She accepts me without question. Doesn’t need to know anything about me, doesn’t care about anything except that I’ve taken care of her, fed her, cleaned her, and I give her attention.
Back on the road, she somehow curls her absurdly mammoth body onto the front bucket seat, her head on the console between us, and I get to rest my hand on her head and scratch her ears while I drive.
Windows down, music up, sun in my face, a dog beside me.
I’ll take this.
* * *
GPS says I should make it from Humboldt County, California to Ardmore, Oklahoma in around thirty-two, thirty-three hours. But I’m in no hurry, so I make it in just shy of three days.
Ardmore, Oklahoma is flat, dry, and hot. The downtown area, though, is cute and quaint, a throwback to when this area was the real-deal Wild West. You can see it in the layout, the way the downtown streets are narrow with the buildings fronting right up to the street and cars parked in an angled row. Most of the buildings still have the original brick façade, actually, and they’re all connected, one to the other.
This ain’t Humboldt County, that’s for sure.
I park in front of a coffee shop, clip a leash to Utah’s collar, and walk the sidewalks.
People are friendly, welcoming. More than once I’m stopped by perfect strangers who just seem to want to pass the time, scratch Utah’s ears and remark on how big she is, and saying isn’t she the sweetest thing.
More than once, too, I’m asked what I’m doing in these parts, which makes it obvious this is a small town, the kind of place where folks all know each other and strangers stick out. I tell them, truthfully enough, that I’m just passing through.
Also, I probably look about as California as I feel. Never realized before how much I look like what I am: a rich, spoiled Beverly Hills asshole. Never worked a day in my life. Went where I wanted, did what I wanted. Thrived on adventure and danger. That kind of insouciance is hard to miss.
I’ve been all over the world. I consider myself cultured, well traveled, and interesting. Most people I’ve met seemed to think so, too.
’Round here? I’m just a fancy-Dan big city boy. That’s my impression, and I don’t even know anyone.
Larry didn’t give me an address, or any way to locate this Niall James, so I find a cafe with an outdoor seating area where Utah can hang out, and I call him again.
“Lachlan, how are you? Where are you?”
“Good, Larry, I’m good. I’m in Ardmore, but I have no idea how to find this girl.”
Larry sighs. “I looked into it a little more, figuring you’d probably be calling again. Trouble is, it doesn’t feel like she wants to be found. I don’t get the sense she’s running, exactly…like she’s not in any kind of trouble, not trying to stay off the grid or anything. But she very clearly doesn’t want to be found. No phone number, no home address. Her last address is in LA, but that was over seven years ago, now. She was with MSF for six years, and when her husband died, she just…vanished. No forwarding address, just a PO box for mail, which is how I found her in the first place.
“Now, I could hire a PI if you’re determined enough. The PO box is all I could find from a cursory search. So…you’ll have to tell me how you want to proceed. A private investigator could find her easily enough but…honestly, Lachlan, that seems a little excessive, if not invasive. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I feel I should try to advise you. She’s lost her husband. She probably won’t welcome anyone poking their nose into her business, if you know what I mean. So if you really want to just…talk to her, find whatever peace it is you’re looking for down there, I’d say you’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way: with charm and determination.”
“I’m long on the first and short on the second, Larry.”
“Not sure I can help you with that.”
“So I’m learning,” I say with a sigh.
“I’ll say this: she’s a nurse. So chances are, she’ll have returned to what she knew, which would be a hospital, an ER, a doctor’s office, something like that. Ask around. A name like Niall…down in that place? Someone is bound to know her, or of her, at least. Can’t be too many women named Niall James in the world, know what I mean?”
“I gotcha. Thanks, Larry.”
“My pleasure, Lachlan.”
He hangs up and I pocket the phone, absentmindedly scratch Utah’s ears.
How do I proceed?
No, hiring a PI isn’t the best idea. It’ll spook her for sure, if she gets a whiff of it. And if I do find her, how do I tell her how I found her? Oh, by the way, Niall, I had a private investigator hunt you down. Bad enough I’m doing this at all, but to sic a PI on her? No way.
