Bobby hurried across the deck toward Chad, one shirttail flapping out of his overlong khaki pants and a tie in his hand. “Will you help me with this?” the little man asked, extending the orange-striped tie toward Chad.
Chad kinked up Bobby’s collar, wove the length of the tie around the little man’s neck, and tossed one end over the other to form a Windsor knot -- all the while his mind a thousand miles away.
“...Are you, huh?” Bobby asked, forcing Chad to realize he’d been ignoring his friend’s rambling questions.
“Am I what?” Chad muttered as he finished the knot.
“Gonna marry Miss Julia?” Bobby repeated, his eyes huge and expectant behind his lenses.
Chad slid the Windsor knot upward with a jerk, nearly choking Bobby half to death. “That’s none of your business, is it!” he ground out, pushing the little man away.
Bobby staggered backwards pulling at the tie. “No—sorry,” he gasped, surprised and concerned.
Chad sighed and ran his palm across the top of his head, mumbled an apology, then turned and wandered into the kitchen. He wove through the gaggle of chattering women, who clattered dishes and waved, calling out to him as he headed for the home gym. He’d hung his rented tux there earlier, thinking he could shower and slip into it after helping set up.
With a sigh, he lugged his shaving kit and tux into the shower room and locked the door. What was wrong with him? Most men would be thrilled that they were no longer responsible for the monetary needs of an entire family, and they’d be happy to have a hot, sassy girlfriend. As he stepped into the steaming water of the shower, he wondered if he was losing his mind.
* * *
Julia held onto the wheel with all her strength as the old pickup truck rolled onto the passenger side with a bone jarring crash, slamming her head into the driver side window. Then it flew into the air, continuing to roll, making another ear-splitting, rib-breaking crash as it landed on the passenger side roof. On impact, glass shattered and flew through the cab of the truck, spewing sparkling glass in a surreal slow motion. Julia clenched her eyes closed and clung to the steering wheel.
The vehicle became airborne once again, doing almost an entire revolution in the air as it flew down the incline, finally landing with a horrendous crack on two wheels, smashing Julia back into the door. The truck hung there momentarily as its momentum slowed.
Rocking violently, the truck was not quite able to roll all the way back up to all four wheels, and with one more shuddering slam, fell back onto its roof, leaving Julia hanging upside down in her seatbelt.
The moment froze in time as Julia hung, clenching the steering wheel. Glass continued to shift and tinkle through the wreckage and the engine revved, spinning the tires in space. Rain poured in through the broken windows and soaked Julia to the skin. She opened her eyes, blinking as a twisted and unrecognizable upside-down horizon came into view.
Disoriented and shaking, she turned her head, shocked and terrified to see the roof of the truck smashed in on the passenger side. “Ringo!” she screamed, her heart seizing in her chest until she remembered Ringo hadn’t been with her.
The seat belt dug into her chest, shoulder and hips, and her entire body felt painful and numb at the same time. Fighting the urge to scream again, Julia twisted slightly, struggling to gain a sense of up from down.
With one hand, she groped blindly over her head along the roof of the truck and realized it too had been smashed in. But luckily, it had not taken a direct impact of the roll, leaving her just enough headroom. Bracing herself with one elbow, she released the seat belt with the other hand, falling directly onto her head and shoulder. Her knees slammed into the steering wheel and then fell into the twisted wreckage of the passenger side.
Painfully, Julia shifted and turned, trying to find an upright position. Broken glass dug into her palms, arms, knees, and back, but she hardly felt the cuts springing up all along her exposed skin. Once she crouched on her hands and knees, shivering in the wind, she realized blood was running into her face. Wiping at it distractedly with the inside of her elbow, she inched toward the smashed-out side window, crunching broken glass with each move.
When her head emerged from the truck, Julia was shocked at the downpour of rain and she flinched, blinking painfully, up toward the road. Through a terror-induced fog, she called out for help, her voice weak and lost in the storm. Choking on the pounding rain, she painfully inched back into the cab of the truck and was overcome with shivers. Shaking violently from head to foot, Julia realized that no one would be able to see her truck from the highway.
