No Ordinary Day | Book 2 | No Ordinary Getaway

by Tate, Harley

  Emma cast a worried glance at Gloria. “Haven’t you heard? It’s not going to be a few days or weeks before the power is back on. It’s going to be years.”

  His smile faded. “Don’t think you need to go pulling my leg in the given situation, do you?”

  “I—I’m not.” Emma pressed on. “The solar flare killed the grid. We don’t have the capacity to build it back anytime soon. You need to be conserving your resources and convincing everyone in town to work together to find a way to prepare. You need to think long-term, not for the next couple of weeks, but the next couple of years.”

  “Well, if it’s all the same by you, we’ll keep taking it one day at a time.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but John grabbed her above the elbow and squeezed.

  The mayor’s tone shifted as he turned back to Gloria. “Now about that food and water.”

  Emma stayed silent as Gloria negotiated two full tanks of gas in exchange for two cases of water, a case of canned chicken, and two Costco-size boxes of energy bars. After handing the lock back over to the mayor, they piled back in the vehicles and pulled away from the farm, leaving the mayor and the woman with the rifle behind.

  When they disappeared from view, Emma turned to John. “Do you think most people are like that?”

  “Like what? Dressed like an extra in a Clint Eastwood western?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms, not in the mood for levity. “In not understanding the gravity of the situation. Thinking this is temporary.”

  “My guess is, yes they are. But eventually even the holdouts will have to come around.”

  “At least they didn’t shoot first this time.” Holly eased forward, bracing her hands on the seats. “Maybe we’ve just been unlucky. Maybe most people will still be reasonable if given a chance.”

  Emma sincerely hoped the teenager was right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Holly

  Apprehension grew like her hair in the humid air as they crossed the Mississippi state line. Raymond flashed his lights as he pulled over to the side of the road up ahead and Holly feigned sleep. She pulled Tank closer to her side, snuggling against his fur as the Jeep coasted to a stop.

  John and Emma quietly exited the vehicle and Holly exhaled a trapped breath. She rubbed Tank’s head behind his ears. “What if this whole thing is a huge mistake?” She nuzzled his fur, voice barely louder than a whisper. “What if my mom kicks me out before I’ve even said hello?”

  Holly looked up and shielded her eyes against the late afternoon sun. “Maybe I should’ve told them more. Explained how my mom left and never looked back.” Tank butted his head against her side. “She returned my letters when I was just a kid. Never sent me a birthday card. Never acknowledged I even existed.”

  She snuffed back a wave of snot. “But I had to do something, right? I had to be worth something. Emma and John don’t need some kid weighing them down. They only took me with them because I had nowhere to go. I’m nothing to them. Not family. Not even a friend. All I am is a pain in the butt. If I can’t give them somewhere safe to stay, why would they keep me around?”

  The door to the Jeep opened and Holly jumped.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Emma smiled as Tank nosed past her to hop out onto the ground.

  Holly stretched, pretending to wake up. “It’s okay. I could use a little break myself.” She hurried outside and relieved herself behind a row of scraggly bushes before meeting the others on the side of the road.

  As she tightened her ponytail, Raymond walked over. “You’re sure you know how to get to your mom’s place?”

  Holly nodded. “We’ll have to take state highway 32 until we reach town, but I know how to get there.” She cast a sheepish smile at the ground. “I might stalk it a bit too much on Google Earth.”

  Emma reached out and patted Holly on the back. She bristled but didn’t shake her off. She hated how weak she came across, how helpless. If she failed to give them a place to stay… She shook her head to clear the thought. It’ll work. It has to.

  They drove the rest of the way into middle Mississippi, past an old farmhouse with a falling down barn, a trimmed field dotted with cows, and on through the cloying stench of pig farming. Holly directed John to turn onto the main road leading into Valleyville, Mississippi. It was just as Holly remembered it from the Internet.

