“I swear I’ve seen old people climb a hill faster,” Goldie said once we were on the road. “You could barely make it up the river bank to the car. What’s wrong with you?”
It wasn’t hard for Old Eagle Eye to notice how gingerly I’d moved up the steep bank to the car. All I needed was a cane and I’d be ninety. Muscles I didn’t even know I had were sore. “I think I pinched a nerve sleeping last night.”
Goldie nodded sympathetically. “Sciatic. Sometimes happens during more,” she lowered her voice, “intimate moments, although I’m guessing that’s not the reason in this case.”
“GG.” I used my warning tone and the name the boys called her, reminding her of their presence.
“Mmm, right.” she replied, obviously remembering herself. “When you play field hockey with someone else, sometimes you hit the ball too hard with your stick and you get hurt.”
I peeked in the rearview mirror. The boys weren’t listening. “Like you said yourself, I wasn’t playing field hockey last night, I was camping.”
“Camping’s a great place for field hockey. Especially when you have a really good stick. Sometimes you feel like playing more than one game.”
“Mommy, what’s field hockey? Is that some kind of sport?” Zach asked. Apparently he had been listening after all. I gave Goldie a pointed look.
“Yes, it’s a sport you can play when you’re thirty,” I replied. “And married.”
“Huh. I thought you used to play soccer. You don’t need a stick for soccer,” Zack added.
“You’re right, love, I did.” I gave Zach a quick smile in the rearview mirror, then darted a look at Goldie. “I don’t have lots of experience with games that use sticks.”
“Then maybe you should find someone who does,” Goldie added. “I bet Ty is really good at games, and I’m sure he’ll let you use his stick.”
“Yeah Mommy, Ty told me he played lots of sports as a kid. I bet he’d teach you!” Bobby added.
I rolled my eyes at Goldie.
“Use a heating pad when you get home.” Obviously she, too, thought it was time to drop the subject.
After that fun filled conversation I stayed quiet. I didn’t need any more talk in code. Or talk, period. Since the road twisted and turned for ten miles following the banks of Hyalite Creek back to town, I wanted Goldie to think my silence was due to my focus on the driving. Which in part, it was. With a camper, top speed maxed at thirty-five going down to deal with the steep decline and narrowness of the road. Take in lack of guardrails and potentially falling rocks, I kept both hands on the steering wheel and both eyes on the road.
The Colonel followed behind us in his truck, blissfully unaware of my ridiculous conversation with Goldie. I couldn’t tell either of them the real reason I was sore. The last thing I needed was for them to go off the deep end about someone trying to hurt me.
The boys were in the back staring out the open windows. The gnomes, brought along for the weekend, were in the middle between Zach and Bobby, the lap belt securing them in place. The hot breeze blew the hair on their sweaty heads. They were both in almost vegetative states after a weekend of camping fun and hours of fishing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fell asleep before we got home.
A few minutes later, Goldie piped up. “Whatever happened the other night with Ty?”
“Mmm?” I tried to remain mute, but I knew it would be impossible. She wouldn’t shut up until she’d wheedled it out of me. And the last thing I wanted to bring up was the other night. I’d end up blurting out about the derby car and possible death. That would not be a good thing.
We came around a right turn and hit a small stretch of straightaway. I felt a thunk and took it for a pot hole.
Goldie turned to look at me, settling in for a good long chat. “Don’t mmm me, missy. You know very well I gave you an opportunity and I want to know if you grabbed the bull by the horns.”
I smiled to myself thinking of grabbing Ty by the….
“Holy Mary mother of God!” Goldie pointed out the driver’s side window in utter disbelief. Her mouth hung open, her eyes wide. What on earth could make Goldie speechless?
“Mom! What’s the camper doing over there?” Zach yelled.
I yanked my head to the left. There, moving parallel to the car, was the pop-up camper. All white and shiny. Even the black pin stripe down the side was clearly visible. Since it was only four feet away.
I shifted my eyes off the camper for a split second and back on the road.
I was going straight.
The camper was going straight.
The road curved to the right.
