CHAPTER TWENTY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The RAV4 hit a pot hole, rousing Lindsay, who’d been fast asleep for hours.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“We’re just outside of Burgess Junction?”

“Huh, Burgess what?”

“About an hour away from Greybull,” he added.

“Never heard of either of those places,” she said. “How far are we away from Livingston?”

“About four hours,” he replied.

“I have to pee,” she announced.

“Again? You must have a bladder the size of a walnut.”

“I can’t help it. I have to pee.”

“We are not going to find any place open at this hour,” he said. “You’ll have to pee outside.”

“Get real, Jackson. I can’t pee outside.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, then.”

“There must be a rest stop, or an all-night diner someplace.  If we had a working cell phone, we could GPS it.”

“I told you…”

“I know,” she said. “Just keep your eyes open.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you take your antibiotic pill?” she asked.

“No, I forgot.”

“You forgot? Do you have a death wish?”

“I’m concentrating on getting you home, remember?”

“Take off your shirt,” she said. “Let me see.”

“It’s fine,” he replied.

“It’s not fine. Take off your shirt.”

Rainhorse rolled his eyes and slipped out of the right sleeve of his shirt.  She removed the bandage.  “Do you have a torch?” she asked.

“Torch?”

“Oh, sorry. Torch is what they call a flashlight in England. Do you have a flashlight? It’s dark in here.”

“I don’t know. It’s not my car. Check the glove box.”

Lindsay opened the glove box. There was a flashlight in it. She turned it on and inspected the wound.

“Oh, jeez,” Lindsay exclaimed. “It really looks bad.  We need to get you to a hospital.”

She reached up and felt his forehead with the back of her hand, “And you are hot. I’ll bet you have a fever.”

“No hospital,” he said.

“Jackson, this can’t wait any longer. You need professional medical attention.”

“Look, I’m not going to die in four hours,” he said. “I’ll get you home and it won’t be your problem.”

“You’re stubborn,” Lindsay barked. “And you’re a dumbass.”

“What do you care?”

“I don’t.”

“Well, good, then,” he said. “Do me a favor and use some more of that antibiotic flush and give me two of the pills—and a few aspirin.”

“What for?” she asked. “You’re intent on dying.”

“Just do it… please.”

Lindsay glared at the big Cheyenne, then reached in the back for the medicine they had stolen earlier.

“Why don’t you tell me more about this guy?  Steve is it?” Rainhorse asked.

She squeezed a healthy portion of the flush onto a cloth and began dabbing the wound.

“What do you want to know?”

“How did you two meet? Does he go to school with you?”

“No, he goes to another school in London. I met him in Soho.”

“Soho? What’s a girl your age doing running around in Soho?”

“I have fake ID,” she said.

“Does your mother know you’re partying in Soho?”

“Do you want to hear the story or not?”

“Sure.”

“About six months, ago a few of my girlfriends and me went to Santos Party House. They have a killer dance scene. It was disco night and the deejay was spinning Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, the Trammps, KC and the Sunshine band…”

“All the classics,” Rainhorse said, tongue-in-cheek.

“Right,” she said. “At any rate, we were dancing to ‘That’s the Way I Like It,’ when Steve came out of nowhere and started to dance with me.”

“Love at first sight?” Rainhorse asked.

“Pretty much,” she replied. “He was tall. Not as tall as you but still really tall. He had dark, curly hair and thick eyebrows and this really sexy five-day scruff.”

“What’s scruff?”

“You know… beard stubble. Don’t you know anything?”

“I guess not. Go on.”

“The guy could dance like Travolta,” she said. “Not the Travolta of today, the Saturday Night Fever Travolta.”

“So, he’s like Travolta?”

“Yeah, only he dresses better and is not as dorky.”

“It’s the little things that count. Thank god for that.”

“All my friends were so jealous that he picked me out of the crowd.”

“I’ll bet they were.  Hell, I think I love him, too.”

She giggled.

“At any rate, after that night, we started dating. It was fate, I think, me being in London and meeting a guy from Chicago.”

“He treats you well?”

“Oh yeah, for sure. He’s a great kisser; he’s funny; he’s smart and he respects the fact that…”

Her voice tailed off.

“Respects what?”

“Oh, never mind, it’s stupid.”

“Now I’m really curious.”

“He respects the fact that… I’m not… you know… ready yet.”

“Ready for sex?”

“How did you know I was going to say that?”

“Wild guess.”

“No, really, why?”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I was actually a sixteen-year-old boy once.”

“He’s twenty.”

“Twenty? Your mom is not gonna like that.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I don’t like it, and I’ve only known you for two days. Tell me about the sex thing.”

“Most of my friends have done it. I don’t know why I haven’t.  I’m just not ready. He’s been patient, but I know he’s disappointed. He said I might be frigid.”

