Chapter Seventeen

“Dang it.” Laura dumped her handbag on the kitchen counter in frustration. She looked out the window in every direction, wondering if she missed it somehow.

“What’s wrong?” Mary Grace looked up from her crossword puzzle.

“Someone took off with the pickup, and I have to run Connor to school.” The weather was dismal, a misty drizzle that did nothing more than cool the air and make the skin wet. And flatten her hair.

“One of the men, the smelly big guy, said Caleb told him to change the oil in it. Mac, I think he said his name was? I forgot Connor has school today…. I guess Caleb did too.” Mary Grace stood up with a shrug. “No worries, just take the Caddy.” Mary Grace opened the drawer closest to the patio and pulled out a heavy set of keys with a remote opener, a rabbit’s foot, and a bauble that read Kiss My Grits. She handed the set to Laura.

“Where is it?” It had to be hidden somewhere. Laura hadn’t seen it the whole time Mary Grace had been there.

“It’s in the back garage. Caleb thought that would be the safest. The only way you get to it is through the door out that way.” She pointed through the dining hall area. “There’s no side door to come through.”

Laura glanced at her watch and then back out the window again. “Connor,” she called. “We gotta going.”

The little boy scampered in from the main room with his small backpack. After getting a rain jacket on him and throwing a zip-front hoodie on herself, they said goodbye to Mary Grace, grabbed the car seat from the mud room, and were off. The Caddy was cluttered with all sorts of wrappers and empty food bags. Mary Grace, despite her appearance, was a bit of a slob.

Caleb and Josh, in contrast, were neat and tidy. Josh’s home was clean, free of clutter, and Caleb’s office was too. Where they learned their fastidiousness, Laura could only guess.

She buckled Connor in his booster seat and then started the car, pulling cautiously out into the drive. She was well accustomed to driving a luxury car. Her parents both had similar models, had always liked the gas-guzzler style. The gravel seemed to absorb some of the rain from the night before, and it was soft, rutted, and the car seemed to want to pull the side of the road.

Laura put in a silly song CD she’d grabbed on her way out the door, hoping to keep Connor occupied on the trip to town. It wasn’t that long of a drive, but to a six-year-old boy, it seemed like an eternity. Laura considered offering to homeschool him at least the next year but realized the little boy needed the social interaction with other children.

What was Caleb thinking? He hadn’t come in for breakfast or coffee as he usually did. He was probably avoiding her. He’d acted like a jerk the night before. He had to learn to trust her or their relationship would end right there.

That thought, coupled with the whacked-out, normal, monthly hormones racing through her body, brought tears to her eyes. Yesterday, she’d been furious with him; now she was scared and sad, worried she’d finally opened her heart up to a man, only to realize she’d made a mistake, and it wouldn’t work out because he didn’t trust her. She sniffed away the tears, glad Connor was singing along to the CD music and couldn’t sense her turmoil.

The wipers weren’t terribly effective on the car. Laura would add those to her list of shopping items in town. The combination of small white gravel caked with wet mud and light drizzle was hard to get wiped off the glass well enough for her to see the road ahead. She knew they were getting close to town, as she finally encountered some traffic. People were different out here. They always waved to you, even if they had no idea who you were. Of course, most people recognized Mary Grace’s Cadillac.

A light bump and push forward from the rear jolted her. She glanced in her mirrors and could distinctly make out an older, beat-up pickup.

“It’s okay, Connor,” she soothed, noticing the fear in his eyes. She turned up the CD player a little higher, needing to cover the blood pounding in her ears.

The pickup backed off, and she relaxed with a sigh. Probably just some drunk guy out for a joyride. It was kind of early in the day for that, Laura realized, but she was hard-pressed to come up with another logical reason. She swerved, and the pick-up followed her movements. He sped up and then slowed down. If he wanted the jolt her to scare her, he’d done a good job.

Relax, Laura, relax. She reached for her purse, needing to dial 911, and then remembered throwing her phone at Caleb the night before. She didn’t have it. “Damn,” she said under her breath.

She glanced in the mirror again, caught Connor’s eye, and smiled. Beyond the window of the car, she saw something that turned her smile into a frown, and she gritted her teeth, hoping against hope Connor’s seat was secure. “Hold on, honey.”

The pickup rammed them harder this time, and Laura struggled to keep the Caddy on the road. “He must be in a mighty hurry,” Laura told Connor with much more calm then she felt. “I’ll just let him pass.” She swallowed her anxiety.

She put on her turning signal and pulled off onto the soft shoulder, but the pickup didn’t pass her as she’d hoped; instead, he roared the engine and pushed her with an enormous crushing force into a ditch. The last thing Laura saw was a red truck coming toward them from town, and a cornstalk poking through the broken glass of the windshield.

