Holiday Homecoming

by Jillian Hart

  But what about deep inside? The parts of a person that were harder to discover? That was the real question. And it was why Kristin refused to date. Why she would never marry anyone.

  Because you never knew what a person was really like, until it was too late.

  “I think this is yours. Extra sour cream.” He held out the wrapped taco in his big, capable hands.

  Healing hands, Kristin realized, and they looked it. Powerful but circumspect. “Th-thanks.”

  The food was piping hot, but she hardly noticed as she unwrapped the chicken taco. Ryan was consuming his beef taco with great gusto. He stopped to nudge the container of hot sauce her way.

  “No, too much for me.”

  “I say, the hotter the better. I can have all of this?”

  “Go for it.”

  “Awesome.” He dumped an extreme amount of blistering sauce on his giant soft-shell taco and gave a moan of satisfaction after he took a bite and chewed. “Not nearly hot enough. I like melt-the-lid-off-the-jar hot.”

  “There’s the Ryan I remember.”

  “Hey, I grew up. But I really haven’t changed all that much. Down deep. I’m still a country boy at heart.”

  A country boy? There was nothing obviously country in the polished, well-dressed man seated beside her. He looked as if he’d walked straight off the pages of a magazine. “You’ve been away from home for what, more than a dozen years?”

  “Thirteen, nearly fourteen. What I can’t picture is you living in a big city. Why didn’t you marry your high-school sweetheart and buy a house near your folks?”

  “Because I didn’t have a high-school sweetheart.” His innocent question took her back to places best left forgotten.

  “Why not?”

  His question was an innocent one—he didn’t know what he was doing to her by asking. The steel around her heart snapped tight into place, blocking out all the painful memories of that time in her life. When her older beloved sister had left home packed for a church retreat and bubbling with excitement, never to return again.

  Kristin’s entire world changed that day. Nothing had ever been the same.

  But Ryan had left the valley for greater things by then. With a football scholarship in hand and a free ride to an out-of-state university, he’d probably only heard about the small-plane crash that had taken several lives at the time. His mom had probably mentioned it to him on the phone when it happened, but it had only been a newsworthy item to him.

  That day years ago had tipped her world on its side and showed her the truth. You could surround yourself with family and friends, make a marriage, a home and a family, go to church and pray faithfully, but it couldn’t protect a person. Not even God seemed to be able to do that.

  The truth was too personal. She’d tried to talk about it before, but no one seemed to understand. Pastor Bill from her hometown church had been wonderful and understanding, but his well-meant advice had been useless. Why did God want to take Allison from them? She’d been beloved by everyone who knew her, and as an older sister, she’d been awesome. She was beautiful and kind, generous and selfless and smart. Anytime Kristin had needed her, her oldest sister had been there, no questions asked.

  It wasn’t only her sister that she’d lost that day. She’d seen the world for what it truly was, and she couldn’t surround herself with people and things and pretend that if she was faithful enough, nothing could hurt her or those she loved.

  Loss was inevitable. It was a part of life she didn’t care for, thank you very much. Kristin grabbed a Tater Tot and bit into the crispy, greasy goodness. Ryan was still waiting for an answer as he watched her, unwrapping his third taco.

  “I’m just not into the whole marriage and kids thing.” She shrugged. It was a cop-out, she knew it, but there was no way this handsome man who probably had left a string of hopeful women pining away in Phoenix would understand.

  “You’re a career woman. I get it.” Ryan chomped into his taco and chewed while he studied her thoughtfully, as if he were assessing her. Seeing something new in her. “Being a doc is great. I love what I do. It’s real satisfaction, gives your life meaning, when you love your work.”

  “Yeah. That’s me. I love my job.” She did. So, why did her chest feel hollow as she took another bite of her chicken taco?

  “I bet you’re good at what you do. I can see it.” He grabbed two Tater Tots and dragged them through the hot salsa. “You’re organized, smart, likable. Efficient, I bet.”

  “Yeah, and a devoted workaholic.”

