The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands?

by Janis Reams Hudson

  The road was a solid sheet of ice. Driving conditions hadn’t been this bad just five miles back down the road when she’d left Stillwater and headed west for the interstate. It had apparently been snowing out here longer. Already there were snow drifts along the shoulders.

  She was getting worried about what kind of shape I-35 would be in when she finally reached it. She had only another ten or fifteen miles to go, but it was going to take her forever. Her car was not designed for driving fast under these conditions.

  She was an idiot and a coward. She should have stayed at Sherry’s and let Justin call or show up, whichever he planned. But no, she’d had to run. Again.

  Not wanting to wake Gayle if she’d worked late last night, Blaire had stopped on the outskirts of Stillwater and called. She’d gotten no answer.

  She didn’t know where Gayle was, but Blaire had decided it was just as well that she wasn’t there. It was time to go home. The snow wasn’t bad.

  She would have checked the weather on her radio, but her radio hadn’t worked in months. A bad mistake, not getting it fixed. She knew that now. Knowing that they were in for a genuine blizzard, she would not have left Stillwater, unless it had been to go back north to Ponca City and Sherry’s.

  But she hadn’t known, had misjudged, and now had to fight to keep her car on the road.

  She saw in her rearview mirror the tractor-trailer rig racing up behind her as if she were sitting still. Alarmed, she started easing toward the shoulder.

  At the last instant the semi swerved into the left lane to avoid hitting her.

  It missed hitting her, thank God, but the gust of wind in its wake was enough, when coupled with the slick road and the fact that the tires on the right side of Blaire’s car were on the shoulder instead of the highway, to send her off the road completely.

  Blaire cried out and fought the need to slam on the brakes, which would only make her skid and lose control altogether.

  As if she had any control to lose, she thought with growing panic. The left tires, still on the pavement, had nothing to grip but ice and snow. Her right tires sank in the snow to the muddy grass beneath and pulled her completely off the road and down the slope, sliding nose-first toward a snow-filled ditch.

  She tried to steer away. She tried tapping the brakes to slow her decent. Nothing helped. In desper ation she jerked the steering wheel. The action slammed her passenger door against a tree. She jerked the wheel in the opposite direction, knowing even as she did that she shouldn’t.

  The car swerved on the slope, turned completely backward until she was facing back toward Stillwater, but sliding sideways down the slope.

  She came to a crashing halt with her driver’s door slammed against the far side of the ditch, her car tilting at a forty-five-degree angle, driver’s side down.

  Justin drove the main streets through Stillwater on his way to the highway that would take him to the interstate and home. He kept an eye out for Blaire, but didn’t see her. Seeing farther ahead than twenty yards was getting more difficult by the minute.

  Other than a few semis, there was little traffic on the highway heading west out of town, but lack of visibility made the going slow. Justin drove slower than necessary so he could keep a close eye out for any little red car that might have slid off the icy-slick pavement.

  He nearly slid off himself a time or two. He couldn’t imagine driving in these conditions in that toy she called a car.

  The highway here was four-lane divided. He stayed in the righthand lane, but tried to watch the median, too, in case she’d gone off there.

  Of course she might not have had any trouble at all. She might be halfway home by now, or holed up in some snug motel along the interstate, or even at one behind him in Stillwater, although he doubted the latter.

  A tractor-trailer rig barreled past on Justin’s left, blinding him for long seconds in the backwash of snow kicked up by all eighteen wheels and thrown directly onto Justin’s windshield.

  He almost missed it. Just before the world outside his truck turned completely white, he thought he caught a glimpse of a red fender sticking up out of the ditch at the bottom of a slope off the right shoulder.

  Justin gripped the steering wheel and eased off the highway and to a stop on the shoulder. When the solid cloud of snow generated by the passing semi cleared, leaving only the blizzard—enough of a visibility reducer on its own—he was about fifty yards beyond where he thought he’d seen the red car, but he couldn’t be sure because he couldn’t see fifty yards. He couldn’t see twenty.

  He backed up a few yards, then had to stop when he spotted a cut in the shoulder where a culvert ran beneath the highway for drainage.

  He parked, killed the engine, and after bundling up, hiked back to see if he’d been imagining things.

  He hadn’t been imagining things. There was, indeed, a little red car stuck driver’s side down in the ditch at the bottom of the steep slope.

  Justin’s heart took a leap and lodged halfway up his throat.

  * * *

  Blaire sat huddled inside her car trying to think positive thoughts. Surely someone would see her car before it became completely buried in snow. Surely.

  But what were the chances?

  Still, she had hope.

  As near as she could guess, she’d been stuck where she was for less than thirty minutes. Cold was seeping into the car, but it wasn’t deadly. Yet. She would start the engine in a few minutes. She was a little hesitant about that, because she didn’t know if her tailpipe was clogged with snow or not. If it was, deadly carbon monoxide fumes would fill the car and she would never know it. She would just get sleepy, then die.

