Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bree
I had to sit down. The diner had made me homesick. Not that Topeka had ever felt like my home, but I still couldn't believe my life there was over. Then our waitress had sounded so like Janice. The thought of Janice and everyone at the diner mourning my supposed death ripped at my heart.
I opened the car door and sat down, leaving my feet on the cracked pavement of the parking lot. It was no use getting in and shutting the door because Nathan needed to pace.
He marched back and forth in front of me like he had something to say but didn't know how. I wondered again if he had been keeping things from me. Then he stopped and shot me a grateful look.
"You're so patient," Nathan said.
I managed a smile for him, and it warmed me up. There was nothing I could do for Janice and everyone I had left behind, but I could help Nathan.
The thought released a tight knot in my chest. It didn't matter if Nathan knew something more than me. He needed me, and I had made him a promise. I was with him to the end, no matter where the end came.
He paced back and forth again. Then he stopped in front of me, scrubbed the light stubble on his chin, and searched for the right words.
I waited but he couldn't say anything. He paced away. I knew Nathan was hesitating because of me. He didn't want to drag me through anything more. The thought that I was stopping him nagged at me. I couldn't be the reason he made a choice he was obviously already regretting.
Nathan rammed his hands in his pockets and shuffled back to the car. I looked up again.
"We should get going, huh?" Nathan said.
His avoidance of the topic irritated me. "Where are we heading?"
Nathan rocked on his heels. "What did we decide on? The giant jar of jam?"
I stood up and marched over to stand toe to toe with him. "You're really not going to say it?"
"Say what?"
I poked a finger in the middle of Nathan's chest. "Say that someone needs to be looking for that little girl. And that you are that someone."
"Bree, I get it if you don't want to go down that road again," Nathan said.
"We are going to find Maggie," I said.
Nathan swept me into a tight hug. His heart was racing but he held his breath. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
He let out a ragged sigh and nuzzled my neck. We stood like that for a long time, and I wrapped my arms around his waist. Nathan was relieved, I could feel it in his muscles. When his pulse finally slowed to normal, he loosened his grip and leaned back to look at my face.
"Thank you, Bree," he said.
"You were never going to be able to let it go," I pointed out. "I was just waiting to see how long it would be before you had to dig back into what happened to Maggie."
"The photograph, the postcard--"
I cut him off. "You have to try. It's the right thing to do."
Nathan nodded and turned us toward the car. "My conscience kept telling me we were headed in the wrong direction."
"What do people always say? You can't run away from your problems," I said.
"That's the thing, though." Nathan brushed my hair back. "These aren't your problems. It's not right for me to drag you back into this. Those gunmen are just waiting for us to head south."
"All the more reason for you to not go alone," I said, moving toward the car.
Nathan held my hand. "It's not fair to you, Bree. You have a say. What do you want?"
It was my turn to struggle for words. I couldn't tell him the truth. I loved him. I was willing to go through all of this and worse because I loved Nathan.
I couldn't tell him that the only way I knew he'd be able to love me back was if he got past whatever happened to him. Finding out about Maggie was the only clue we had, so there was no way I didn't want to find her.
"It's okay, Bree. Just tell me what you want. It's not fair for me not to make plans around your life, too," Nathan said.
"What life?" I joked.
His eyes dropped. "I ruined everything for you."
I lifted his gaze back up to mine. "You couldn't. I had already ruined my life. You gave me an out."
"So, where do you want to go?" he asked.
I kissed him. "I want to go on a long road trip with you."
"We might never get back to that lodge in the mountains," Nathan said.
"Then maybe we'll make it to the coast," I countered.
We got in the car but Nathan still hesitated to start it. His eyes got that blurred look I had seen in the diner. I shifted on my seat and caught his hand again.
"I'm okay." Nathan shook his head. "I just really wish I could remember. It's so frustrating because the harder I try, the blacker those days are."
I plucked the car key from his hand and put it in the ignition. "Once we're back on the trail, I am sure you'll start to remember stuff."
He rubbed his head. "I saw things, flashes, but they were too quick. More like I got little impressions. Nothing that's going to help us yet."
I started the car for him. "We know more than we did this morning. That's a good thing. Just think about that and get us back on the road."