* * *
Chad frowned at his reflection in the steamy mirror and tugged once more on the bow tie that had a strangle hold on his throat. With a huff, he turned and collected his dirty clothes and towel and left the shower room. With his arms full of dirty clothes and the tux bag, he lumbered down the hall. When he reached the living room, he turned to head for the front door, intent on taking the armload to his truck.
In his peripheral vision, Chad noted a cluster of people in the kitchen, their heads together in serious conversation. He paused, the vibe in the air pricking goose bumps along his scalp. Becky raised her head from the group, her eyes large and solemn, her mouth a tight, thin line. The blood froze in Chad’s veins as he registered the look in her eye.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice flat and cold with trepidation.
Becky left the group to walk toward Chad, her journey of ten feet taking years as he waited, his arms clenched around the garment bag.
“Julia hasn’t come back,” Becky said, tangling and twisting one of her necklaces in her fingers as she spoke.
Chad’s stomach fell to his knees, even though he wasn’t sure where Julia should have been. “Come back from where?”
“She ran to Uniontown to get a few more rolls of ribbon. But that was hours ago, and no one has seen her since,” Becky replied, her eyes large with concern.
Turning to dump his load onto the back of the sofa, Chad swung back and grabbed Becky’s arm. “When did she leave? Where was she going?”
Becky chewed at her bottom lip. “I’m not sure. We finished decorating about 11:30, and she said she had plenty of time to go get more ribbon.”
“Did you call her? Check her house?”
Becky nodded. “I just came from there. Her dress is still hanging there in her room, ready, like she would have left it this morning. I don’t think she went back there.”
The floor fell away under Chad’s feet. “I don’t understand, where would she be?”
“We don’t know,” Becky began, carefully choosing her words, with one hand on Chad’s arm. “Marge says that a nasty thunderstorm rolled through the east side of town about an hour ago, and folks at the diner said it was much worse in Uniontown.”
All the blood drained from Chad’s face and time screeched to a halt. This could not be happening again.
“Chad? Chad, do you want to sit down?” Becky fussed, motioning Mac to come from the kitchen. The older man took Chad’s arm and led him into the kitchen, then pulled out a chair for him.
Plopping into the chair, Chad’s mind spun back to the day William had died. It was the same – the same confusion, the same lack of information. Part of his brain screamed to just tell him that Julia was gone, let it be done with, no long, drawn- out hope -- but another part of him fought violently against the idea. She couldn’t be gone. Or hurt. She couldn’t. This couldn’t happen to him twice.
He lurched from the chair, his arms swinging to clear the people gathering around him. “I’m going to find her!” he yelled, his voice tight and strained with emotion.
Mac grabbed his arm, pulling him back. “Just wait a minute, boy, listen to me!”
Desperate to do something, anything, Chad flailed to get past the older man.
“Chad, Justin and Steve are already out looking, just stop for a minute and listen to where they went.”
Breaking away from the crowd, Chad st
omped through the living room. “Talk while we walk,” he demanded. “I’m leaving. No one is going to make me sit here and wait this time!”
Mac hurried along Chad’s side as they crossed the yard, explaining that Justin was driving around town, and Steve was checking the highway between Smithville and Uniontown. He also explained that Tara had called the store, and the clerk remembered Julia buying ribbon and hurrying out before the storm hit.
“Let me go with you,” Mac urged, concern for Chad piling on top of his worry for Julia.
Chad shook the man off and climbed into his truck, causing Mac to jump out of the way as the engine roared and the truck slammed into drive, its tires throwing up gravel and dirt as he sped down the driveway.
* * *
Julia wrapped her arms tighter around her stomach as she huddled, shivering, in the wreckage of the truck. Soaked from the rain and in shock, she could hear traffic passing up on the road, yet the sounds were disconnected from reality. She’d tried to find her purse and her phone, but the cab of the truck was twisted and smashed beyond recognition and glass was everywhere. Unsure whether her purse lay on the smashed side of the truck or had been tossed free in the roll, Julia had given up searching and resolved to give the rain a few moments to pass.
