'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel)

by Sharon Sala

  Dolly was cutting one of the pies for dessert when Avery glanced out the window.

  “Hey, look! It’s snowing!”

  Meg frowned. She’d planned to get home before the storm arrived. She looked out at the small flakes swirling in the wind gusts. It was nearly dark, which meant it would have taken at least an hour to drive home anyway, but the snow would add time to the trip. She tried not to let her anxiety show, but Dolly read it in her face.

  “Honey, I don’t like the idea of you driving down in the dark in this weather. Why don’t you just stay the night? There’s plenty of room, and you can borrow a nightgown from me.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Meg said. “It’s barely snowing and it may not get any worse than this. Anyway, I left Honey in the house alone. I need to tend to her, and I can’t be snowed in up here with my chickens to feed and the cow to milk, although Daisy is showing signs of drying up and I’m tempted to let her. Milking all winter does not appeal to me.”

  Dolly was still worried. “We’d get you home in plenty of time tomorrow. Jake could—”

  “No. Thank you, but I can take care of myself, and I’ll be home long before the roads have time to get bad. And by the way, I’m not going anywhere until I get my pie.”

  Cyrus laughed. “I’d be happy to eat it for you.”

  “Not a chance,” Meg said.

  She ate with an eye to the weather and, just as soon as it was polite, excused herself from the table.

  “I’m going to leave now, Mom. I’ll let Cyrus and Avery take my place helping clean up the kitchen.”

  Avery snorted. “Oh, thanks a lot.”

  Meg grinned as she began gathering up her things, but Dolly was uneasy.

  “As soon as you get home, promise me that you’ll call to let us know. I won’t rest easy until I hear from you.”

  “I will, Mom, I promise,” Meg said.

  After another five minutes of hugs and goodbyes she was in the car and heading back down the mountain. Her windshield wipers were working overtime as the headlights sliced through a frantic swirl of falling sleet and snow.

  It was close to ten miles from their house to hers, and mountain roads were narrow and winding, which made travel even more treacherous in the dark. Night came early in winter, and the snow was heavier than she’d realized.

  About four miles down she ran into trouble. The roads were now snow packed and treacherous. The frantically swiping windshield wipers were unable to keep up with the blizzard, leaving her with nothing but a blurry view of the road. Her fingers were numb from holding so tightly to the steering wheel, and if it hadn’t been for the dark border of trees on either side of the road, she would have been unable to tell where to drive.

  All of a sudden her car fishtailed and started sliding sideways. She had a moment of panic before she steered into the slide and then slowly eased the car back into the middle of the road. As she did, she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and saw the fear on her face. She knew if she had it to do over again, she would never have left.

  A quick glance at the clock on the dashboard shocked her. She’d been on the road almost two hours. With no visible landmarks to judge the distance, she had no idea how far she’d come. All she could see was the continuing swirl of flakes illuminated by the beams from her headlights. She could have already driven past her turnoff.

  Suddenly a gust of wind blew a blinding swirl of snow straight into the windshield. When it cleared she had a momentary glimpse of a big buck standing in the middle of the road and only moments to react to keep from hitting him.

  She yanked the wheel hard to the left.

  The deer leaped one way as her car went airborne the other way, sailing over the ditch and into the trees.

  Meg screamed and then...

  Impact.

  There was a sound of crunching metal, a spew of steam from under the hood, the continuous honking of the horn, and a blinding pain over her right eye. The windshield wipers were still going, and she could smell smoke and the scent of burning rubber. She thought the car was on fire.

  Dazed and in a panic, she began fumbling for the door latch, trying to get out, but her seat belt was still fastened. Then she realized the car was in gear and the wheels were spinning in place. She managed to shift into Neutral and was trying to turn off the engine when something crashed on top of the car.

  After that, everything went black.