“Holy crap!”
My brain finally kicked in and I yanked the wheel to stay on the road. Both feet slammed the brakes. All four of us, as well as two gnomes, whiplashed in our seat belts and watched, stunned, as the camper rolled right past us, off the road, across the dirt shoulder and over the edge into the creek.
Chapter Eleven
“What the—” Ty yelled as he stormed through my backyard over to the patio. The Colonel was here. So were Goldie and Paul. We’d just finished a late dinner, the dirty dishes still on the table in front of us. He wore his fire uniform with a pager and walkie talkie still clipped to his belt. Obviously he’d come over directly from work.
I cleared my throat and tilted my head toward the boys playing in the sandbox with their gnomes.
“—heck is going on? We’re wrapping up a gas leak on Durston and a county sheriff tells me this insane story about a call he just came from. It was a runaway camper up Hyalite. I started laughing as it sounded so insane, hilarious even, but then I got this crazy feeling.” He ran a hand over his face as if trying to remain calm. “I asked him if the camper by any chance belonged to a woman named Jane West. The sheriff starts laughing. You know what he said?” His voice started to get even louder. I’d never seen Ty so flustered. “He said I sure know how to pick a girlfriend!”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Goldie’s brows go up. I ignored her.
“Girlfriend?” I squeaked. I never knew he thought of me as his girlfriend.
Ty shut his eyes. I guessed he was counting to ten. When he opened them, he said, “You. Only you would pick out that word from everything I’ve said.” He swiveled and pointed at Goldie. “Okay, maybe you, too.” He shifted back to me. “Your camper disconnected, ran off the road and into the creek!”
“If I hadn’t been there and seen it first hand, I wouldn’t have believed it either,” the Colonel said. “I think I’m calm in most situations, say, war for example, but I tell you, when I saw that camper alongside their car, I almost had a heart attack. Jell-O?”
The Colonel scooped up his lemon and whipped cream concoction onto a plate and held it out to Ty. For about five seconds Ty just stared at the yellow and white jiggling glob. He had no choice but to take it. He dropped down into an empty seat and started shoveling it in. With a full mouth he couldn’t do a lot of talking.
After a few bites he pointed his spoon at me. “How does a pop-up camper with only two wheels manage to stay upright long enough to do…,” his wrist rotated his spoon around in circles, “whatever it does to roll down the road and into the creek?”
“That’s the part that bothers me,” Paul added, holding Goldie’s hand. He’d switched his on-call shift with another doctor after he heard of our camper fiasco and stuck like glue to his wife’s side. “Jane said she raised the wheel jack and connected the safety chain to the hitch on her car before they pulled out of the campsite.”
Ty looked at me and I nodded.
“I checked it, too,” the Colonel said. “It was hooked up just like it’s supposed to be.”
I looked at him, surprised. He smiled at me. “I like to make sure everyone’s safe.”
I smiled back.
“Then how? If the hitch didn’t hold, the chain would have caught the camper and kept it from rolling away. Besides, the front would have hit the ground and dragged. There’s no way anyone could miss th
at. The sound would have been terrible and sparks probably would have shot up in the air.”
“The wheel jack was down,” I said. I poked at the remainder of my Jell-O. “When the tow truck pulled it out of the creek, the wheel jack was down, not up like it’s supposed to be for travel.”
Ty sat forward in his chair, placed his arms on the table, gazed at me with a new intensity. “Are you telling me someone tampered with the camper?”
“Looks that way,” Goldie added. She’d been unusually quiet since the incident. It was a treat to have her off my back, but I could live without the reason why. “We stopped to fish at the bend above the beaver dam. We were all down by the water for close to an hour. It could have happened there.”
“I didn’t see a thing. I fell asleep,” I told Ty.
“Let me get this straight. Someone disconnected the safety chain and unlatched the hitch so it would come loose around one of the turns or over a bump. They lowered the wheel jack so that when it did come loose, it wouldn’t tip over, but ride on three wheels, at least for a little ways.”
I nodded.
