“Your friend must not live close. I’m sure I would remember this truck,” Jack said, walking around it.
“Do you have time to go look at Kara’s car, Jack? If you don’t, we’ll have to drive over to Marshall and ask Kevin,” Danny said, getting impatient. He was supposed to have been back almost an hour ago, but until he knew that Kara would be safe, he couldn’t leave.
“Sure, no problem,” Jack said, walking back over to them. “We’ll take the tow-truck just in case.”
***Kara***
Kara hadn’t really been paying attention to the conversation going on around her. Instead she’d been trying to reconcile the picture her mother had painted of Gypsum Creek and the reality of what she was seeing. She’d expected a small town, but this wasn’t even really a town: it was just a wide spot in the road.
Then she realized that it was the end of the road, that after Gypsum Creek there was nothing but rolling mountains as far as she could see. Fighting down panic, she reminded herself that it would be almost impossible for Sebastian or his men to find her here.
But she hated the fact that there was only one way in and out of town, that she was trapped here. Focusing her attention on the two men, she heard Jack say that they’d take the tow-truck and her heart sank.
“Do you really think that will be necessary? I mean, it’s just a radiator hose. Maybe we could use some tape or something to fix it,” she said, making both men turn and look at her.
Jack smiled at her. “I think it might take a bit more than that,” he said, then nudged Danny and grinned at him.
Kara knew she should be insulted, but she was more concerned with the dwindling balance in her bank account. “I don’t have much money,” she finally admitted.
Jack waved his hand in the air. “Don’t worry about that, we’ll work something out. I’m sure you have something you can trade.”
Kara wasn’t so sure about that idea, but she didn’t really have much choice. “Well, okay I guess that would work,” she said, wondering what she had that Jack might want besides money.
Blocking the obvious answer from her mind, she waited with Danny while Jack went and got the tow-truck. When he came barreling around the corner, smoke pouring out of the tailpipe of a rusted-out wrecker, she stepped back in shock, thinking that there was no way she was getting inside the thing.
Danny looked over at her and grinned “It’s been in his family for fifty years.”
Kara wasn’t sure why that was a good thing, but she managed to smile back at him and say, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
When the truck came to a halt in front of them, she hesitated, but Danny jumped up into the cab then reached out for her hand. One very bumpy ride later, they were back at her car, Jack shaking his head and grumbling under his breath.
“I can’t fix it here, and I’m not sure I have a hose for this car; we’ll have to tow it back,” he finally said.
Kara’s heart sank; now she’d have to pay for a room and wait while the car was fixed. She’d been planning to sleep in the car until she found Jessie, but now that wasn’t going to work. At the rate she was going, the money she’d so carefully saved wasn’t going to last long.
By the time they pulled back into town, her car hooked up to the tow-truck, she was ready for a few minutes alone. As soon as they were out of the truck, she asked, “Is there a restroom I can use?”
“Oh, sure, just inside and down the hallway,” Jack said, then began unhooking her car.
She knew that Danny was watching her, knew that her voice was strained. “I’ll be right back,” she managed to say, holding back her tears.
As soon as the bathroom door was closed, she burst into tears thinking that she’d spent way too much time that day crying. But she was exhausted, the good night’s sleep she’d gotten long ago used up on the drive up here, the car pushing her over her limit.
When she finally managed to get control of her emotions, she came out of the bathroom to find Danny waiting for her. He looked as embarrassed as she felt, but smiled at her and asked, “Are you okay?”
She took a deep shuttering breath, wondering how his simple concern could make her want to cry again. “I’m just tired; I guess I need to check into the hotel for the night.”
Danny looked at her for a minute, then said, “We don’t have a hotel in town.”
Kara was sure that she was going to cry again, but then she realized that it was a good thing. “I’ll just sleep in my car then.”
Danny looked shocked. “You can’t sleep in your car,” he said.
“I’ve done it before,” she said, without even thinking, relieved that she wouldn’t have to spend money on a hotel room.
Danny stared at her for a minute, then shook his head, “No way, you’ll just have to come home with me.”
It was Kara’s turn to be shocked. “You want me to go home with you?”
“Sure,” he said, then when he realized what she was thinking, his face turned scarlet. “I didn’t mean... I don’t live there alone... There are other people.”
Kara couldn’t help but smile. Danny couldn’t have been much younger than she was, but he had an innocence that she found attractive. “Okay, I’ll come home with you,” she said, laughing when he blushed an even deeper shade of red.
Chapter Three
***Danny***
Danny’s heart was pounding in his chest, from both embarrassment and from having Kara in the truck with him. She still smelled like sugar cookies, and for once he wished his sense of smell wasn’t so strong, that he could just block it out. But the longer they were closed-up together, the more it began to get to him.
Before long, he was having visions of kissing her, of her kissing him back. His body responding to those thoughts began to tingle and grow warm, so he tried to think of something else.
When Jessie popped into his mind, he cringed. He was supposed to have been back hours ago, and he was sure that everyone would be worried. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d gone into town and was bringing a stranger back to Swenson’s mountain. Realizing how much trouble he was going to be in, thoughts of Kara vanished from his mind.