  “Me, too. That’s the reason why I’m headed home to Montana after about a billion years of staying away.”

  “Because you’re a workaholic?”

  “Yeah. I’ve always had to stay wherever I was living. First it was because I was in college and I’d stay to get extra hours at whatever part-time job I had. I needed the money, and Mom understood that. But then it was med school and I needed to study. I was an intern and then a resident and there was no way I could get time off. I worked holidays.”

  “And now you’re a doctor with your own practice. You make your own hours, right?”

  “I wish.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m in control of my schedule more than I have been. But I’m low man on the totem pole. I’m in a practice with some of the top orthopedic surgeons in the Southwest, and they pull rank. Plus, it’s that student-loan thing again.”

  “The one the size of a house?”

  “Exactly. Sometimes on Saturdays when I’ve got paperwork piled as high as my computer monitor, I get this urge to run off and windsurf the day away on Lake Powell.”

  “You windsurf?”

  “I used to. Then I did something really inane. I decided to get engaged.”

  “You’re getting married?”

  “I’m not the type, I know. It took me about three months to figure that out after being dragged to a wedding planner to see about seven thousand different kinds of napkins we could get monogrammed, and my life flashed before my eyes. A life with no windsurfing. It didn’t work out.” He shrugged, as if it didn’t bother him a bit. “It was for the best.”

  Kristin didn’t miss the shadows in his eyes. His tone might be light, but there was pain there. She could feel it as tangibly as the cold seeping in from outside. Whatever happened had been complicated and deeply painful.

  She tried to think of something comforting to say, but drew a blank. No simple words of comfort or empathy could begin to ease the hurt from wounds in a person’s heart. She knew.

  “Well, we better get a move on.” Ryan cleared his throat as if dismissing his loss or wiping away his sorrow. He crinkled up the paper wrappers, and the sound was as jarring and abrupt as his movements.

  Kristin took the last bite of her taco as Ryan switched on the wipers. A few swipes of the blades and the accumulated snow was gone. The twin beams of the headlights reflected back to them in the whiteout conditions.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep us safe.” He tossed her a roguishly charming wink, before putting the Jeep into gear.

  “I wasn’t worried.” Kristin balled up the wrapper, pretending to be busy and unaffected by the man beside her.

  He’s unhappy, she realized. Lonely. She knew what that was like. It was like the storm blocking out the glow from the town’s lights until there was only the cold darkness and the howl of the worsening storm. As if there could be no light to warm the long drive ahead.

  Chapter Three

  Ryan swore it felt as if they’d been driving for an eternity, but when he glanced at the clock in the dash, the green numbers showed less than two hours had passed. For one hundred and twenty long minutes they’d been creeping in a vast darkness, closed off from the world, the tenacious storm allowing him to see only a few feet in front of him.

  Twice, he’d spotted the faint sudden pinpoint of on-coming headlights. Each vehicle had been traveling as slowly as he was, fighting to stay on the road. He hadn’t seen another driver in the past fifty-three minutes in f
ront of him, behind him or on the other side of the double yellow.

  Exhaustion made every nerve ending burn. Three times they’d stopped in the small towns off the highway to look for vacancies. No luck. Every other traveler had the same idea. They had no other option than to keep driving.

  “How are you doing?” Kristin’s soothing alto broke the long silence between them. “Want to trade off driving?”

  “Maybe. I figured we’d switch once we got to the next town.”

  “Sounds good. If we don’t lose track of the road.”

  “Pray this storm doesn’t get any worse.” Grim, Ryan recalled all the cases he’d read about in med school where innocent drivers had gotten caught in harsh winter storms and gone off the road. He saw how easily that could happen.

  The blizzard closed in with a vengeance. The falling snow began to spin, washing over the windshield with a dizzying speed. The twin beams of the headlights glared on the downpour, reflecting back at him until he lost complete sight of the highway.

  “Thank God for the tracks.” Kristin leaned forward, straining against her shoulder harness as if to help him watch for signs of danger. As if they were about to plunge off the road and down a ravine.

