrier, Boss Man.” His words were hollow, but he wrote everything down on his clipboard.
“That’s awful.”
Reyes nodded, continuing his notes.
“All this going on, and you’re going to help her find her dog?” I asked.
Reyes looked at me. “Her grandsons visit twice a year. That dog is the only thing between her and lonely. So, yeah, I’m going to help her. I can’t do much, but I’ll do what I can.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“It’s my job,” he said, continuing his scribbling.
“Highway patrol helps with missing animals?”
He glared at me. “Today, I do.”
I raised my chin, refusing to let his size and intimidating expression get to me. “Are you sure there’s no way to get a call out?”
“I can take you back to headquarters.”
Something Beautiful (Beautiful #3) Page 8