Through the Storm (Bellingwood Book 8)

by Diane Greenwood Muir

  THROUGH THE

  STORM

  DIANE GREENWOOD MUIR

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication / use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Cover Design Photography: Maxim M. Muir

  Copyright © 2014 Diane Greenwood Muir

  All rights reserved.

  Don’t miss the first books in

  Diane Greenwood Muir’s

  Bellingwood Series

  All Roads Lead Home – Bellingwood #1

  A Big Life in a Small Town – Bellingwood #2

  Treasure Uncovered – Bellingwood #3

  Secrets and Revelations – Bellingwood #4

  Life Between the Lines – Bellingwood #5

  Room at the Inn – Bellingwood #5.5

  A Season of Change – Bellingwood #6

  Tomorrow's Promises – Bellingwood #7

  CONTENTS

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THANK YOU FOR READING!

  CHAPTER ONE

  "I'm sorry," Jason said, his chin trying to dig a hole in his chest so he could hang his head even lower.

  "I'm not the one who needs to hear your apology. I'm only the taxi driver." Polly glanced over at the young man who was still just a boy, in the passenger seat of her truck. His face was blotchy and tears streaked his face. Stupid kid.

  Thunder cracked, making Polly jump. The sky was grey and threatening. After another mile, a casual check in her rear view mirror showed two vehicles speeding toward her, one on each side of the road. They would be on top of her in moments.

  "What in the hell?" she gasped. This was like an awful game of chicken. Neither car was slowing and she began to breathe heavily as scores of possible scenarios spun through her mind.

  "What's going on?" Jason asked turning around to look out the rear window.

  “Hold on.” Polly wrenched the steering wheel to the side, sending her truck careening into the ditch. Somewhere in her past, someone told her that a ditch was a lot softer than hitting another car. She didn’t have much time to think about it as the truck’s tires dug into the soft dirt that had recently been soaked by rain, slamming her into her seatbelt. The truck bucked over the uneven surface of the ground and the steering wheel seemed to take on a life of its own. Instinctively, she knew she had to keep the wheels straight or she’d risk rolling over.

  The truck was losing momentum due to the drag of the soft earth, but the ditch had funneled her so that she was headed directly toward a large metal culvert. Her only chance would be to try to drive up the other side of the ditch. She pulled the steering wheel over and the truck moved in the right direction, but the slippery slope simply pushed her back down. Polly was almost on top of the culvert and had to take quick action, so she punched the 4-hi button on the dash. Her dad had taught her not to do this when going faster than fifty miles an hour, but she really didn’t have time to check the speed.

  She needed more acceleration to get up the hill but the vehicle needed a moment to engage the four-wheel drive. At the last minute, Polly mashed the gas pedal to the floor and pulled the steering wheel hard to the right. Thankfully, the truck's front wheels bit in to the soil. Giant chunks of mud flew up past her window as they climbed out of the trench, narrowly missing the culvert. The truck leapt over the ridge at the top and settled down onto the edge of a corn field. Corn stalks and cobs thwacked against the hood as they broke off, while Polly sped down along the rows.

  Now on level ground, it was much easier to slow down and navigate out of the farmer’s field. She found a turn-out where she could rejoin the road and with her front wheels on pavement, she pulled off on the shoulder and came to a stop.

  As soon as she released the steering wheel, her hands started shaking at the same speed as the racing of her heart. Polly took a breath and tried to unclench the muscles in her leg, arms and back.

  “Well, that was fun,” she said to Jason, who appeared to have a death grip on the handle just above his window. “You know they call that thing an oh-shit handle for a good reason?”

  His blotchy face had gone pale and he looked back at her with big eyes. "That was awesome!"

  "That’s one word. Are you okay?"

  "I'm good. That was awesome!'

  "Uh huh." Polly took two more deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. "They're going to kill someone."

  "Are you calling the cops?"

  "I should. Did you see either of those cars enough to know what they were?" She couldn't tell the difference between a Ford and a Chevy. Volkswagen bugs were as specific as she could get and that's only because they were so obviously what they were.

  "The blue car was a Dodge Charger and the silver one was an Infiniti. The Charger was older."

  She shook her head. "How do you know these things?"

  "I dunno." Jason shrugged.

  Polly took out her phone and pressed Aaron Merritt's number, knowing that he was going to harass her about the call. At least she didn't have to report a dead body.

  "Don't tell me," he said, without even a hello.

  "No. But there is going to be a death if you don't get two idiots off the roads." She described what had just happened.

  He sighed and said, "Oh Polly. I’m sorry. We've had reports on these two over the last few weeks. Are you okay?"