I’ll have to, as Larry said, look for her myself, the old-fashioned way.
I was one in a hundred billion
Ardmore, Oklahoma
Present Day
Busiest day at work I’ve had in a long, long time. Horrible day, actually. Two nurses are out sick, and Dr. Beardsley is out hunting, which means I’m covering for three people, as well as trying to keep on top of my own responsibilities. I’m running ragged, is what I am.
I got the call first thing this morning asking me to come in, the prepaid cell phone I keep for emergencies waking me out of a dead sleep…a very rare dead sleep, because I don’t sleep well anymore. I was supposed to have the morning off, be able to sleep in and go in at noon. But then Lindsey, the office manager, calls me, tells me Naomi and Michelle are both down sick. Mary is out of town on a pre-approved vacation, and Amy is on maternity leave, so there’s no one else left to cover. Plus, oh yeah, Dr. Beardsley is hunting and out of reach. So, could I please, please come in early and help cover some of the slack?
Sure.
Cover ALL the slack, she means. And that’s what I do.
Doesn’t help that we’re double-booked for most of the day and there’s a summer cold going around, so we’re busier than usual on top of being short-staffed. By the time the last patient is out the door, I’m dragging my feet. I mean, this is nothing compared to sixty-hour shifts doing triage in Africa with Ollie, but it still sucks. Sucks more, really, because it’s boring, there’s no adrenaline to keep me rushing, no pressure to keep me sharp. I can barely move, barely keep my eyes open.
I trudge to my truck, hand-crank the windows down, start the old engine.
It coughs, coughs, coughs, wheezes…and refuses to catch.
I’m so tired, and I just want to go home. Curl up in bed with Pep and my Kindle and a mug of tea.
I try again, fighting the urge to just break down and cry.
Finally, the cranky old engine catches and I pull out of the parking lot. I get halfway home when I remember I have no food at home, and will have to pick up something. So I turn around and head to the other side of town to the Chick-fil-A drive-thru, pick up some tasty but bad for me fast food.
And, of course, a few miles from home, my truck starts coughing again. I’m in the process of making a left turn, and halfway through the intersection the gas pedal goes limp, and the engine quits responding. I floor the pedal, and get nothing. I coast to a stop, right in the middle of the intersection, engine dead.
I try the ignition a few times, horns honking all around me.
Nothing.
I slam my fist onto the steering wheel, fighting tears.
Horns honk. People shout and curse.
I put it neutral, get out of the truck, and with one hand on the doorframe and the other on the steering wheel, I push—hard. But this old truck weighs a goddamn ton, literally a metric ton, and I struggle to even get it moving.
And does anyone help me?
Fuck no.
Can’t stop the tears now, because I just want to go home. I want to eat my stupid chicken sandwich and my stupid delicious waffle fries.
I feel a presence behind me. “Get in.” The voice is deep, thunderously deep, yet smooth as velvet. A whisky voice, smooth and fiery and potent.
I turn, and the man standing there is…a god.
I’m struck dumb.
Six-four, easily. Wild, loose, long, wind-tangled blond hair, a thick unkempt beard. He looks like a deity of the wilderness, from far and remote places. His eyes are blue-green, vibrant, piercing, the color of the sea. They’re wrinkled at the corners, as if he’s spent untold hours in the sun.
“I said get in, honey.” He gestures at the seat.
Honey? That shakes me out of my daze. “I can handle it.”
“Traffic is piling up behind us, and this truck has to be heavier than hell. Just get in and let me help.”
I want to be stubborn. No one calls me “honey”—no one. But he’s right, and I’m tired. So I get in. He settles in where I was, in the corner of the open door, hands on the frame and the wheel. He pushes, and his muscles bulge. And Jesus, we start to move.
I am not unaffected, and that in itself is odd. It’s not like there aren’t any men in Ardmore. There are, and some are rather attractive. They’re all country bros and cowboys, which is cool. Not really my thing, exactly—were I to have a thing anymore—but cool.