  She would have gotten out and flagged down help, but she couldn’t get out. Her car lay at a forty-fivedegree angle, with the weight of it resting on the driver’s side, her door pressed into the bank of the ditch.

  The car was small enough that she could get to the passenger door, but her earlier encounter with the tree rendered the door useless. It was good and dented and stuck. The window wouldn’t roll down, the door wouldn’t open.

  If no one came to her aid soon, she would have to try to kick out the windshield, or the back window, or the passenger window. She wondered if she could even do it. Sneakers weren’t the preferred shoe for such a stunt.

  Still, she would try, because she had no intension of sitting here and freezing to death.

  She wondered where Justin was. Nowhere near here, that was for sure. He was either up at Ponca City or halfway back to the Cherokee Rose by now. And he was probably ticked at her for running out on him again.

  She was none too pleased with herself for doing it, but it was a done deal now. And look where it had gotten her.

  If the damn forecasters had given a little warning on last night’s newscast, she might have been a little more prepared to survive the day. As it was, she had a medium weight coat, thin leather gloves, and that was it. Her feet, in her sneakers, were going to freeze when she got out. If she got out.

  No. Not if. When.

  So be it. Her only other option was to sit and wait for the spring thaw.

  She was saying a brief but sincere prayer for the well-being of her baby, when suddenly a large chunk of snow covering her windshield disappeared. A face loomed there.

  Blaire screamed.

  The face jerked away. “Blaire!”

  Justin? That couldn’t have been Justin’s voice.

  “Blaire!” His face reappeared. It was Justin!

  “Justin?”

  “Blaire! Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assured. “I’m just trapped in here. I can’t get out.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No. No, I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for you. What happened? Were you hit? Are you hurt?”

  His obvious concern warmed her heart. Some of that had to be for her, Blaire, not just for the mother of his unborn child.

  �
��I’m not hurt,” she assured him. “I was driving along just fine, slow, but fine, when some joker in a semi whizzed by and rocked my poor little car like it was a toy.”

  “Well?”

  “Hey, don’t you make fun of my car.”

  “You can finish your story later,” he said. “Gather what you need and let’s get you out of there.”

  “How? The passenger door is jammed.”

  “Are you sure?” He gave the door a tug and nothing happened.

  “I couldn’t get it open,” she told him.

  “Hang on.” He tried it again, and still, nothing happened. “All right,” he said to the door. He braced his foot on the frame beside the door and pulled with all his might.

  The door popped open.

  Justin went sprawling, disappearing from Blaire’s view.

  “Justin!” she cried. She scrambled up the slope of the passenger seat until she could see out the newly opened door. “Justin?”

  “I’m here.” Disgusted, he pushed himself to his feet and brushed snow from his hair, his coat, his jeans. Dug it out of his ear.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he snarled. He had snow down his back. He hated getting snow down his back. And it was easier to deal with being angry about falling down than the fear he’d tasted when he had spotted her car down here in this ditch.

  “Pass your bags or whatever out to me,” he called.

  He heard a grunt, then a curse, then a midsize duffel bag appeared in the open door, followed shortly by a smaller overnight case, then by Blaire herself.

  For the first time since spotting her car, he was able to take an easy breath. He could now see for himself that she was all right.

  “Hold on.” He propped the duffel and overnighter on the front fender, then reached for her. “Let me help you.” He grasped her beneath her arms and lifted her out of the car. It took all his strength to stand her beside him on the snowy slope and release her, when what he wanted to do was hold her close and make sure she stayed safe.

  But he did find the strength, he did release her. He grabbed her bag and case and motioned for her to start up the slope ahead of him. “It’s slick, so take it slow.”

  She took it slow, but that didn’t stop her from sliding back down into his legs. He went down, and the two of them ended up in a pile against her car.

  When the grunting, groaning, and swearing was over with, they took stock.

  “Are you hurt?” he demanded, helping her stand.

  “No.” She shook snow from her head. “You?”

  “I’m fine.” But he wondered how many times a pregnant woman could be bounced around—hit a tree, slide into a ditch, tumble down a slope—and still be truly fine. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m sure.” She put the strap of her shoulder bag over her head and turned to face the slope. “Ten bucks says I make it this time.”

  “No bet. Let’s just get up to the road and into the pickup before my nose freezes off.”

  Through the blowing snow she tossed him a grin over her shoulder. “Wimp.”

  Justin started up after her, telling himself that if she could grin at him under the current circumstances, she couldn’t be hurt too badly. In fact, she didn’t appear to be hurt at all. It was only his own worry that nagged at him.

  They made it to the top of the slope and the shoulder of the highway this time, Blaire more easily because she could use her hands to help her climb up, while Justin was hampered by her duffel and overnight case. Still, he was only a couple of minutes behind her.

  “Justin?” She turned toward him and squinted against the blowing snow. She had to shout to be heard over the howling of the wind now that they were up and out of the relative protection of the ditch. “Where’s your pickup?”