  Six

  Linc had just washed up his supper dishes, and was thinking about taking a shower and getting into bed early. He’d spent the afternoon cutting wood, and had hauled two full loads to Aunt Tildy’s house before going back to haul the rest up to his place. He was bone tired, but it was a satisfied kind of tired. Having his aunt accept him back into her life without question had been an unexpected joy. They were the last two surviving members of the Fox family, and now that he’d come home, he’d been faced with her advancing age and how close he’d come to losing that connection.

  It began to snow as he was loading up the last of the wood. By the time he got home, it was coming down thick and fast. The cold was numbing, but the silent swirl of falling snow left him with an odd feeling of peace. The quiet was so profound that even the sound of his breath seemed out of place.

  He was heading for the trailer when he heard the loud sound of crunching metal, followed by the sudden continuous honking of a car horn and the sharp crack of a falling tree. Someone had just had a wreck! He wasn’t ready to get mixed up in other people’s business, but they could be hurt, and that was something he couldn’t ignore.

  He was already wearing his heavy fur-lined parka and gloves, but he ran to the trailer to get his cell phone and a flashlight, then jumped in his truck and took off. His pickup had four-wheel drive and a well-stocked toolbox, and there was a log chain in the truck bed. He was hoping he wouldn’t need anything more.

  By the time he got to the main road he had to reorient himself. Had the wreck happened above or below him? There were no visible tracks in the snow, and it seemed that the sound was coming from up the mountain, so he turned to the right and headed up, although it was nearly impossible to see anything beyond the snow swirling in his headlights. Finally he thought to roll down the window to listen for the horn. As he drove, the sound was getting louder.

  He saw headlights as he rounded a bend, and as he drew closer, he could see that a red SUV had crashed into a stand of trees. A very large limb had fallen on top of the car, blocking the doors and most of the windows. He pulled as close to the wreck as he dared, and left the lights on and the engine running as he got out. The bitter cold was a slap in the face, and he quickly pulled the fur-lined hood up over his head, grabbed his flashlight and a crowbar, then jumped the ditch and ran.

  The entire front end of the car was crushed and wedged tightly into the trees. The hood had popped up during the crash, and then something—presumably the branch that had fallen afterward—had knocked it sideways, giving him easy access so he could disable the horn.

  The sudden silence made the rapid thump of his heartbeat seem even louder as he circled to the driver’s side. He shoved aside the smaller limbs to try to get to the door, only to find it wouldn’t open. Even though the windshield wipers were still on, ice was beginning to form on the glass, making it difficult to tell how many people were inside, and the large limb on top of the car was impeding rescue. He pulled at the limb from both sides of the car, but he couldn’t get it to budge. Finally he climbed up on top of the car and shoved the branch off. By the time he got back to the driver’s side, snow had completely blanketed the window. He swiped it away and aimed the flashlight inside.

  * * *

  It was the sudden silence after the horn stopped honking that brought Meg back to a semiconscious state. She felt groggy, as if she’d had too much to drink, and couldn’t figure out where she was. Her head was hurting, and when she felt her forehead, her fingers came away covered in blood. She tried to focus on the headlights, but her visio
n was severely hampered by the growing curtain of ice on the windshield. All she knew was that she’d driven off the road and into the trees.

  “Get help...gotta get help,” she mumbled, and was looking for her cell phone when she caught a glimpse of something huge and furry walking between the trees and the headlights. She blinked, trying to clear her vision, and thought she saw a large furry head on an equally massive chest and shoulders.

  What the hell did I just see? Was that Bigfoot?

  In something of a panic, she froze, not wanting to call attention to herself as the creature began moving around outside the car. Then all of a sudden she heard something jump on top of her car. When the roof popped from the added weight, her last thought as she passed out was that Bigfoot was real.

  * * *

  Linc quickly deduced the only person in the car was the driver—a woman with long dark hair. What he could see of her face was covered in blood, which amped his anxiety. He tried again to open the door, only to see that it was locked, on top of being crumpled by the crash. He began banging on the glass and shouting.