“Of, frigid my ass,” Rainhorse said. “Everyone is different. When you’re ready, you’re ready.”

“How would you know?”

“I have a daughter, remember?”

“But I’m afraid if I don’t do it, soon, he’ll dump me.”

“He won’t dump you.”

“How do you know?”

“Girl, look in the mirror. You are a vision.  You’re beautiful; you’re smart; you’re witty. You are what every boy you’re age dreams of.  If he has one-tenth of the character you seem to believe he has, he’ll stay the course. Trust me.”

She smiled, “Do you really think so?”

Rainhorse returned the smile, “I do.”

“Do you really think… I’m beautiful?”

“Oh, hell yeah, of course. Your more than beautiful. I mean you have to know that, right?”

She looked down. Her hands were folded in her lap.

“Well, sometimes, the British girls I hang out with—they can be a little demeaning, you know?”

“Well, they’re jealous little bitches if you ask me. I bet they all have crooked teeth, am I right?”

She smiled, then giggled.

“You need to trust me when I tell you, you will never have to take a backseat to anyone, ever, when it comes to beauty or brains.”

She smiled, again, beaming.

“So, you don’t think I should do it?”

“I think you should wait until you’re ready.”

“You sound like my mom.”

“There are worse things to sound like.”

“Hope you’re right about it.”

“I am,” he said. “If there’s a problem, you call me. Give me five minutes with him so I can perform a minor attitude adjustment. He’ll be fine after that.”

She chuckled, “I’ll bet.”

Rainhorse smiled warmly. Her laugh was infectious, he thought.

“There,” he said. “Up ahead. There’s a rest stop. They’ll have a bathroom.”

“Fantastic. I’m about to pop.”

He pulled into the truck stop. Lindsay got out of the car and dashed to the women’s room. While she was gone, Rainhorse pulled out a map, checking the rest of the route.  Six minutes later, she hopped back into the car.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“Lots,” she said. “Someone needs to treat that bathroom for tetanus, though,” she said. “Just saying.”

“Bad, huh?”

“Oh, my god. I had to pull one leg completely out of my pants to straddle the toilet and then…”

“Stop… too much information.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Rainhorse shook his head and pulled back onto the highway. They drove in silence for several minutes before Lindsay spoke again.

“I do, you know,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Trust you.”

“What?”

“Back there, a little while ago, you said trust me.  I do. I don’t know what I would have done without you. You’ve been like a guardian angel.”

“You know,” he replied. “In all my years on this earth, no one ever referred to me as an angel. It just doesn’t quite fit.”

She thought for a moment, “Well, you’re a former Ranger, right? You can be my guardian ranger.”

Rainhorse smiled and nodded. It had been many years since he had felt any kind of personal connection to anyone. In his wildest dreams he never believed he could ever care—really care—about anyone again. But the girl next to him had touched him—touched his heart. He would get her home, he thought. No matter what, even if it cost him his own…

“Never been called that before, either” he said, “but I like it.”

“I think you should call her, you know,” Lindsay continued.

“Call who?”

“Your daughter.”

He shook his head, “That time has passed.”

“How do you know?”

“Because of the way we left things.”

“That was a long time ago,” she noted.

“It won’t make a difference,” he replied.

“It might.  I hated my mother for a long time.”

“Hated her?”

“To the bone.  She was always preoccupied with her business. She pawned me off on nannies and then sent me away to school.”

“What changed?”

“Someone tried to kill her.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, two years ago.”

“What happened?”

“There was a guy my great-uncle hired to watch over her from a distance. He was a former Army Ranger—he saved her. If not for him, she’d be dead. She ended up falling in love with the guy. She bought some land and built a house in Montana and started raising horses so they could move in together. The guy runs the place for her. Since then, she’s been, I don’t know, a good mom, maybe.”

“What’s your point?”

“Look, I know you’re a cold-blooded assassin…”

“Why thank you, especially for the cold-blooded reference.”

“Let me finish. I know you’re all that, but I also know there’s another side to you. A warm side, a caring side, a side that I see, that no one else does.  I’m sure if your daughter saw that side, she’d…”

“It’s not gonna happen, girl, but thanks for the thought.”

“You’re as stubborn as a mule, you know that?”

“That may have been an observation that has come up one or two other times before,” he admitted. “Now try to get some shut eye. We’ll be in Greybull in an hour or so.  There’s an all-night truck stop just outside of town. We’ll stop for gas there, then it’s three hours to home.”

“Roger that, Jackson,” she said, folding her sweatshirt into a pillow and slinking down into the seat, facing Rainhorse.  She closed her eyes and reached over the console, placing her hand on his forearm. She gave his arm a little squeeze. Within two minutes she was snoring softly.

He smiled. Her touch sent a warm sensation though his body.