Jessie had been teasing him for days about a special job he had for him, and he was thinking that it was going to be cleaning the barn. But this morning after breakfast, instead of heading out to the fields, he’d taken Danny behind the cabin and pointed to the forest.
At first, Danny wasn’t sure what he was supposed to see, but then he looked harder and saw that there was a road through the trees. He followed Jessie up a slight incline and past some big boulders and then it was impossible not to see the road for what it was.
“I didn’t know there was a road up here,” he said stepping onto the road. “Why don’t you use it?”
“I do, just not that often,” Jessie said with a smile. “I also have a truck I don’t use very often.”
Danny turned to look at him, surprised. “What? A truck. Where?”
“That’s what you’re about to find out. I want you to go over to Marshall and pick it up, then we’ll fill it full of all those vegetables we picked and take it back over there and sell them,” Jessie said.
Danny couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you serious?”
Jessie nodded. “I’ve been doing it for a few years now. I’ve always got more than I can eat, so I figured why not make a little money. This year you can do the selling,” he said, throwing the keys to the truck to Danny.
Danny looked down at the keys in his hand and began to grin. No working out in the garden for him today. “So, where is this truck?” he asked, excitement flooding him.
Jessie handed him some directions and pointed out a path. “If you follow this trail, it will take you right there; it’s not much more than eight miles, so if you shift, it won’t take you long.”
Danny’s excitement heightened; since he’d moved onto the mountain with Sophie and Jessie, he’d been too exhausted to shift. But anticipation rushed throu
gh him and in only a few seconds he’d shifted, his wolf side emerging as a wave of power rushed through him.
In a flash, he’d bounded into the forest, the sound of Jessie’s laughter following him. Finding the truck had been no problem; it was parked right inside a barn just like Jessie had promised. When he saw it, he couldn’t believe his eyes; it was the truck of any man’s dreams: a restored 1950 Ford truck in the perfect shade of blue.
“Who else lives with you?” Kara asked, startling him out of his thoughts.
“Oh, umm, well, I might have forgotten to mention that I live with Jessie Rayburn and his new wife, Sophie,” he said, stealing a glance at her.
Her eyes got big, and she looked over at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t know if this is a good idea,” she said, clearly upset by his news which confused him.
“I thought that you came here to see him.”
Kara nodded, “I did but not like this; he doesn’t know I’m coming.”
“But if you’re a friend of the family, I think he’ll be glad to see you,” Danny said, still confused. “How do you know him anyway?”
Kara sighed, “I don’t really; his mother knew my mother.”
Danny let that sink in, trying to remember anything he’d heard about Jessie’s mother, coming up only with the fact that she’d abandoned him and his brother when they were just babies. That was when he realized that Jessie might not be happy to meet this woman, that he might not want to be reminded of the mother who’d turned her back on him.
“Oh, well, I guess that makes sense then,” he said, even more nervous than before. “Maybe you should let me tell him who you are; he might...”
“Not want to meet me,” Kara finished for him.
Danny nodded, “He doesn’t ever talk about his mother or his father.”
Kara was silent for the rest of the trip, and he was beginning to wonder if he’d made a mistake bringing her home with him. But then he remembered that the alternative would have been letting her sleep in her car and knew that he’d had no choice. He just hoped that Jessie would see it the same way.
When they pulled up behind the house, Jessie was pacing back and forth at the end of the road waiting for him. “Where have you been?” he asked, as soon as Danny opened the door.
“I ran into a little bit of trouble,” he said, going around and helping Kara out of the truck.
Jessie opened his mouth to say something, but the sight of Kara made him shut it. He narrowed his eyes at Danny and asked, “What kind of trouble?”
***Kara***
Kara couldn’t believe that she was standing only a few feet away from Jessie, the brother she’d hadn’t known she had until her mother was dying. Since her mother had told her about him, she wondered what he was like, had wished that she’d grown up knowing him. For two years, she’d imagined what this moment would be like, but it was nothing like she’d imagined.
Jessie looked very upset that she was here, and she wished that she’d just stayed in town. It was just her luck that the one person who stopped to help her knew Jessie, lived with him. She’d planned to discreetly find him, find out more about him before she introduced herself. The lie she’d cooked up had only been a cover, a way to find out about him without revealing who she really was.
Now she was faced with a decision: tell him right now who she was or continue with the lie. Looking at Jessie’s face, the decision seemed easy, stick to her lie and get out of here as fast as she could. She’d still pass along her mother’s message, she had to, but after that, she’d walk away.
Disappointment washed over her; she’d hoped that finding Jessie would be the answer to her problems, that he’d understand what she was and help her. It had never occurred to her that he might not want to hear about their mother; to Kara, she’d been a loving and caring parent. But Jessie had never known her, had never known what a wonderful person she was.
Thinking about it, she couldn’t blame him. If she’d been abandoned, she’d probably be angry too, but there was more going on here, some reason why Jessie was so angry that Danny had brought her up here.