So what’s different about this guy?
I don’t know, and that makes me even more irritable. I keep my hands on my lap while he pushes my truck out of the intersection and into a nearby parking lot.
When we’re out of the way, my rescuer leans against the open door and passes his hand through his hair. “There. You got Triple-A or anything?”
I shrug. “No.”
“Someone to call to come get you?”
Another shrug. “No. But I don’t live far from here. I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
I take my keys, slide the strap of my purse over my shoulder, gather the white paper bag with my sandwich and fries, my cup of soda, roll up the windows and close the door. I start walking. When I said it wasn’t far, it was a little bit of a lie.
Or a lot of a lie: it’s five miles to home, easily, and my feet ache already. But I’m not about to let this perfect stranger take me home. Just because he’s gorgeous doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy.
Or that my suddenly whacked-out hormones can be trusted around him. Honestly, this second issue might be the bigger problem.
“I’m not letting you walk across the town by yourself. It’s getting dark.” He says this while catching up to me.
“So?”
“So you’re a woman alone. It’s not safe.”
I laugh, gesture around us at the small country town. “Have you looked around?” I keep walking. “I think I’ll be okay.”
He keeps walking beside me. “Listen—”
I stop, face him. “No, you listen. Thank you for your help—I really do appreciate it, but I’ll be okay from here. Please leave.”
He raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right, fine.” He’s not offended at all, or doesn’t seem to be, anyway. Equanimous, even-keeled, unruffled by my outburst.
I may have snapped at him, unfairly perhaps. He was being a gentleman.
But there’s no place in my life for polite, gentlemanly, attractive men.
No place in my life, no place in my heart—shit, who am I kidding? I don’t have a heart anymore. I buried it with Ollie.
So I keep walking, and don’t look back. At some point I hear the deep diesel rumble of a big pickup, and see a new but dusty black F-250 roll by, windows down, some kind of hard-driving and definitely not country music blasting loud. California plates. A huge, shaggy dog hangs its head out the passenger window, tongue lolling in the wind, and I can see my blond god savior at the wheel, bobbing his head to the music, one hand trailing out the window. He glances at me, waves goodbye, a polite, friendly gesture.
I could be in that truck right now, sitting on some nice leather seats, AC blasting, a gorgeous guy beside me, a dog in the back licking my hand, listening to music that isn’t country.
But I’m not. I’m on foot, in the drowsing dusk, on aching feet, with five miles or more to walk—alone.
Once you’re out of the downtown area, things get dark real quick at nightfall. The little city doesn’t give off a lot of light pollution, and the streets out this way are narrow, mostly dirt, and unlit except for the occasional orange-yellow streetlight. Which means, once I get out this far, I don’t really feel as brave and fearless as I did back in that nicely lit intersection. Of course, it’s plenty safe around here. But…you never can tell, can you?
It takes me over an hour and a half of walking, but I finally make it home.
My feet throb and ache and it feels like I’ve got knives stabbing into my arches. I’m dusty from the dirt road, have grit in my mouth, and I long since finished my dinner, which means I’m still hungry with nothing to eat except some pasta noodles but no sauce, and some stale bread.
So I make the noodles and eat them without sauce, and save the bread for breakfast.
But I do have plenty of something else.
Wine.
My own version of a sleeping pill.
So I pour a big glass of wine and drink it in bed while trying to read.
It takes me a while, but eventually I’m tipsy enough to fall asleep.
And when I do?
I dream of Ollie.
In the dream, we’re lying in the bed of that battered old Nissan, back in Africa. The metal is still hot under our backs—I can feel it. I can smell the dust. I can smell blood, too.
I feel Ollie, but I can’t see him. I can sense him, and I know he’s beside me. In the way of dreams, I feel this urgency, this driving need, this bone-rattling panic. I have to see him. I don’t know why, but I have to see him. But I can’t turn my head. If I don’t turn my head to look at my beloved Ollie, I’ll never see him again.