She shifted painfully and dabbed at the sticky blood on her forehead with her fingertips. Hours crept by but it was actually only minutes. Time inched and crawled, glass continued to tinkle through the wreckage, and she finally realized she should turn off the truck.
Unhinged thoughts tumbled through Julia’s mind. Where was she exactly? Was the truck in danger of rolling more if she moved? She assured herself over and over that Ringo was safe at home and had not been with her. For one panicked moment, she thought she might lose it altogether and scream in fear and pain. But she’d been through far worse, she reassured herself sadly, controlling her breathing as best she could. When the rain finally seemed manageable, she once again shuffled toward the window.
The task of pulling her battered body from the wreckage seemed insurmountable. The window glass lay sharp every place she tried to place her knees or hands. One of Julia’s arms hurt horribly, and a bruise was quickly darkening just below her elbow, but with one last herculean effort, she tugged her legs from the cab of the truck and into the sodden weeds and mud. As her knee made contact with the ground, Julia cried out in pain. Glancing down she could see that her ankle was swollen and already turning blue and purple.
Wanting only to curl up in the mud and sob, Julia dug deep, searching for the strength to climb up the incline to the road. Why did these things happen to her? Hadn’t she been through enough? And then, as if to make her situation absolutely unbearable, Julia remembered that she was missing Tara’s wedding. Once again, she was on the outside, hurting and alone, as the rest of the world went merrily on with life.
She pushed up to her knees in outrage, but the pain was unbearable. Sobs wracked through her chest, and she fell back into the weeds, her clothes soaked with mud, rain, and blood, her heart broken. She couldn’t take any more – she was finally destroyed.
Tears mingled with the rain and blood on her cheeks as thoughts of Tara’s wedding flashed through her mind. A beautiful outdoor ceremony, with the people Julia had grown to love, all laughing and smiling. Without her.
Thoughts of Chad poured through her entire battered body, causing her to cry out with the tremendous yearning for him to be there with her. She should have never let herself need another person. It always ended this way for her. But she needed him nonetheless. He’d know what to do.
Painfully, she pictured Chad enjoying the wedding -- handsome and sparkling in her vision, resplendent in his rented tux. But slowly, like snow melting in the rain, the picture of him laughing with his friends melted and was replaced by a vision of his face when he realized she was missing. No matter how hard she tried, she could not imagine him as anything but frantic.
Julia frowned and hugged herself tighter, lingering raindrops mingled with the tears on her face, and her heart ached anew. Chad’s experience with William’s death could not be repeated – Chad had only begun to open up to her and get on with his life.
Drawing on an inner strength she had only recently come to recognize, Julia rose to her knees, then to her feet. Her ankle throbbed wildly, making it impossible to put weight on it, but she limped on her toes, her sandals long gone and her feet bare, clutching at weeds and rocks to crawl and claw her way up the slope to the road.
Chapter Twenty-One
Chad’s fingers were white on the steering wheel as he drove out of town. Steve had called to say that he’d seen no accidents on the highway to Uniontown, so Chad slowed, his mind spinning with visions of Julia's old truck spinning out of control from a bridge and hurling into a ravine. Watching for anything out of the ordinary along the sides of the highway, like smashed weeds or tire tracks, he struggled to remain calm.
What had he been thinking, resenting Julia for helping Bobby? He’d been such an idiot! She’d changed everything for him, giving him a reason to look to the future and once again believe he was capable of more than coasting through life, living in a broken-down hole and never feeling anything for anyone. It had been weeks since anyone had looked upon him with pity, probably because he no longer pitied himself. Julia was smart and funny and strong and wonderful, and he’d been stupid enough to fear her.