“The question is: Why?” added the Colonel. He looked between me and Ty. He was a smart man. He’d been to war. He knew when things had been left out. People didn’t just sabotage a camper for the hell of it.
I glanced at Ty. He grimaced, nodded his head but stayed quiet.
“In this particular case someone wanted to scare me, but I think someone is trying to kill me.”
***
I related all that had happened over the past week, sharing the details about the gnomes, the vial, Morty Moore, the explosion, the convenience store holdup and the derby car. No one said a word. Goldie’s mouth clamped tighter and tighter as I went on until her lips were barely visible. Paul remained quiet. Most likely contemplating all the details.
“The only thing that doesn’t fit is the convenience store robbery. That was happenstance, although I have to say you have a knack for finding trouble,” said the Colonel.
Ty looked at me as if he wanted to say, ‘I told you so.’
“Everything that’s happened up until today has all been directed at you,” Paul said. “Your gnomes, your doorstep, your camper. Even the derby car. Ty was there too, but they aimed for you.”
“At work today I had time to check with the fairgrounds and friends with the police.” Ty scraped smears of yellow on the plate with his spoon. “A derby car was stolen from the ready area. A driver was pistol whipped and left behind a hay bale.”
“Is he going to be all right?” I asked, alarmed. It only confirmed it hadn’t been an accident. It also confirmed whoever wanted me harmed was serious, hurting some innocent person like that. Besides me, that is.
“Just got his clocked cleaned. Concussion. He’ll be fine in a few days.”
“Unlike the derby car, the camper today seems more like a warning. Like someone’s trying to tell you they’re watching you,” said the Colonel.
I didn’t like the thought. Someone had been there in the canyon, following us. Watching us. Not just me but Goldie, the boys, the Colonel. My family. They’d seen me nap, and then messed with my camper.
“Exactly,” Paul continued. “It wasn’t meant to kill you, just shake you up. To make you know their intentions. Thankfully no one was driving the other way and got hit.”
“The boys,” Goldie said, her voice rough.
Just what I’d been thinking. I hadn’t decided what to do with them yet, but I knew they needed to be somewhere safe, somewhere away from me. And that ripped my heart out, knowing we had to separate. I hadn’t been away from them for more than a day or two since they were born. The farthest I’d ventured was to an adult merchandise convention in Vegas with Goldie when Bobby was one.
“The boys were in the car. That’s where I draw the line. We need them away from here until all this is settled,” Paul added.
“I’ll take them to your mom’s. The boys will think it’s an adventure and you know she’ll be thrilled to have them. She’s coming next month anyway so we’ll bring them back then,” suggested the Colonel.
Relief washed over me at the idea. In Georgia, they couldn’t get any further from the danger. “Thanks, Colonel. It’s a great idea. And reassuring. I’ll feel better knowing they’re with Mom. And you.”
“I’ve wanted an excuse to get down there. And stay.” A small smile played about his lips. Maybe a few weeks with my mom could move their romance along. “Now I’ve got one.” The Colonel patted my hand again. “Get the boys packed up. We’ll fly out tomorrow.”
***
Ty and I were sitting on the couch in my living room watching TV, although I don’t think either one of us was absorbing anything about the ballgame. I didn’t even know which team was ahead. I don’t even like baseball. But I did like sitting near Ty. Over a foot of empty couch separated us, but felt like a mile. I knew if I crossed the line, I’d never go back. Figuratively and literally. Ty probably had the same thought, so we kept the No Man’s Land there between us. For now.
I had two dark green couches in an L shape facing the TV. Two wood end tables with lamps on the far ends, another one in between. An area rug was beneath a wooden coffee table. On the other couch sat the gnomes, watching the game. The boys had propped them up to watch TV and left them there before they went to bed. They’d said the gnomes were going in their suitcases to Georgia but I planned to change their minds. The gnomes carried some bad mojo and I didn’t think it was best to move the mojo across the country. Besides, they’d definitely break. Again.
Goldie and Paul had left. So had the Colonel, to pack. The boys were in bed, asleep. They’d burned off all the excitement from the camper incident and then the news of their trip to see Nana and crashed hard.