  “Just what I was thinking.” Some brave soul was ahead of them. The lone set of tire tracks was rapidly filling with snow, but it was enough to keep him headed in the right direction. His vision blurred and he blinked hard.

  Just stay alert, man. He fidgeted in his seat, fighting the belt. He could use the rest of his soda, both the sugar and caffeine would help, but he didn’t want to take his hand off the wheel or his attention from the road. There was no way he was going to let anything happen. He had Kristin to keep safe. Mom was waiting for him.

  Thank you, Lord, for the help. The tire tracks in the snow unspooled ahead of them like a sign from above guiding them toward home.

  Home. If his head wasn’t pounding from exhaustion and the effort of concentrating so hard, he could try to get his mind in the right place. He didn’t want Mom to see him like this, undecided and unhappy to be walking straight back to his past.

  Luckily, driving took all his energy. He didn’t have to think about anything other than this moment and keeping the car on the road. It was like driving in a dark tunnel. He glued his attention to the tire tracks barely visible in the sheen of the headlights.

  The road beneath them seemed to heave, tossing the SUV around. Fear hit him and he swung the wheel left, but it was too late. A tree bough swiped across the roof. The passenger-side tires dipped low into the pitch of the shoulder.

  He saw it all in a flash, the sharp drop, the void of a forest. Already he was picturing what it would be like to crash through those thick limbs and plunge into the darkness, out of control. Flashes of car-accident victims he’d treated in the E.R. haunted him and he fought to stop the inevitable as the top-heavy SUV began to tip.

  Please, Lord, he prayed as, teeth gritted, he fought the jolting steering wheel. A little help, please. Crashing into old-growth trees was going to be a very bad thing. Time slowed down. He saw the minute detail of the pine needles on the limb swinging toward them. Beside him Kristin gasped, grabbed the dash, expecting the worst, too.

  Then, miraculously, the tires dug in. The vehicle swung left toward the level road, and he eased it to a shaking stop. Thank you, Father.

  Adrenaline pumping, he tried not to think of everything that could have happened, how hurt they could have been and what those tire tracks meant. “That was a close one. Are you okay?”

  Sheet white, Kristin studied him with wide eyes. She nodded. “But whoever is in that car isn’t.”

  He didn’t answer. He flicked on the overhead dome light to see as he searched the dash for the hazard lights and hit them on. “Check around and see if there’s a first-aid kit. Then button up and come with me.”

  Gone was the hint of the boy he’d been. He was all man, mature and focused. Reaching beneath the seat, Kristin’s fingers tapped over the nubby carpet and bumped into a plastic edge. She got down on all fours to extricate the small box and realized that Ryan was already climbing outside. The brutal subzero winds cut through the warm passenger compartment as he slammed the door shut. The night and storm stole him from her sight.

  The box came loose. It was a first-aid kit, as she’d hoped it would be. Relieved, Kristin twisted back onto the seat, dug her mittens out of her coat. Her door swung open. Ryan stood just outside the light, shadow and substance as she held up the kit for him to see.

  He took it from her. “Do you know how close we are to the next town?”

  “I’m guessing maybe twelve, thirteen miles.” Kristin sank to midcalf in drifting snow. “It might be quicker heading back. We went, what, ten miles?”

  It all added up to potential disaster. He ignored the bitter wind and the sting of flakes needling his face. All that mattered was helping the people in that car.

  If he could. If it wasn’t too late.

  He yanked his cell out of his pocket. Lord, please let this thing work out here. He hit auto dial and prayed for a signal.

  There were no other sounds but the rapid-fire beat of his heart, the tap, tap, tap of snow and the howl of the wind through the trees. He shook his phone, not that it would do a lick of good. C’mon. Connect.

  He heard the squeak of leather shoes in the compact snow behind him. One glance told him Kristin was managing. He kept in front of her, taking the brunt of the blizzard hiking along the tire tracks as they rolled through a jagged hole in the guardrail and into the darkness.

