by Marta Perry
“Not right now.”
She had to be hungry, but there was no point in making an issue of it. They might be glad of those bars later, when the extra calories could keep them going a bit farther.
“Let’s go, then.” He opened the door and slid out into the road, feeling the cold bite into him. Jade followed suit.
Please let this be the right decision. He’d been acting on instinct all along, and he didn’t know whether to trust it or not. But if he hadn’t trusted it earlier, Jade would have been lying dead in that hotel parking garage back in Billings.
“We’ll have to walk on the road, even if we’re more visible that way. If we get off into the snow, we won’t have to worry about the bad guys or anything else.”
She fell into step with him, glancing at the snowy woods on either side of the road. A shiver went through her. “This is not a place where I’d like to be lost.”
Obviously he shouldn’t talk about all the things that could go wrong. Realizing she was trying to keep pace with him, Micah shortened his stride.
“So.” He blew out a steamy breath. “Once this is all over, what will you do?” Keep her focused on the future, not on the icy present.
“Do?” She looked startled. “Go back to my job, of course. Assuming they’ll have me.”
“I thought maybe you’d have developed a distaste for Montana after all you’ve been through.”
“Never. I love it here, cold and all. It’s the first place I’ve ever lived where I really feel as if I belong.”
“That’s good to hear. On behalf of my adopted state, I appreciate the fact that you’re calling it home.”
She frowned down at the snow that dragged at their feet. “Home,” she said softly, her breath coming raggedly.
“I’ve never had one before. I don’t want to lose it.”
He wrapped his hand around hers. “You won’t. Not if I can help it.”
She nodded, and he suspected she didn’t have enough breath left to carry on a conversation. To tell the truth, he wasn’t doing so well himself. Maybe it was the head injury, but his limbs seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds. Shaking off the thought, he kept moving. They were all right as long as they kept moving. No walk in the park, but he was fit. He could do it.
Twenty minutes of slogging through the snow later, he wasn’t so sure. It was all he could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And Jade looked as if she was walking in a dream. Or maybe a nightmare. He stared down the road. No signs. No indication of habitation. How far were they from that crossroads? Did they stand a chance at all of making it?
Please, Father. Give us strength. Send us help.
“Are you praying?” Jade’s voice was a whisper, carried on the cold air.
“Yeah.” Were they on the same wavelength?
“Me, too.”
“I’m glad.” He squeezed her hand, thinking of all she’d revealed about her spiritual struggles. “Remember Elijah and the ravens?”
“Vaguely,” she said
“They brought help didn’t they? We could.” Please, Father.
A few more steps, and Jade stopped moving. She bent over, hands on her knees, breathing hard. “Just a minute’s rest. That’s all.”
At least she was on her feet, not sinking down into the snow. “Just a minute.” He put his arm around her, supporting her. His heart twisted with concern. Then he heard a sound, breaking the smothered silence of the snowy woods. An engine. Someone was coming. He swung, looking back the way they’d come. He loosened his jacket, reaching for his weapon. If it was the maroon sedan…
It wasn’t. He eased his hand away from his weapon and raised his arms to flag down the driver. The pickup was so old that it was impossible to tell what its original color had been. Mostly rust, now, but it couldn’t be in as bad shape as it looked. It came grinding through the snow and pulled to a stop next to them. The driver was considerably older than the truck, her leathery face a mass of wrinkles. Wiry gray hair made a fringe around a battered Stetson. She lowered the window a cautious couple of inches, and a pair of bright blue eyes surveyed them.
“Looks like you folks been having some trouble.”
“We went off the road a ways back.” He’d identify himself if he had to, but he’d rather they remain anonymous. “I guess we shouldn’t have gotten off the interstate.”
“I got no use for them interstates. Bunch of fools going nowhere too fast.”
“Maybe so.” He suspected that was a shotgun tucked down beside the seat. She wasn’t being too quick to trust, and he didn’t blame her. “We’re on our way to visit a friend up near Helena. Any chance you can give us a lift to someplace where we can make a call?”
She surveyed them for a moment longer. Then she jerked a nod. “Hop in. I’ll take you as far as I’m going, anyway.”
He opened the door, helping Jade up into the seat and climbing in after her.
Thank You, Lord. We’ll take ravens in any form when sent by You.
Heat blasted from the truck’s dash, but Jade couldn’t seem to stop shivering, even tucked between their rescuer and Micah’s solid body. Maybe she just hadn’t been able to feel how cold she was until relief had come. She stretched hands and feet toward the source of all that heat. The truck’s cab was cramped and a little smelly, but it felt great.
“That’s right. You just get yourself warmed up now.”
The elderly woman’s voice sounded rusty, as if she didn’t have much use for it. “What’s your name?”
“Jade.”
Micah shot her a sidelong warning look, and she knew what he was telling her as clearly as if he had spoken. Don’t tell her what’s going on. Don’t say anything you don't have to.
After that disaster with the truckers, she’d follow his advice.
“My name is Micah.” He reached across her to shake hands with the woman. “We’re grateful to you for giving us a lift.”