I’d spent over an hour talking with my mom on the phone, getting her updated on the whole fiasco my life had turned into. Agreeing the boys would be safest with her for the time being, she immediately hung up on me to book flights online. Beneath her worry, I figured she was secretly excited about seeing the Colonel. For three weeks.
At least they’d have two boys as chaperones. But I wouldn’t. I’d be on my own, without any supervision. I could do things I would never do with the boys around. Like fulfilling Goldie’s hopes for my non-existent sex life. I wouldn’t even have the Colonel in his house separating me from Ty.
“I guess I owe you for saving my life,” I told him, beer in hand.
“Which time?”
I stopped to consider. It seemed I had quite a bit of thanking catch-up to do. “I’m thinking of the derby, but I guess the explosion, too. Thank you.”
“Great. You’re welcome. You owe me dinner. Tomorrow night.” Ty slouched down, feet up on the coffee table, arms crossed.
I tilted my head. “For saving my life? That’s all you want?” I flushed realizing what I’d said.
I could tell he had more on his mind than just dinner. “For now.” He had that look in his eye that I was starting to recognize as the I’m-going-to kiss-you look.
I hopped up from the couch. “Well,” I said, nervous. I did not want him to kiss me now. Not with the kids in the other room. Not when we couldn’t finish what came after a kiss. Besides, I didn’t know if Ty had decided to put a kybosh on his kybosh of our friendship, relationship. Whatever he called it.
Sure, we’d kissed at the derby. But I kissed him first. And there’d been tons of adrenaline pumping through our veins along with lust. Maybe I’d get the answers at dinner tomorrow.
He stood up, both of us close and fenced in by the coffee table. His hand came up, brushed gently over my cheek. “Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.”
And he wasn’t talking about pizza and beer.
***
“How long did you cry?” Ty asked the next night at dinner. We sat at a four top at the Ale Works on Main. I had the chicken burrito, Ty the steak. The building was an old warehouse, brick with turn-of-the-century photographs on the walls. A vintage train car was
built into the side to add ambiance, and history dating back to the golden age of railroad. Since it was a nice night, we rode our bikes down the Galligator Trail, past the new library, to the restaurant.
“What makes you think I did?” I asked.
Ty didn’t reply, just took a sip of his beer.
I rolled my eyes. “An hour,” I admitted.
I’d dropped the boys and the Colonel off at the airport after lunch. The entire morning had been spent running around trying to find a missing flip-flop, packing enough snacks for the plane and crazily searching for medical release forms. I’d tried my best not to cry until I got home and made it as far as the garage before I’d lost it. I didn’t know how long I sat and cried into the steering wheel. After that, I climbed in bed and threw the blankets over my head. I woke up ten minutes before dinner with Ty.
I’d rushed to pull myself together, splashing cold water on my face to reduce the puffiness around my eyes. I ran a brush through my hair, pulled it back in a loose ponytail so some curls hung around my face. Swiped on some tinted lip balm. I threw on a pair of black Capri pants with a white cotton shirt, slipped on simple black sandals and called it good.
My babies had left the state for weeks and it hurt. Who cared about makeup and pulling myself together for a date when my children were hurtling through the sky in a tin can at five hundred miles an hour? Without me to protect them.
Ty took my hand and squeezed. The simple touch felt good. Soothing. Reassuring.
“I heard from the fire investigators about the explosion at the Moore’s. As we thought, there was a propane gas leak.”
“Duh,” I said. I tucked a curl behind my ear.
“At first there was talk about a homemade pipe bomb in the garage.”
I looked at him blankly. “You mean like extremists in Idaho?” We never mentioned extremists in Montana like the Unabomber. They were all in Idaho now.
Ty smiled but didn’t comment on that touchy subject. “That was nixed pretty fast. A propane tank is usually positioned away from the house and down a hill or embankment of some kind to prevent a gas leak from filling the house. The Moore’s tank was next to the house, which is rare. Should have been moved years ago.” Ty took a sip of his beer.
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