  “Hello! Hello! Lady, can you hear me? Wake up! You need to unlock the door!”

  When she didn’t respond, his heart sank. Please, God, don’t let her be dead.

  Then all of a sudden her head dropped forward, her chin bouncing against her chest. The motion seemed to wake her up. He watched as she pushed the hair away from her eyes and got his first clear view of her face.

  Shock swept through him, leaving him momentarily speechless. He hadn’t seen her in eighteen years, but there was still enough left of the girl he’d known to recognize that it was Meg. He doubled up his fist and began pounding on the window.

  “Meg! Meg! Unlock the door!”

  He saw her eyelids flutter, but when her head slid sideways toward her shoulder, he knew she’d passed out again.

  Without hesitation he swung the crowbar at the window, shattering the glass, then jammed his arm through the opening and unlocked the door. He grabbed the door handle, took a tight grip and yanked. When the door succumbed to his greater strength, he quickly leaned inside, feeling her neck for a pulse.

  “Meg! Meg Lewis! Can you hear me?”

  She moaned but didn’t respond further.

  Her pulse was rapid, and it was obvious a gash on her head was the source of all the blood. Although she was still wearing a seat belt, it didn’t mean she didn’t have internal injuries.

  He grabbed his cell phone to call the sheriff’s office. It rang twice, and then he lost the signal. Although he tried several more times, he quickly realized it was hopeless trying to get through in this storm. He hated to move her, but leaving her here was even more dangerous. He saw a folded blanket and a flashlight in the backseat of her car. He grabbed the blanket, shook out the broken glass and wrapped it around her as carefully as he could before lifting her out and carrying her to his truck.

  She moaned again as he crossed the ditch, and she began trying to push the blanket off her face. When he got to the truck he slid her onto the seat, reclined it as far back as it would go and buckled her in.

  His hands were shaking from the rush of adrenaline as he got behind the wheel. He wasted no time turning the truck around and heading down the mountain. His mind was racing through possible scenarios as to what his best move would be. He could take her to the sheriff’s office in Boone’s Gap, which wasn’t that much farther from the wreck, but they would have to call an ambulance from Mount Sterling, which would only waste time. So he kept on driving, deciding to head for Mount Sterling himself, checking on her every few minutes to make sure she was still breathing and praying to God that she would come to.

  Not knowing where she was hurt made everything worse. If she had broken ribs, moving her could have punctured a lung. If she had a spinal injury, he could be the reason she never walked again. If her concussion was serious, she could have a brain bleed and die before they ever reached a hospital. By the time he reached the highway—which was wider and provided some relief—and headed toward Mount Sterling, he was sick to his stomach.

  Once she sighed and then moaned, but it was the only sound she made.

  Being this close to her again brought back memories of every moment they’d shared, from their first kiss under the bleachers at a high school football game to the first time they made love. Remembering the look on her face when they’d taken him to jail had been his undoing. It was part of why he hadn’t come back once his jail term was over. Without her, he no longer had a reason to come home. He didn’t know how this was going to play out, but finding her had definitely marked the end of his exile. Once this got out, everyone would know he was back.

  He glanced at the clock. Nearly forty-five minutes since he’d pulled her out of the wreck. He had to be close. Traffic had kept the snow from piling up on the highway, and travel was no longer an issue.

  And just like that, his headlights caught on a sign by the road.

  Mount Sterling. One mile.

  He breathed a quiet sigh of relief and drove her straight to the hospital, following the signs all the way to the E.R.

  * * *

  Linc hadn’t moved ten feet from Meg’s side since they wheeled her into an examination bay. His brief explanation about finding her in the wreck up on Rebel Ridge and then being unable to get a phone signal had been accepted without question. When they asked for personal information, he knew her name and very little else, until a nurse thought she recognized Meg’s name from a prior visit. A quick check of their records and then a look at the bottoms of her feet to see the newly healing scars verified her identity. After that they had all the medical history they needed to proceed.