“Mamie Carson.” She gave a sound that could only be described as a snort. “Couldn’t leave you out there to freeze to death, could I?”
“We’re fortunate you came along, Ms. Carson.” Micah shifted a bit, his arm going around Jade’s shoulders so that she felt the comforting weight of it.
“Never mind thanks. You’d best get your girl’s hands warmed up. She oughta have warmer gloves than that. Mittens work best of anything.” She flapped a pair of oversized fur-lined mittens that lay in her lap. Most of the time Jade didn’t care for that use of the word girl applied to her, but this use of it warmed her. Micah’s girl.
He drew her gloves off carefully and wrapped his hands around hers. “You should have told me your hands were getting this bad.” His tone was intimate, gently scolding. “I’d have given you my gloves.”
“Then you’d have frost-bitten fingers, which wouldn’t help us at all.” She tried to make the words tart to override the treacherous melting that his touch engendered.
“Rub ’em real easy,” Mamie cautioned. “Don’t want to be rough.”
“I won’t be.” He massaged her fingers, the movements as tender as a kiss.
“Here.” Mamie reached behind her seat and pulled out a plaid blanket, dropping it on Jade’s lap. “Put that over you ’til you warm up.”
The blanket was rough and frayed, and it smelled like horse. She wrapped it around herself thankfully. “Thanks. I think I’m actually starting to feel my hands and feet.”
“Good.” Micah shot her a look that would warm her all by itself. “I was getting worried.”
“I reckon Jade’s tougher than that.” Mamie elbowed her. “Right?”
The old woman’s question seemed to demand an honest answer.
“I’m trying to be.”
Ruby had always been the tough one. Jade had told herself she didn’t have to take that path—that she could rely on intelligence and hard work. Maybe she’d never appreciated toughness enough. Mamie Carson certainly seemed like an example of that.
“You live out here,
do you, Ms. Carson?” Micah asked, looking up from his focus on Jade’s hands.
“Got a little spread down near the crossroads. Born there and gonna die there, if I have my way.”
Near the crossroads. That meant they’d have to climb out there and walk toward the interstate, hoping to pick up another ride. Her heart failed at the thought of getting out into the cold again.
Nonsense. She’d do what she had to do.
“Are you on the telephone, by chance?” Micah’s tone sharpened.
“Nope. Never saw much need for it. I guess the phone company never did neither. Never ran the lines out. Some folks have those fancy cell phones, but I hear tell they don’t work so good out here.”
Micah pulled his out of his pocket and flipped it open. He shook his head. “I see what you mean. I’m not getting a signal.”
So they couldn’t count on getting help anytime soon. She bit her lip, studying Micah’s face. It was pale, and there were lines of strain around his eyes and mouth. How much longer could he keep going? He ought to be in an E.R. getting checked out.
He wouldn’t give up or give in, no matter how much he hurt. But his body might overcome his indomitable will.
“Here’s my lane.” Mamie pulled the truck to the side of the road, nosing into a lane that was nearly invisible in the snow. “There’s the road you want just ahead. Turn left, and it’ll get you onto the highway in about a mile or so.”
Micah let go of her hands. “We thank you for the lift, Ms. Carson.”
“Hold on there. You think I’m just gonna desert the two of you?” Mamie’s leathery face cracked in a smile. “I know folks in trouble when I see them. Reckon I know good folks from bad, too. You two take the truck and get on your way.”
She was already sliding out before either of them found words.
“We can’t do that. What will you do for transportation?” Bless her heart—they couldn’t leave her alone out here, either.
“I’ve got a horse that’s as reliable as this old truck any day.” Mamie pulled a couple of canvas bags out of the back, taking one in each hand. “Got all the groceries I need now for a long spell. I’ll do what I do every winter—hole up and wait for spring.”
“We appreciate it, but we can’t let you do that.” Micah said the words in his best authoritative cop voice. It didn’t seem to impress the woman. “You just heed what I say. You’ll bring the truck back when you don’t need it anymore. Till then, you take care of this girl.”
She didn’t wait for an answer or an argument. She turned and stomped off down the lane. Jade watched until the incongruous figure vanished around a stand of trees.
“What are we going to do?”
Micah slid out and walked around the truck, climbing into the driver’s seat. Then he gave her a singularly sweet smile. “We’re going to take what’s offered. You have to admit it. When the good Lord decides to send help, He does it right.”
Micah put the pickup in gear and pulled out. Amazing, how fast things could turn around. A half hour ago, he’d been wondering how they’d survive. Now he was buoyed by a sense of optimism.
“Okay, now things are going our way.” He made the turn toward the interstate. “We’ll get back on the highway. Even with slow going from the snow, we’ll be at the lodge in a couple of hours.”
“It can’t be that easy.” Jade sounded as if she didn’t quite believe in their change of fortunes.
“Why not? We’ve had enough bad things happen to us.” They were coming up on the interstate ramp already, and he took it. No cars in sight, but tracks in the snow told him some traffic was moving.
“I hope you’re right.” A smile wiped some of the worry from Jade’s eyes. “Ms. Carson was a dear, wasn’t she?”