 

* * *

 

“Caleb?” Laura whispered, licking her dry, cracked lips.

“I’m here, sweetheart.” Caleb moved his chair next to the bed so she could see him without moving her bandaged head.

“Where is Connor?” she asked as soon as her eyes opened.

“With Josh and Holly.” He squeezed her swollen hand slightly, careful of the soft cast securing her broken wrist.

“He’s okay?” She closed her eyes, big tears rolling from them.

“Thanks to you.” He kissed away the tears at the corner of her eyes and sniffed away his own tears. “He’s just fine.”

Laura nodded and sighed. “Thank God.”

“I love you, Laura.” He opened his heart to her, swallowing the lump in his throat. “If I had lost you today, I don’t know what I would have done. Especially after how I treated you last night.”

“You just need to learn to trust me, Caleb.” She met his eyes. “I will never hurt you. Not on purpose anyway.” With her good hand, she wiped the tears away from her eyes and closed them on a sigh.

“I mean it, Laura. I love you more than anything in the world. You and Connor are my everything. I’ve never been so scared my whole life. One of the emergency room nurses called me and told me there’d been an accident, that you and Connor were here.” He couldn’t talk anymore; the pain in his heart was too great. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I will trust you. I will love you and cherish you. I promise. I just wish I hadn’t been such a blockhead last night. Can you forgive me?”

She nodded, still crying.

“Do you need anything?” Caleb leaned over her, giving her a smile when she opened her teary, wet eyes again.

“A kiss,” she whispered.

“I can do that.” He bent forward.

“I need some water too,” she told him after he kissed her. “Really cold water.”

“I’ll get you some.”

He pulled away, but she grabbed a shirt.

“Don’t leave me. Just buzz the nurse.”

He did as she asked. “Anything hurt?”

“No.” She shook her head slightly. “Is Connor hurt at all?”

“Bruises but nothing else. The emergency room doctor did X-rays and tests. Josh and Holly came and picked him up an hour or so ago.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost three.”

“I’ve been out that long? No wonder I’m so hungry. I didn’t even eat breakfast.”

“We’ll see what the nurse says you can eat.” He sat gently on the edge of the hospital bed.

The nurse came in a few minutes later. “There’s a sheriff waiting to speak with you, Miss Marshall, when you’re up to talking with him.” She shut the call light off. “Did you need something?”

“Cold water. I need a drink and something to settle my stomach. Crackers would even work.” Laura shifted on the bed. “Oooo, that hurt.” She grabbed her side.

“You’ve got bruised ribs,” the nurse told her. “You need to sit still for a bit, and I’ll get you some more pain pills in an hour. I’ll get you the water now.”

“Nurse?” Laura’s weak voice caught the woman as she walked out the door. “I’ll talk to the sheriff now. I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

The nurse nodded and left them.

“What’s wrong with me?” Laura asked Caleb.

“You got the bruised ribs most likely when the airbag went off. I’m sure you can tell that they are on your left side. Your wrist might have snapped when you hit the ditch; you were probably holding on to the steering wheel, and obviously, from the cast, your right ankle is broken. They think you were hitting the brake, and your foot jammed. You’ll be fine, but it might take a while to be fully healed.”

“Only that, huh? What a damn mess!” She closed her eyes again. “Do you know who did it? Who pushed us off the road?”

“Don’t you?” He brushed the hair out of her eyes. “I figured you would have seen him.”

She shook her head, opened her eyes, and was about to answer when someone knocked at the door. She adjusted the sheet and blanket to cover her chest. A uniformed officer walked into the room.

“Laura, this is Brian Nelson.” Caleb introduced her. “We grew up together, raised some hell until he became the sheriff.” He patted Brian’s back. “You can trust him, Laura.”

Brian pulled out a small notebook from his breast pocket and sat on the upholstered chair next to the bed. He was opposite in looks to Caleb, blond with blue eyes, broad shoulders, and narrow at the hip. The sheriff’s uniform made him even sexier, but Laura wasn’t interested in his looks.

“I’m sure sorry you got hurt, Laura. Why don’t you start at the beginning?” he said. “I have an eyewitness who saw the actual accident, but I’d like to hear your take on it.”

“Is your witness the man in the red-and-white pickup? He passed us just before we got knocked off the road.”

“Yep, that’s him,” Brian answered.

“Everything was fine until I was just about to town. I didn’t even see another vehicle the whole way. Connor and I were singing a song, and suddenly, something jarred the car. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw an old pickup behind us. The back window was pretty dirty, but I could see pretty well out my side mirrors. An old beater. I figured he was just in a hurry to get to town, and then he backed off, and I thought maybe he was drunk. He sped up again, so I pulled over to the side of the road, onto the shoulder, thinking he would just pass us. But he didn’t. He hit the car really hard. We flew into the ditch, and that’s all I remember.”