“This is Kara; her car broke down over by the old Morgan place,” Danny started to explain.
“So why is she here?” Jessie asked, his face hard.
“Jack can’t fix her car until he gets the parts from Nashville.”
There was a long silence as Jessie seemed to be getting his anger under control. “Are you telling me that you took the truck into town?”
Danny nodded, “I had to give Kara a ride.”
The look on Jessie’s face was so fierce that she wanted to step behind Danny, but she stood her ground. “I told him that I’d sleep in my car, but he insisted I come home with him,” she said, her voice a little shaky.
Jessie blew a big breath out through his nose. “That would have been a better idea,” he said, then turned when a female voice rang out through the forest.
“Jessie Rayburn, are you being rude to our guest,” a beautiful woman said as she came around the corner.
She could see Danny relax. “Sophie, this is Kara; her car broke down, and she needs someplace to stay until it’s fixed.”
Sophie studied her for a second, then said, “Well, then why are we standing out here? Dinner is almost ready; I’ll just set another place at the table. Kara, you can tell us all about you while we eat. I’m sure we can find someplace for you to sleep tonight.”
Kara was so relieved to see a friendly face, she felt the tears welling up in her eyes again. Taking a deep breath, she pushed them away and said, “Thank you, I’m sorry to be such a burden. I could have slept in my car.”
“Nonsense, we have plenty of room; it’s nothing fancy, but it’ll be better than your car,” Sophie said, then added, “Let’s go eat before the food gets cold.”
Kara didn’t move though, still not sure about Jessie, but then Danny took her hand and pulled her forward. “It will be okay. Sophie has a way of calming Jessie, and he’s not really a bad guy, he’s just mad at me for being gone so long and going into town,” he whispered as they made their way toward the cabin.
When they got inside, it was warm, and the smell of food made her stomach begin to growl loudly. Sophie bustled around the little kitchen, setting another place at the table and dishing up the food. She set it on the table then waited while everyone sat down.
“We eat very simply here, but there’s lots of it,” Sophie said, handing Kara a bowl of fresh green beans.
They filled their plates and ate in silence until Sophie asked, “So, what brings you to Gypsum Creek?”
Kara froze with a bite half-way to her mouth; as hungry as she was, suddenly her stomach hurt. But everyone was staring at her, so she said, “I came here to visit a family friend.”
There was a long silence at the table and she knew now was the time to tell Jessie that she’d come up here to see him. “I, umm, well I came up here to see you, Jessie,” she said, her heart hammering in her chest, the blood pounding through her veins.
Jessie set the bite that had been on the way to his mouth back down on his plate and stared at her. “Me?” he finally asked.
She nodded her head, trying to decide if she should tell the truth or stick to the lie she’d already told. In the end, the look on his face made her decision. “My mother knew yours, and she wanted to pass on a message to you,” she said, then added very quietly, “She died about two years ago.”
Jessie pushed back his chair and got up from the table. “I didn’t have a mother, and I’m not interested in what she had to say,” he said, then turned and walked out the door.
They sat in stunned silence for several long minutes, then Sophie got to her feet and headed for the door. “I think dinner is over for tonight. I’ll go after him, but you should have said something sooner,” she said, then disappeared outside.
Kara felt terrible, knew that she’d blown her only chance to get to know her brother. “I guess this was a mistake; maybe you should take
me back to town.”
Chapter Four
***Danny***
Danny had known that Jessie wouldn’t react well to Kara’s presence on the mountain, but he’d never imagined that he’d run away. “It’s okay, he’ll come back,” he said, not as sure as he sounded.
“But I don’t want to upset him. I’ll just leave,” Kara said, getting to her feet. “I can walk back if you don’t want to drive me.”
“You’re not going anywhere yet,” Danny said. “Give Jessie a few minutes to come around; Sophie will talk some sense into him.”
Kara looked at him skeptically but got up and started clearing the table. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
Danny wanted to pull her into his arms and hug her, she looked so forlorn. But instead, he said, “Jessie is a good man; he’ll see that you didn’t mean any harm.”
They were just finishing the last of the pots and pans when Jessie and Sophie came back inside. Jessie didn’t look quite as angry as he had before, and Danny was relieved. “We cleaned up the dishes and put the left-overs in the fridge,” he said when they came in the door.
“Thank you,” Sophie said. “Jessie has something he wants to say.”
She looked over at Jessie, who took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry I stormed out, but I really don’t want to know or hear anything about my mother. I know it’s not your fault, Kara; it was just a bit of a shock. We’d be happy to have you stay with us until your car is fixed.”
Jessie looked over at Sophie, who smiled at him and nodded her head, then said, “It’s nothing fancy, but we have a nice room in the barn; there’s heat and running water so you should be comfortable there.”
Danny felt relief wash over him; Sophie had been able to talk some sense into Jessie just like he’d promised. Kara seemed to relax a little too. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. Thank you for letting me stay. I’ll be gone as soon as my car is fixed.”
Triumph (Wolves 0f Gypsum Creek Book 2) Page 2