  Turn-of-the-century houses lined Main Street, all in varying degrees of disrepair. One house with a wraparound porch tilted to the right like old Mrs. Tenenbaum, Holly’s fifth-grade teacher. Another sagged in the middle, porch steps dusting the ground.

  A woman swept the cracked concrete path leading to a small bungalow on the corner. She stared as they drove through and unease lifted the hairs on Holly’s arm. She pulled her sleeves down to cover her fingers before pointing at the upcoming stop sign. “Turn left at the ‘welcome to Valleyville’ sign.”

  It was one of those murals painted during some brief revitalization, years before Holly was born. The promise of the bright red letters fading and chipping as the decades stretched on. Did it look as sad and broken to the town residents as it did to Holly?

  She straightened up in the seat as John turned the corner. “Just keep driving. It’s the last house up on the hill.”

  As they drove past the closed barbershop and a vacant diner, they left the last dregs of town behind. The road rose with the terrain and the house, all six bedrooms and five baths according to Zillow, rose with it. Even from the distance the lights twinkling in the windows caught Holly off guard. Did they have power here?

  Unlike the peeling paint and mildewed siding of the houses in town, the house on the hill practically gleamed. They neared the end of the road, cracked asphalt giving way to cobblestones.

  John slowed as they neared a small house with white clapboard siding and black trim. Holly waved him on. “This is the guesthouse. Main house is the big one up the hill.”

  Holly’s fingers trembled as she clutched them in her lap. John pulled the Jeep into a large turnaround in front of the home and Holly sucked in a deep breath.

  Memories of her mother filled her mind. The heady floral scent of perfume that tickled Holly’s nose and conjured a headache behind her eyes. The sharp smell of vodka mixed with orange juice in the morning. The constant criticism. The never-ending fights with her father.

  She reached for the door handle and stepped out onto the pea gravel lining the turnaround as Raymond parked beside the Jeep. Her sneakers crunched across the ground, muffled from the sound of a generator running along the side of the house.

  Curtains fluttered in the window. Holly’s heart leapt to her throat.

  She climbed the stairs, feet slowing like lead wrapped around her ankles. Pink and yellow flowers cascaded out of twin pots flanking the front door. Her mother never gardened when she was little. Said it was too dirty. Not ladylike. Every skinned knee. Every ask to play catch. All the same. Holly wasn’t the daughter her mother wanted.

  She reached up, about to knock, when the front door swung open.

  Mom. Holly stared at the woman in front of her, almost unrecognizable with her dyed blonde hair and understated makeup. She flashed a hesitant smile, glancing past Holly toward the vehicles in the drive. Diamond studs in her ears caught the light and dazzled.

  “Can I help you?”

  Holly opened her mouth. “I, um, I...”

  Her mother frowned. “I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in anything you have to sell. Didn’t you see the no soliciting sign out front?”

  “I’m not selling anything, I—” Holly stammered, embarrassment filling the void shock left behind. She doesn’t recognize me. Her own daughter. So much for all the movies of parents taking one look at a long-lost child and bursting into tears.

  Her mother palmed her hip, annoyance growing. “Well, we certainly aren’t in the business of giving handouts. If you’re from town, I already told the mayor—”

  “Mom.”

  “E
xcuse me?”

  She swallowed. “It’s me, Holly.”

  Her mother blinked, brow furrowing into a single, plucked line. “That’s not possible. Holly’s got to be no more than twelve. You, you’re” she waved at her, “practically an adult.”

  “I’m fifteen. And it’s me. I’m your daughter.”

  Her mother leaned around her, scanning the parking lot. “Where’s that good-for-nothing father of yours?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Holly expected a reaction. Shock, maybe a curse. But not indifference. Her mother turned back to her, face a stone impasse. “Then I don’t see how I can do anything for you.”

  “There’s someone after us. Someone bad. My friends and I... need some place to stay.”

  She hated how her voice sounded. She hated asking this woman for anything. Why did I come here? Why did I think it might be different now?