“Would you be able to identify the truck?” Brian looked up from his legal pad.

“Yes, I am pretty sure I could.”

“Did you get a look at the driver?”

Brian glanced at Caleb before looking at her.

“No.” She shook her head and then moaned. “All I saw was a cowboy hat. Which just about every man wears out here. This witness you mentioned? Did they get a look at the driver?”

“Yes. They identified someone. I can’t say more than that right now. We have that person locked up already in Mullen.”

“Was it someone local?”

Caleb knew what she was worried about. The Chicago thugs. He knew also who they had arrested for the accident, but he’d promised Brian he wouldn’t tell her.

Brian stared at her for several seconds, his blue eyes pinning her against the pillow. Thank goodness she wasn’t in trouble with the law; those eyes were so intense they seemed to look into her very soul.

“Yes, it’s someone who lives in Mullen.” Brian gave an abrupt nod.

“Why didn’t you take the pickup you normally drive?” Caleb didn’t understand why she’d had his mother’s vehicle, and he had forgotten to ask his mother when he told her about the accident.

“That was my question too. Why did you have Mary Grace’s car?” Brian scribbled something down on the paper.

She explained about the pickup’s disappearance.

“I never did that.” Caleb shook his head, frustrated. “I never told Mac to do any such thing. Ronnie always does the repairs and maintenance on the engines.”

“Maybe Mary Grace got it wrong.”

“No matter. I didn’t tell anyone to do anything with the pickups today or any day in recent memory.”

“Anything else you can think of?” Brian asked and stood to leave.

“No.” She closed her eyes and leaned back in the bed. “But if I do, I’ll let you know.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Laura.” Brian patted the cast on her hand. “You did good. The way that car was hanging…well, that ditch was more of a ravine and, well…” Brian shook his head and glanced warily at Caleb. “Take care of yourself. I’ll talk with you again.” He left them, closing the door behind him.

“How long do I have to stay here?” She wiggled under the covers to get a comfortable spot.

“Just overnight. I’ll stay with you. I already told Josh and—”

“You should be with Connor,” Laura interrupted him. “He’ll be scared, don’t you think?”

“I told you, he had just a few bruises. He loves staying with my brother and Holly. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you, and I would feel better if I was here with you, taking care of you.”

 

* * *

 

Pain shot through her chest, waking her up in the middle of the night. She’d refused her last dose of pain medicine before she went to sleep, and now she was regretting it. She felt around for the nurse’s call button and was relieved when she pushed it in and saw the light glow in the darkness of the room.

A new nurse must have come on since Laura had fallen asleep. She told her in whispered tones that she needed her medicine, and that her side felt like there was a nail stuck in it, and both her wrists and ankles were throbbing. She felt miserable and hoped the pills would kick in fast. The nurse took her temperature and other vitals after she gave her the pills.

“All normal?” Laura asked quietly.

“You bet.” The nurse looked over to Caleb. “He doesn’t look too comfortable.”

“No, but I’m glad to have him here,” Laura admitted, feeling selfish.

He loved her. He’d admitted it, and if actions spoke louder than words, seeing him in a chair next to the bed, with his long legs propped up, showed dedication. And discomfort.

“If these don’t kick in soon enough for you, buzz again. It’s a quiet night tonight. Your husband can sleep in the other bed. I don’t expect any admissions this late at night.”

“I’ll tell him if he wakes up.”

“I’m awake,” Caleb told her as soon as the nurse left.

“Not too comfortable for you.”

“I imagine you’re no more uncomfortable than I am, honey.” He grinned.

“How about you crawl up here with me?” Laura suggested.

“Right. As much pain as you’re in? No way? ’Sides, it’s probably the drugs talking.” He stood and stretched. “Do you want more water?”

“Yes, please.” She nodded. “The nurse put it on the side table.”

He handed it to her. “Mind if I use your potty?”

She chuckled. “Have at it. I don’t need it.”

Such intimacy. Except for her family, she’d never felt this comfortable with another person. It was scary really, that he’d climbed his way into her heart so fast.

When he came out, he wheeled the big, empty bed next to hers and sat on the edge to remove his shoes. He threw his legs up on the bed and lay back on the pillows.

He reached out and took her hand and squeezed it. “Feeling better?”

“Sleepy,” she said, smiling. “The pills are kicking in quickly, I think.”

She closed her eyes, feeling loved and cherished, just as he had vowed he would make her feel.