  His phone beeped. He froze in place. He had a signal! There was a ring, and an emergency operator answered. It sounded like a small county station; he could hear the buzz of activity in the background. It was a busy night for the sheriff’s department, and about to get busier.

  “I have a single-car accident on highway 84.” He squinted at the milepost marker hanging from a jagged arm of the guard post and reported the number to the operator.

  What was he going to find? His guts twisted as he swept the miniflashlight on his key ring through the darkness. Nothing. Only horizontal snow in a black void.

  Please, Lord, be with whoever is in that vehicle. Or was. Ryan steeled his spine. Prepared for what he might find, he took a step and skidded down a nearly vertical slope.

  Not a good sign, either. He dug his heels in before he crashed into a tree. With pine needles cold against his face, he flashed the small light through the underbrush. Nothing. No, wait. There was a faint something. Squinting, Ryan swept the area again. Sure enough, there it was. The edge of a broken taillight reflecting some of the light back at him despite the heavy downpour and thick foliage.

  It was enough of a miracle on this brutal night, that Ryan gave thanks as he crashed through limbs and over dormant blackberry bushes, following the ragged trail of tracks that led to a small sedan. The vehicle was dark and still. A very bad sign.

  Help me, Father, he prayed as he snapped limbs and tore branches out of his way, sidling along the quiet car.

  Too quiet. That couldn’t be good. Between shock, trauma and the freezing cold, he didn’t expect to find anyone alive.

  “Hello?” Calm, focused, he broke the icy layer of snow off the driver’s window with the side of his hand. The glow of his flashlight showed a lone driver with a mass of dark curls slumped behind the wheel.

  He tried the door and the handle gave. The passenger compartment was cool, but not yet cold. He began talking, calm and steady, in case the young woman could hear him. So she wouldn’t be afraid.

  He wasn’t aware of Kristin crowding close to see if she could help or the snow slicing between his neck and his coat collar or the wind as he worked.

  Wow, he’s sure something. Kristin’s heart hitched as she watched him work, methodical and skilled. He pressed two fingers to the woman’s jugular and some of the tension in his shoulders eased. She was alive.

  Kristin leaned against the car. She’d never felt so helpless
in her life. If a rental car had been available, then she may well have been here alone to help the injured driver. What good could she have done? Ryan was a blessing. He checked the young woman’s pupils while talking to her, low and soothing.

  I bet he’s a great doctor. Admiration for him filled her up. She loved medical dramas on television, but this was something greater. This was real. Somber lines dug deep in Ryan’s face as he turned to her in the faint glow from his flashlight. How badly was the woman hurt?

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Go through the trunk. I’ll pull the latch. See if there’s anything to wrap her in. Blankets. Sheets. Something. We’ve got to get her warm.”

  At least she was alive. That was something. Praying, Kristin scrambled to the back of the car, lifting the trunk after it popped up. How could he be calm and steady? Okay, he was a doctor, he was used to this, but she wasn’t. Fear jittered through her veins, leaving her quaking and her fingers clumsy as she began to push through the crowded trunk. Full laundry bags, textbooks, a laptop case… She spied a flashlight and tested it; it worked. She tucked that under her arm.

  As she kept digging, Ryan’s voice pulled at her like a fish on a line. She was hooked and unable to turn away. Had she ever heard a man sound like that? A deep gravelly baritone that was both hard-edged man and infinitely caring. Powerful and dependable. A man who could make anything right.

  Please, Father, help guide his hands tonight. Kristin moved aside a University of Idaho book bag, realizing the young driver was a college student, probably heading home for Thanksgiving, too. Would she be all right?

  She wasn’t moving. She was unconscious. At least Ryan was here. He knew what to do. Clutching the stadium blanket she’d found beneath the book bag, Kristin carefully picked her way through the knee-deep snow.

  Ryan must have heard her coming. Crouched in the open door, he twisted toward her. Worry lines furrowed deep in his forehead, but he managed a strained nod as his gaze pinned on the folded blanket. “Good. That will do just fine.”