“Tough, self-reliant, open-handed to those needing help. That’s the best of folks out here.”
“You’ll never go back to Chicago?”
“Not unless I get reassigned, which I hope doesn’t happen.”
“Don’t you have people there any longer?”
“Just my brother.” His gut tightened at the thought of Jackson’s current opinion of him. “My mom lives in Phoenix. I’m settled here now.”
“It’s good, isn’t it? Feeling settled.”
Jade had good reason to feel that way, based on everything she’d told him. “You know it.” He reached out to clasp her hand. “You’ll be back in your own house soon. Everything will be the way it was. Well, except for your bells. I guess you’ll have to start a new collection.”
Her hand jerked in his, as if in denial.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”
“It’s all right.” She was silent for a moment, but her hand relaxed a bit in his. “I told you the bells didn’t mean anything special. That wasn’t true.”
“I sort of figured that.” Was she actually going to confide in him?
“I told you about my librarian friend, Mrs. Henderson. I stayed with her once—it was a rough time, and she just let me go home with her.” Jade’s voice filled with a kind of wonder, as if that sort of kindness hadn’t happened often in her young life.
“That was good of her.”
“Yes. She was a good person, good all the way through.”
He knew what she meant by the phrase. Most people had some little quirks—the odd touchy places that made them get defensive, or lie, or cheat in some way to protect themselves. Some few were good all the way through. His mother was one of those.
“She had a little house in a nice neighborhood, with everything as neat and orderly as her library. She had a collection of bells that she’d bought when she traveled.
She had a story about every one of them.” Jade’s hands moved, as if they tried to express something for which she didn’t have words. “I guess that became my image of a home I’d have one day, where everything was clean and neat, and you could have something fragile without it being broken.”
“That made it hurt doubly to see yours broken.” This was the explanation of her tears, and his throat went tight thinking of it.
“It was like…” she hesitated “…like being trapped in that world again.” Her voice dropped on the words. He could fill in the pieces. Her mother had been an alcoholic and an addict. Anything fragile or remotely valuable would have been broken or sold to support her habit.
“You’re not there anymore,” he said firmly, praying that what he said was true.
She nodded, but he wasn’t sure she totally believed that. She was swinging back and forth between hope and despair, and that wasn’t surprising, even what she’d been through today. Maybe the best thing he could do for her right now was to keep her talking.
“You said you stayed with her for a while. How did that happen?”
She didn’t answer. Silence stretched between them. A semi went by in the passing lane, going too fast for road conditions and splattering the windshield with slush. The wipers struggled to clear the glass.
“I must have been about thirteen at the time.” Jade clasped her hands together in her lap. “My mother…well, you know what she was like. There was always a boyfriend around. This one drank as much as she did. Usually when he was there I could stay out of his way.”
“And that time?” He kept his voice soft with an effort, guessing what was coming.
“He came on to me.” Her fingers strained against each other. “Maybe he’d just noticed that Ruby and I were growing up. Anyway, I panicked. I got away from him, but I knew I had to get out of there. Once Mom got high she wouldn’t protect me.”
Edie Summers had been a poor excuse for a mother, all right. Once he’d have denied that people like that existed, but his job had taught him better.
“So you left?” He longed to pull over so that he could give her his full attention, but he was afraid if he did that, it would break the thread of remembrance.
“I tried to get Ruby to go with me, but she just laughed. She insisted that when
he got drunk he got generous. She called me a coward. So I left.”
She was probably holding on to control by a thread, but he sensed that she needed to get this out. “Where did you go?”
“The library. I stayed until closing, and Ms. Henderson seemed to see what I didn’t say.” She let out a shaky breath. “I stayed a couple of days. When I went home, Ruby flashed a wad of cash. She insisted nothing had happened. Said he’d just given it to her.”
“You didn’t believe her.” His heart seemed to be splitting in half at her pain.
“No.” She breathed the word. “I didn’t. Things were never the same between us after that.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, knowing that’s what she believed. “You couldn’t help what happened.”
She swung her face toward him, and he saw that tears spilled over onto her cheeks. “I should have. I should have helped her. She was my sister. Maybe if I’d stayed…”
“If you’d stayed, you’d have been the one he raped,” he said the words bluntly. Better to get it out in the open.
“You tried to help her. She didn’t let you.”
Her breath hitched. “If I’d tried harder, maybe I could have gotten her to leave with me. Maybe she’d never have gone down the path she did. Maybe she’d be alive today.”
“Maybe. And maybe a hundred other things might have been different.”
Unable to stand it any longer, he pulled onto the berm and stopped, putting the truck’s flashers on. Then he pulled her into his arms.
For an instant she strained against him. Then she turned her face into his shoulder and let the tears take over. He’d held her like this before, when she’d wept after Ruby’s funeral. He’d cared then. He’d wanted to comfort her. Now…now she meant so much to him that his heart was breaking with it. He loved her. How had he not seen it before? How had he been able to deny it?
He loved her, and he could do nothing to ease her pain. Nothing but hold her, and stroke her hair and try to share her pain.