  “Up there.” Justin nodded toward where he had parked, then realized that visibility was even worse now than it had been a few minutes ago. He couldn’t see his pickup at all. “I think.”

  He slogged his way up the shoulder through the ever deepening snow, over the culvert, and there, abruptly, sat his rig. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  “Here we are,” he shouted. He led Blaire to the passenger door and helped her up into the cab. He tucked her bag and case around her feet, then circled the truck and climbed in. He started the engine and cranked the heat up to high.

  “I vote we go back to Stillwater and get a room until this blows over.” Justin glanced over at Blaire to measure her reaction.

  She sat huddled in on herself, her feet stretched out toward the hot air blasting from his heater.

  “Blaire?”

  “As long as it’s warm and comes with something hot to drink, and I’m trying to stay away from caffeine because of the baby.”

  “A warm room, and something hot to drink. You got it. Anything else?”

  “Not that I can think of. And Justin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know how you found me or what you were doing on this highway, but thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he told her. “I was looking for you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” he asked, surprised by the apology.

  “For causing all this trouble. Can I ask you a question?”

  “You can ask me anything. We’re trying to get to know each other better, aren’t we?”

  “I suppose.”

  “What did you want to ask?”

  “This morning. You were going to call me again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you? Call I mean. Or did you go to the apartment?”

  He smiled slightly. “I decided it was time to act like a grown-up and call, the way I said I would. So that’s what I did.”

  “Oh.” Her face fell. “While I ran off, acting childish again.”

  “That’s not what I said. And it’s not what I meant,” he assured her. “Anyway, acting like a grown-up nearly killed me.”

  She smiled slightly. “That’s comforting.”

  Justin pulled in at the first decent motel they came to. The parking lot was filled with snow-covered cars. The chances of a vacancy looked slim, but Justin went into the office anyway to check.

  Blaire stayed in the pickup, trying her best to soak up the heat from the heater. She could barely see Justin through the layer of ice covering the motel window. He was filling out a form or card or something, so he must have gotten them a room.

  Blaire was relieved. She was no sissy when it came to driving in bad weather, but this was simply too dangerous. Plus, the stress of her accident had somehow sapped all her energy. She felt as limp as a noodle. And cold clear down to the marrow in her bones.

  Inside the motel office, Justin was told that because of the storm, he was getting the last available motel room in town.

  He doubted it was the very last one in town, but it appeared to be the last one in this motel, and he wasn’t inclined to drive from motel to motel to look for one with two vacant rooms.

  Blaire hadn’t said she expected a separate room and he hadn’t offered one. But it would have been nice if she’d had a choice. Now she would have none. She would have to share with him.

  Maybe, if he behaved himself, they could use the time together to get to know each other better.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her when he got back into the pickup. “I tried to get two rooms. I thought you might prefer your privacy. But they’re full up because of the storm. They had one room left.”

  “It’s all right, Justin. We’ll manage.”

  For her part, Blaire was not surprised to find herself sharing a motel room with Justin again. A little nervous. Okay, maybe a lot nervous. But under the circumstances, it seemed inevitable. He had trailed her all over the state, and now they were stuck in a blizzard nearly two hundred miles from home.

  There was a deeper concern at work in the back of her mind: Had she fled to Enid hoping he would follow?

&nb
sp; Ridiculous. She’d had no reason to think he would come after her. Why should he do such a thing?

  Why did he do such a thing?

  She sat next to him as he followed the manager’s directions to their room and parked near the end of the building.

  Blaire gathered her duffel bag and overnight case in her arms and prepared to get out.

  “I’ll get those,” Justin said tersely.

  She had accepted more help from him lately than she had ever accepted from another soul. It made her uncomfortable. “Thanks,” she said, “but I’ve already got them.” She opened the passenger door and climbed down before Justin could stop her.

  He joined her on the sidewalk with his own belongings carried in two blue Wal-Mart shopping bags.

  “Nice luggage,” she teased.

  “Like it?” He tucked one bag under his arm and unlocked the door to their room. “After you.”

  Blaire stepped into the room and placed her luggage on the only bed, a king.

  Justin followed her and plopped his two sacks on the dresser. “When I left home I thought I was only going to town. I had to do some shopping in Enid. I didn’t even have a toothbrush with me. Now I have everything I need.” He patted the blue plastic. “Are you warm yet?” he asked her.

  “Yes. Thank you. The heater in your pickup is great.”

  “Then I guess the next thing we need to see to is feeding you. I assume you’re hungry.”

  “Starving.”

  “There’s a restaurant right next door. You may think I’m crazy, but I think we should drive. It’s far enough over there to freeze your nose off on the way.”

  “I vote we drive,” she said.

  “It’s unanimous then. Just let me call home first and let them know where I am.” He reached for his cell phone. “Do you want to call your parents?”

  “No, thanks.” She shook her head. “I don’t think my father would appreciate hearing I’m sharing a motel room with you.”