  “Well, I can’t do that.” Her mother’s hand fluttered around her collar bone. “We aren’t equipped for guests.”

  “It’s life or death, Mom. I wouldn’t be here if I had anywhere else to go.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” Emma climbed the porch to stand beside Holly and stuck out her hand. “My name’s Emma Cross. I’m a researcher at CropForward. I worked with your ex, Zach.”

  Her eyes roved up and down, taking in every inch of Emma’s body before resting somewhere south of her eyes. “Were you part of that ridiculous complaint, too? When I saw Zachary on the news...” She shook her head in disapproval.

  Emma dropped her hand and her polite tone. “Someone murdered him.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Holly interjected. “They’re still after us.”

  “Then why the hell did you come here?” Her mother gripped the doorjamb and leaned out to stare at the vehicles like they might transform into robots and launch an attack. “You’ve got to leave, now.”

  Holly reached for Emma. It was no use. Her mother was never going to change. She was never going to be anything more than a painful reminder of everything Holly never had. “I’m sorry. I never should have brought you here. This was a mistake.”

  “You’re damn right it was. Bringing a pile of strangers to my house after all these years. Risking my safety for what?”

  “With all due respect, Mrs.—”

  “Scott.” Holly’s mother stepped back and reached for the door. “I’m sorry, but I think we’re done here.”

  “No! You haven’t even given your daughter a chance. You hear her father’s been murdered and you don’t care? What kind of a mother are you?”

  Holly’s cheeks flamed and she reached for Emma. “Please, don’t. It’s not worth it.”

  “That’s the first sensible thing out of your mouth.” The door began to close.

  “Mrs. Scott! You can’t just shut us out!” Emma stepped forward, about to wedge her foot in the doorway, when a man’s voice carried outside.

  “Hon? What’s going on?”

  A pair of cowboy boots descended the stairs behind Holly’s mother, and a man straight out of one of the westerns Holly used to watch with her dad on lazy Sunday afternoons emerged. He smiled and the wrinkles around his eyes deepened. “Is there something you folks need help with?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Emma

  Emma refused to believe a woman would willingly disown her own child in a time of need. She stepped forward, about to give the man she presumed to be her husband a piece of her mind, but Holly grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

  She smiled at Emma before turning to the man. “Hi, sir. My name is Holly Klein. I’m Sandra’s daughter.”

  The man’s eyes widened for a moment and he glanced at his wife. “Sandy? Is that true?”

  Holly’s mother barely held back a scowl. “That’s what she says.”

  “You don’t recognize your own daughter?”

  “It’s been a long time. For all I know, she’s some random girl who knows our name.”

  The man wiped his hand down his plaid cotton shirt and stuck it out toward Holly. “Vincent Scott. It’s a pleasure to meet you, young lady.”

  Holly took his hand and shook. “You, too.”

  He glanced at his wife, who still stood clutching the doorjamb like it would save her from the reality of having a child. “Why haven’t you invited them in?”

  “Because they’ve asked to stay. We certainly cannot have that.”

  Vincent turned, one eyebrow arched toward the ceiling. “Why on earth not? She’s family.”

  Holy’s mother waved out at the turn around. “But they aren’t. For goodness sakes, Vince, they have a dog.” She pointed at Pringles, who yipped and ran in circles around Gloria’s feet.

  “And we have a guesthouse.” He reached out for Sandra, pulling her away from the doorjamb and into his arms. “The sun just set, hon. The least we can do is offer the guesthouse for the night.” Vincent turned to Holly. “You and your friends are welcome to stay the night. We can talk about tomorrow in the morning.”

  Holly smiled in relief. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Call me Vince.”

  Emma reached out her hand to Vince. “I’m Emma Cross. Thank you so much for letting us stay the night.”