If I don’t look at him, he’ll die.
It’s the only way to save him.
TURN YOUR HEAD, NIALL! I scream it at myself, in the dream.
I strain and twist.
But it’s like my head is caught in salt-water taffy, stretchy, sticky, trapping me. I can’t turn my head. I CAN’T—I CAN’T!
OLLIE, please Ollie, don’t go.
Don’t die, Ollie.
I can’t look at him, and somehow time is running out.
He’s calling me.
NIALL—NIALL—NIALL; I can’t actually hear him, his voice isn’t audible, but I know he’s calling me.
I’m sobbing. I can’t see him. I won’t make it in time. My head is turning, but it’s in slow motion. I can’t see him, I need him, and everything is happening in slow motion. Panic has me in its claws, and if I could I’d grip my head in my hands and physically pivot my head with my hands, just to look at Ollie so I can save him, but even my hands are trapped in the slow-sludge of dreaming.
And then, just like that, time unsticks, and I can turn my head.
And there’s Ollie, lying in the battered bed of the blue Nissan. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t see me. His eyes, those beautiful brown eyes like melted chocolate, they’re dead and lifeless. Blood trickles out of his mouth. His forehead is smashed open, and I can see brain matter mingling with his blood on his cheekbone.
There’s blood, sticky, tacky, old blood, so dark as to be nearly black, pooling beneath him. His chest is ripped open. He’s freshly dead. Still warm. And the blood is now seeping out, trickling down his forehead, and I can hear the gushing whistle of his breath and the gurgle-gasp of blood in his throat, even though he’s dead. I’m hot. The heat from the sun is beating down on me, punishing me for letting Ollie die. For arguing about stupid music. For not paying attention to the road, not seeing the semi swerving toward us, clipping our front end, sending us spinning, tumbling.
We’re on the PCH, now. In the car. I see the semi, and I can’t do a damned thing. I watch the huge bumper of the semi smash into our hood, send us twisting, tumbling, flying, rolling. I watch in slow motion the moment Ollie flies out of the windshield. I see him hurtle through space, and the car is spinning and smashing against the
ground and rolling and landing upside down. And through the broken driver’s side window, I can see Ollie.
Limp.
Lifeless.
Bleeding.
Not dead yet.
And I have to get to him.
My seatbelt is locked, and everything hurts, and I have to get to Ollie, but I can’t.
I can’t.
I have to look at him, and then I can’t look away because now the slow-sludge of dreaming is back and I can’t look away.
And Ollie, he’s still dead.
Bu somehow he looks at me. His eyes roll and swivel and find me. He blinks, once.
He doesn’t say anything, but he judges me.
He hates me.
He blames me for killing him.
In real life, Oliver would never hate me, would never blame me, would never judge me.
But this is dead dream-Oliver.
And I cannot escape the baleful glare in his cold, dead eyes.
He bleeds, and hates me.
When I wake up I’m soaked with sweat, and I’m sobbing. My mouth is caked with thirst-effluvia, I’m so thirsty it hurts to swallow, and my head pounds, and I’m sobbing so hard I can’t breathe.
I collapse to the floor, thirst forgotten, and try to conjure up an image of Oliver when he was alive. The way he’d grin at me, knowingly. A grin that said later, after work was done, he’d get me naked in our little room on the MSF compound and he’d make love to me under a sheet, even if we were both dead tired from endless hours on our feet, even if we could barely walk, barely see. He’d make love to me, and his salt-and-pepper hair would fall in front of his eyes while he stared down at me.
“Oh god, honey,” he’d whisper to me. “I’m coming. Are you with me?”
“Yes…god, yes,” I’d whisper back.
“Niall, oh god, Niall, honey, I’m coming so hard…”
And I’d come with him, and we’d roll over when we were both finished and he’d wrap an arm around my middle and nestle his sticky, slackening manhood between the globes of my butt and wiggle as close as he could get, and we’d fall asleep like that.
Yours: A Standalone Contemporary Romance Page 9