  Linc was shocked by the healing cuts on her feet. They were visible proof of what she’d already gone through on Prince White’s account. He sat with a lump in his throat as she was x-rayed from head to toe, and watched mutely as they cleaned and stitched the wound in her scalp to stop the bleeding.

  They left her in the examining room with him on one side of her bed and a nurse on the other, continuing to monitor her vitals.

  “Has anyone notified her family?” Linc asked.

  “I believe the contact information she gave on her earlier visit was for a brother. He has been notified.”

  He didn’t want to be here when Meg woke up. He didn’t think he could bear to see the shock and disgust on her face when she recognized him, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. She’d gone through too much crap alone already, and so he sat, waiting for the next shoe to fall.

  * * *

  When two and a half hours passed and Meg still hadn’t called or answered her phone, Dolly was convinced she was stranded in a ditch on the side of the road. Within minutes she had Jake and the boys up and they were all on the way down the mountain to rescue her. It had stopped snowing, but the roads were a mess. The old four-wheel-drive Suburban was plenty big enough to hold them all, plus rope and chain to pull her out of the ditch.

  Given the conditions, they made good time, but the farther they drove without finding a sign of Meg, the more frantic Dolly became.

  Then they came upon the wreck and Dolly panicked.

  “Oh no, oh, Meg... Stop the car, Jake! Stop the car!”

  Jake braked as they quickly took in the sight. The front of Meg’s car was smashed into a stand of trees with the lights still on and the driver-side door wide-open. But Meg was nowhere in sight.

  “I don’t see her!” Dolly said, and fumbled for the door latch.

  Jake and his sons were out of the car and running, all of them afraid she’d gotten out of the wreck on her own and stumbled off into the woods, only to pass out somewhere in the snow.

  Dolly was so scared that when she stepped out, her legs wouldn’t hold her and she fell to her knees. She was shaking so hard she could barely breathe as she dragged herself up and quickly followed.

  “Is she there? Can you see her?” she cried.

  “No, no, she’s not here. She’s n
ot here,” Jake said.

  “Maybe she wandered off into the woods,” Cyrus said.

  “I don’t see tracks. There should be tracks,” Dolly cried, running from one side of the car to the other, but the snow was pristine. If there had been tracks, they were covered with snow now.

  Avery was the one who voiced what no one wanted to say. “What if it was Prince White? What if he ran her off the road and took her?”

  Before they could pursue that theory, they heard a Johnny Cash song coming from their car.

  “Dolly, that’s your phone,” Jake said.

  “Oh, my God, it is!” she said, and started running.

  She was gasping as she answered. “Hello? Meggie, is that you, baby?”

  It was Ryal.

  “Mama, it’s me. I just got a phone call from the hospital in Mount Sterling. Meg is in the E.R. She had a wreck. Someone found her and brought her in.”

  “Oh, Jesus...oh, sweet Lord,” Dolly said, and then sat down on the running board and started to cry.

  Jake took the phone out of her hands. “Hello? Who’s this?”

  “Hey, Jake, it’s me, Ryal. Is Mama okay?”

  “She’s crying. What did you tell her?”

  “Meg had a wreck. Someone found her and took her to the E.R. in Mount Sterling. I don’t know how bad she’s hurt or anything other than that she’s there. I’m getting dressed and heading there myself. I called your house, but when you didn’t answer, I tried Mom’s cell. Julie is sick with the flu, and James can’t leave her alone with the kids. Quinn and Mariah are even farther up the mountain than the rest of you, which means their roads will be worse. I say there’s no need calling anyone else until we know what to tell them.”

  “Agreed,” Jake said. “We were already out looking for her. We just found her car, but no Meg. We were afraid she was somewhere in the woods buried under all this snow. That’s why your mama is crying. It’s relief.”