  Vince nodded. “If you drive your vehicles to the house back by the road, I’ll bring the key. I warn you, it hasn’t been aired out in a while. The generator only powers the main house I’m afraid, but there are some candles in the kitchen.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be more than fine.”

  Holly smiled. “Thank you, again.”

  Vince smiled back and his dark eyes twinkled. “I’ve always wanted to meet Sandy’s family. Now it seems even more important.” He stepped back. “I’ll meet you down there in two shakes.”

  Relief flooded through Emma as she reached for Holly’s hand. She gave it a squeeze as they walked back to the Jeep together.

  John waited until they were inside to start the engine. “Where to?”

  “The house at the front of the drive.”

  “They said yes?”

  Holly nodded. “At least for tonight.”

  Emma twisted around to face the teenager. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry you had to deal with my mom. I should’ve known she wouldn’t want me here.”

  Emma shrugged. “Vince seems reasonable.”

  “Better than my mom at any rate.” Holly fell silent as John pulled up to the dark guesthouse.

  Emma wished there was some way to lessen the sting of her mother’s rejection, but nothing came to mind. If Vince agreed to let them stay…

  As everyone piled out of the vehicles, Vince rode up on a small four-wheeler.

  “Don’t like to use the gas, but it’s such a long drive and the horses are already bedded down for the night.” He hopped off, dangling a set of keys. “Let’s see what we can do here.”

  He rooted through the keys until he found the right one and stepped up to the front door. As the door unlocked, Vince turned back to Holly. “I’m sorry, hon, I should have asked. Would you rather sleep up in the main house tonight? I don’t have room for everyone, but you could come up if you’d like.”

  Holly smiled. “That’s okay. I’ll be fine here.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  She nodded. “I don’t think my mom would appreciate it but thank you.”

  The lines between Vince’s eyebrows deepened, but he didn’t say any more on the subject. “There are candles in the kitchen. Running water since we have an off-grid well, and enough beds for everyone, I think. A couple might have to share.” He smiled in accommodation. “Hope that’s all right.”

  Emma stepped forward. “It’s more than all right. Thank you again for letting us stay.”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t ever turn family away. I’ll see you all in the morning.”

  Holly stood on the porch, watching Vince as he drove the ATV back up the long drive and disappeared behind the
house.

  “He seems nice.” Emma practically tasted the disappointment swirling around Holly. To be rejected by her mother when she needed her most wasn’t fair. “I’m sorry your mom wasn’t the same way.”

  “I’ve had years to get used to it.” Holly eased past her to head inside the house.

  Gloria cast a meaningful glance at Emma as she slipped in behind the teenager. “Holly, sweetie, how about you and I take stock of this kitchen and see what we can do about something to eat?”

  John stopped beside Emma on the porch. “Was it as bad as it looked from the car?”

  “Worse.” Emma rubbed her arms even though she wasn’t cold. “That mother of hers is a piece of work. Didn’t even recognize her at first, can you believe it? Her own daughter.”

  “Even though my mom died when I was young, I was still lucky, I guess. When she was alive, she’d have done anything for me.”

  Emma nodded. “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right.”

  They headed inside the house with Tank right behind them.

  True to his word, Vince arrived atop a beautiful chestnut mare early the next morning. Emma met him on the porch where she’d been sitting since sunrise, thinking through how to explain their situation.

  He dismounted with a smile. “Thought you all might be hungry.” He pulled a bag of oats and what looked like fresh peaches from the pouch attached to his saddle and handed them across to Emma. She took a whiff of the fruit and her stomach rumbled. “I haven’t had a fresh piece of fruit in days.”

  “First of the season. We have a crop of peaches that always comes early when it’s a warm spring.”

  He leaned against the porch railing and waited as she set the bags inside. “So how did you and Holly wind up together if you don’t mind my asking. You aren’t family from her father’s side, I take it?”

  “No.” Emma shivered against the morning chill. “I worked with her father as a research scientist. We were scheduled to testify before Congress.”

  “That seed debate? That was you?”