Nathan pulled out of the diner parking lot. "You're right, you know. I would never have been able to let this go. It gnawed at me every day."
"Why, do you think?" I asked. "You didn't do anything wrong. You weren't the one who kidnapped Maggie."
"I just feel like there is something, a big something, that I have to set right," Nathan said.
"You might be the only one," I said.
Nathan merged onto the highway and forced our little used car up to full speed. "Yeah, it was really strange how the local police had nothing to say about the case."
"The news report made it sound like someone was trying to hush it up. Who would do something like that?" I asked.
"The same kind of people who threaten people's families if they don't carry shipments of drugs across the border," Nathan said.
I shot him a look. He was holding out information. "Like a drug cartel?"
He nodded. "There's one that's really active around the El Paso area. That's where Maggie's postcard was from. What if whoever kidnapped her took her there?"
"The report said someone had spotted her in Tijuana," I said.
Nathan set the cruise control and leaned back. "At least there was a report about it on the news. Not everyone has given up looking for the little girl."
I rubbed my head. "I hope those gunmen have given up looking for us. Think we'll be that lucky?"
Nathan smiled. "We don't have to be lucky. We're dead."
"And you say that like it's a good thing." My lips curved up despite myself. His smile was infectious.
"If everyone else thinks we're dead then those gunmen will, too. They won't be looking for us anymore." Nathan's mind was working fast. "We've got the upper hand."
"So, what do we do?" I asked. "Head back to Springer, New Mexico and see why Mrs. Wheeler is acting so strangely?"
"No. We'll never get close to her after what happened," Nathan said. "Dead or not, I bet those local police are still looking for us."
"Do we head back to the last place we saw the gunmen and try to follow them? Maybe if we knew why they were after you, we'd be able to find out more about where you've been. Then we could learn how you got the photograph and the postcard." I slumped down in my seat, weighed down by all the unknowns.
The sun filtered through the dirty car window but it was still warm. I snuggled deeper into my seat, glad that Nathan and I had finally talked about revisiting his past. I had always known he couldn't let it go, and I figured one day he would up and leave me to go chasing answers. It felt good to be with him in the car. Safer together.
"I think heading back there would be a dead end." Nathan settled both hands on the steering wheel. "It's time to head south. We're finally going to El Paso."
I nodded. It was enough that I was in the car with Nathan. Now I knew he had no reason to sneak away from me. We were still in this together.
I closed my eyes. There was nothing to see but a long stretch of road. With my eyes shut, I could see Nathan: the way he looked when he first walked into my diner; the relief on his face when he got me away from the gunmen; his teasing smile as he helped pick out clothes for the newly minted Mrs. Cramer.
I might have only known Nathan for a few short weeks, but it felt like a lifetime. He stood in my memory like a signpost, but instead of a detour, he was the right way. Nathan stood between me and all the mistakes of my past. He thought he had messed everything up for me, but he had no idea what damage I had done to my life before he got there.
In many ways, Nathan was the best thing that could have happened to me.
He swept me out of my shell of a life. Sure, the endless motels and cheap restaurants were hard to love, but he was not. I knew Nathan cared for me, and that was more than I’d had in a long time. My co-workers at the diner had become friends but they didn't really know me. Nathan did. He knew I hadn't belonged there, and he’d offered me a way out.
I was still glad I’d taken it.
The idea of wasting the rest of my damaged life working at the restaurant in Topeka was too depressing of a thought. That's why it didn't matter that we were on the run or that we were heading into the unknown. We were in motion and that was better than being stuck any day. I used to worry about dying before anything happened to me. And then I had met Nathan.
No wonder I loved him.
The only worry I had now, besides the looming danger down the road, was how long I would be able to keep my own secret. Nathan had enough on his mind, he didn't need me throwing in the wrench of being madly in love with him.
My mind drifted to a time when I would be able to tell Nathan how much I loved him. We'd be at the beach, our bare toes in the sand, a soft sunset lighting up his handsome eyes.
The car hit a bump and I woke up. Hours had passed. I rubbed my eyes and blinked hard at the first thing I saw out the car window.
A sign flew by, and I turned to try to read it again.
"Welcome to New Mexico," Nathan said.