Uttering a silent prayer, Chad willed Julia to draw upon the toughness she’d shown in front of the greenhouse and hang on until he could find her. He realized now that not only did he love her soft and tender side, but he also admired the core of steel she’d drawn upon to survive her illness and begin a new life. She’d been fierce all along but vicious only in her desire to live and be whole.
His eyes fogged with tears that he determinedly blinked back, as he hoped Julia could continue to pull from the force of strength that had brought her to him. His eyes darted from one side of the rain-soaked road to the other, his mind spinning back to the day William had died and the horrific hours spent pacing and waiting for news of finding his body. The desperation in his heart was a repeat of that day, but today he wasn’t waiting, he was searching.
So many times, this feeling of helplessness had strangled his heart, rising in the back of his throat until he couldn’t breathe, and here he was again. What was it about fate that was so cruel? Whatever brutal thing had taken William was once again clawing into Chad’s chest; he gasped for air, the truck swerving on the wet road. Then quietly, warmth settled through the truck, and a reassuring voice in Chad’s mind hummed that he’d find Julia.
Shocked and caught off guard, Chad didn’t know how or why, nor did he question, he only knew that William was with him, solid and true as he’d always been, and with that added boost, Chad found the strength to choke down his fear and continue to search the sides of the road as he drove.
About the time Chad saw the deep tire marks leading off the highway at the curve, he saw the small figure of a person emerge from the weeds and mud at the side of the road and wobble to a standing position. At first, he couldn’t make out the mud-covered form as Julia, but his heart jumped in his chest, elation and joy surging through him, and he knew it was her.
Veering to the side of the road, he slammed the truck into park and jumped out, leaving the engine running and the door hanging wide open. Stumbling blindly through his tears and deep puddles, Chad ground to a stop in front of Julia, hesitant to touch her.
“Oh my God, baby, you’re okay! You’re hurt!” he screamed, his hands flailing as he searched her head to foot for a fraction of a second, then scooped her into his arms and held her to his chest.
“Chad—” Julia sobbed, wrapping her arms around his waist. Relief emanated from her as a sense of safety and warmth overflowed her numbed senses. Chad held her tighter.
“I’m okay, Chad, I knew you’d come for me,” Julia sobbed into his chest as her knees buckled.
Bundling her into his arms, tryin
g to be careful of the cuts and bruises already covering her body, Chad glanced over the edge of the curve to the wrecked underside of Julia’s truck, and then he spun on his heel and hurried to his truck.
Tenderly, he placed her in the passenger seat, his gaze settling on her forehead, then her ankle. Yanking open the glove compartment, he pulled out two rumpled paper napkins and carefully folded them in half and placed them over the bleeding, three-inch cut on her forehead. “Can you hold this?” he asked.
She nodded, her shaking hand rising to hold the napkins in place.
“Where else do you hurt?” he asked, trying to help her settle her swollen foot into a comfortable position, pushing down panic at the sight of blood smeared from a mass of small gouges all across her body.
Julia didn’t answer, she only gazed at Chad with tear-filled eyes, her heart in her throat.
“God, Julia, I was so scared, I thought—”
“I’m okay,” she assured him again, a weak smile crossing her face.
Emotions he couldn’t name filled Chad’s chest, and he nearly staggered under the potency of his relief. “I’m gonna get you to a hospital,” he finally said, cautiously clicking the seatbelt around her.
She protested but he closed the truck door, took two steps, then turned back, yanked it open and leaned in to kiss her. “I love you,” he whispered as he stepped back, wiping gently at the blood and mud on her cheek. Then he slammed the door and ran around the front to get in.
* * *
Julia protested heavily all the way to the hospital. She wanted to get back to what was left of the wedding, make sure the flowers had been okay, and congratulate Tara before they left on their honeymoon -- but Chad wouldn’t have it.
Once Julia was in the hands of doctors in Uniontown, Chad stepped away to call Justin, still wearing his now blood-spattered tux jacket. He quickly conveyed what had happened, then returned to stay by Julia’s side.
Hometown Series Box Set Page 55