  "I'm a little freaked out, but I think we're fine. There's a field here that looks a little worse for wear, but I know whose it is and I'll give him a call. He just saved my life."

  "Who's with you?"

  "Jason. Without him, I would have only been able to tell you that there were two and they were cars."

  Aaron laughed. "Tell him thank you. We didn't know what the silver car was before today. That will help. Drive safely now."

  "Absolutely."

  The muscles in her arm were still twitching when she put the phone back down on the seat beside her. Jason had released the panic bar and was scratching his head. "Were they really going to hit us?"

  "I don't know. I think so." She took another deep breath and felt tears leak from her eyes as a terrible realization hit her. What if Jason had been driving? He begged for the opportunity every time she picked him up after school in Boone. She usually handed him the keys and climbed i
nto the passenger side of her truck.

  Polly remembered the excitement of being allowed behind the wheel of her father's truck. She'd driven his tractors all over the farm, but his truck was sacred. Mary was the first person who allowed Polly behind the wheel of a car and after she assured Everett Giller that his daughter wouldn't drive off the road, he loosened up.

  Eliseo had taught Jason to drive this last summer and the two years between his permit and his driver's license were going to go much too slowly for all of them. Jason took every chance he could to get behind the wheel of any vehicle around.

  Polly had been annoyed with him enough today that when he came out of the high school in Boone and found her, she'd simply pointed to the passenger side and waited for him to climb in and put his seatbelt on. He'd sat there sullenly, waiting for her to yell. She'd done none of that. His mother was angry enough that his poor little life wasn't going to be worth much when he got home. It would be entertaining to watch, but Polly hadn't felt the need to pile on any more trouble.

  Her breath hitched in her throat.

  "What's wrong?" Jason asked.

  Polly reached across and took his arm. "What if you'd been driving?"

  Jason blanched. Then he glanced up at the panic bar and said, "Oh shit?"

  She could hardly help herself and tears turned to laughter. They were both laughing hard when she saw flashing lights pull in behind her.

  Stu Decker, one of the Aaron’s deputies that she knew quite well, got out of his car and strode up to her truck. Polly rolled the window down.

  "Heya Polly. I just got the call. Are you two okay?"

  "We are. I'm just trying to get my courage up to drive home. They scared me to death."

  He looked across her and said, "How are you doing, Jason?"

  "She was awesome. You should have seen her pull this truck out of the ditch." He bobbed his head up and down. "It was awesome!"

  "I guess he's fine," Polly laughed. "This has happened before?"

  "Three times that we know of. They ran a stock trailer off the road. That was one pissed-off farmer. Luckily the trailer was empty or I think the old guy would have chased them down the road with a shotgun. Last week, a woman was still in her driveway when they sped by and two weeks before that, we got a call from a farmer who was mowing his ditch."

  "No license plates or anything?" she asked.

  "They're covered up."

  "I saw that, too," Jason said.

  Polly looked across at him. "I can't believe you saw anything. I was so focused on keeping the truck upright, I couldn't think about the idiots out there."

  "Has your heart rate returned to normal?" Stu asked, a grin on his face.

  "Yeah. I think I can make it home now. Thanks for stopping."

  Stu went back to his car and Polly rolled the window up. Temperatures were all over the place lately, but today summer was well underway and it was warm. She was ready for fall weather to take hold and stay. She turned the air conditioning up and pulled back out onto the road, heading for Sycamore House.

  "I really am sorry, Polly," Jason repeated. Now that the crisis was over, he was thinking back to the reason he was in trouble in the first place.

  "I know you are. You're going to have to tell that to your Mom and Eliseo, though. They're the ones you've hurt."

  "I didn't mean to. I just didn't think. If he ..."

  Before he could go any further, Polly put her right hand up to stop him. "No apology is worthwhile if you have to make excuses. This one's all on you. You can't spread the responsibility."

  Jason started to cry again and before they reached the outskirts of Bellingwood, he was sobbing. The fear of traveling through the ditch and the farmer's field couldn't have helped his emotional state, but Polly knew his heart was broken. He'd brought it on himself and facing the consequences had to be terrifying - especially when he didn't know what those would be. She wished he could understand that once he'd dealt with it in front of everyone, things would get better, but maybe this process was important, too. Worrying about what was to come would probably help him learn the lesson he needed.

  It was hard for her to watch this boy, who was fast becoming a young man, fall apart like a child. He’d grown several inches this summer and his body and face were changing, as was his voice. He had grown leaner and much more muscular while working around the property with Eliseo, his features becoming more chiseled, losing their little boy softness.

  "I don't want to go in," he sobbed when Polly pulled into her garage. "Can't you just go around the block or something?"

  "It's best to face it and get it over with," Polly said. "Neither of them will stay mad at you forever. They love you."

  "What if she never lets me ride the horses again?"

  Polly knew better than that, but this was Sylvie's call. "Jason, you are going to have to deal with whatever comes your way. You made the mistake, you can't get out of the punishment."

  She parked the truck and pulled her truck door open, releasing the lock on the passenger side. Jason didn't move.

  "Jason," she said quietly. "You can't stay out here."

  "I can't do this," he moaned.

  His mother chose that moment to slam out of the door into the garage. Polly took a good look at her and tried not to laugh. Every bit of fury Sylvie had worked up was a sham. She'd been through all of the emotions this morning and now all she wanted to do was scare the daylights out of her son. The woman was in complete control.

  Sylvie stalked over to Jason's door and pointed to the ground. "Out. Now," she said.

  Jason opened the truck door and reached back in for his backpack. Sylvie took it out of his hands and flung it toward the door leading inside. She grabbed his upper arm, pushed him out of the garage, and led him across the back yard. Polly watched the two of them make their way through Eliseo's garden toward the fence leading to the barn. After she finally calmed down this morning, Sylvie had told both Polly and Eliseo that her plan was to terrify her son. She was going to make his life miserable until he knew exactly how wrong he had been. When she got finished with the fury, she was bringing out the disappointment and then she would allow repentance.

  This was the fury. Polly was thankful to be far away from it and felt awful that Eliseo had to be part of this at all. His heart was as big as those immense Percheron horses he cared for and he loved Jason and Andrew as much as he would love any son of his own. He was ready to give Jason a stern talking to and let it go, but Sylvie was prepared to make a point. She'd been busy all summer, trying to finish her classes. While that happened, her oldest son had somehow found a level of cockiness and arrogance that came with the independence of having his mother too busy to pay attention.

  He'd become increasingly difficult to be around at Sycamore House. Eliseo kept him in line down at the barn, but whenever he was around his younger brother, he took every opportunity to tease him, pick on him, or try to upset the boy. Polly scolded Jason, and even though he grudgingly apologized, his behavior continued to get worse.

  The thing was, he wasn't a bad kid. For the most part, he was helpful and polite, but it didn't take much for him to toss out a bad attitude. Polly wanted to believe it was part of growing up. How could she know? She'd never dealt with kids this age. She wanted to believe that it was because he was building a shell before going to high school. Leaving Bellingwood's safe, little school had to be hard. School had only been in session for three weeks and he still hadn't gotten any better. In fact, it seemed like he was getting worse.

  Last week, Sylvie had been called to Boone because he was part of a group of older kids that were harassing some girls. She'd grounded him, not letting him work at the barn all weekend. With this new situation, Sylvie hadn't been sure this morning what she was going to do with the boy.

  Henry drove in just as Sylvie and Jason cleared the last gate to the barn. He got out of his truck and stood beside Polly. "Do you want to sneak down and listen?" he asked.

  "No way! I'm so
glad that I'm not involved. You have no idea."

  "What do you think she's going to do?"

  "I don't know that either. But I can tell you that the Sylvie who has hold of that boy right now is not someone I ever want to meet. She's calculating and quiet. All of the heat and anger she felt this morning is gone and this woman is scary."

  Thunder clapped again and the sky finally opened up, pouring rain. Polly stepped further inside the garage to avoid the rain.

  Henry glanced at Polly's truck. "What happened? Did you find a mud puddle somewhere?"

  Her heart lurched just thinking about it. "You won't even believe what happened. It's been a long time since I've been that scared."

  "What do you mean? What happened?" Henry went from calm and peaceful to worried and scared.

  "Jason and I were driven off the road coming back from Boone. I don't know how I managed it, but I kept us from becoming one with a culvert and only ripped up part of Jim Dawkins's field. That reminds me, I need to call him."

  "What do you mean? Are you okay? Is Jason hurt?"

  "No we're fine and I called Aaron. Stu stopped by to check on us. It's all good. Just scared me to death."

  "So, what happened?" Henry walked around her truck, brushing dried mud to the floor of the garage. He bent over to look under the front bumper. "You dented this on something," he said.

  "Two idiots were racing down the road toward me and I had a choice to either take the ditch or get hit."

  He looked up at her. "You're not kidding."

  "I'm really not. Stu says this has been happening for a while. I'm only the second person they've run into the ditch. One was a farmer with a stock truck."

  "And they don't know who is doing it?"

  "License plates are covered up and I have to tell you, I was concentrating so hard on keeping the truck upright, I didn't pay any attention to them. Jason saw what kind of cars they were driving, but that's all."

  He walked back over and took her in his arms. "You're wonderful. Thank you for driving so well today. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you."