Capture (24 page)

What was wrong with me?
Just because Hayden had grown up and become a total hottie didn’t change who he was. This was my long time best friend here. Just because
I’d
always secretly imagined us becoming more didn’t mean Hayden thought of me as anything other than a friend. And besides, how could I possibly still be wishing for more when we’d only just repaired our friendship?

Thankfully h
e didn’t seem to notice my awkwardness as he checked that Pamela and I were both ready before he started the engine. A quick confirmation on the walkie talkie with Bud to be sure the bus was ready to get going again, and then we were on our way once more.

Only this time I couldn’t seem to relax
no matter how much I told my muscles to. Every cell in my body kept alternating between a crazy, wild joy at our physical closeness, followed immediately by a terrible longing for more. My left hand itched to slide over from my lap onto his thigh so I could feel the muscles bunching and relaxing beneath that worn denim as the traffic forced him to ignore the cruise control button and manually speed up then slow down. Every bump in the road that caused my shoulder to nudge against his made me yearn to nestle more fully against his side and rest my head on that shoulder’s hard muscles, muscles I had watched in action from a distance way too many times at countless basketball games over the years.

Being this close to him was both wonderful and torture all at the same time.

But at least some of the truck’s passengers had no problem with the new arrangement. Some combination of stress and maybe the act of healing too had worn Pamela out. She started softly snoring in seconds. I couldn’t see Kristina’s mother to see if she was sleeping too.

“
If you get sleepy, feel free to take a nap if you want,” Hayden murmured suddenly, making me jump.

But there was no headrest for the center of the seat.
My only pillow would have to be the top of the seat itself, and resting my head on it would only result in a bad crick in my neck. “It’s okay. I’ll just wait till we get to your grandma’s.”

One thick eyebrow rose.
“If you need a headrest, my right shoulder’s not hurt, you know.”

“
Oh. Right. Thanks.” I swallowed hard.

“
You okay?” He glancing at me with a frown.

“
Uh, sure, why wouldn’t I be?” My smile felt stupid and overly bright even to me. I was acting like an idiot.

It’s just Hayden
, I reminded myself.

To prove to myself that everything was normal between us, I tilted my head to the left, resting it against the hard curve of his shoulder.
A sigh slipped out through my nose, and my face burned again.

“
Tired?” he asked.

I nodded, not trusting how my voice might sound if I tried to speak right now.

“Then sleep, Tarah.” He sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “I promise I’ll wake you up if anything worth reporting happens.”

I
smiled. “Okay.” I hesitated, my smile fading, then had to say it. “Hayden, for what it’s worth…I’m sorry I got you involved in all of this.”

Silence for a long minute.
“Don’t worry about it. It was worth it.”

I closed my eyes,
and the need for sleep won.

When I woke up some time later, I could practically hear Hayden’s thoughts churning.

“What are you thinking about?” I mumbled, comfy and warm, unwilling to move yet wanting to hear his reassuring voice for awhile.

He hesitated before replying,
“When did you wake up?”

“
Just now. You didn’t answer my question.”

He hesitated again, and the fog of sleep slipped further away from the edges of my mind.
Now I really wanted to know what was going on inside that head of his.

“
You. I was thinking about you.” His voice sounded gruff. Embarrassed?

“
Oh?” I smiled, glad he probably couldn’t see my face right now since I was still leaning against his shoulder.

“
Yeah, I was just wondering if…”

“
Mmm?”

“
If you…still sleep with stuffed animals. You know, since you’re using me like a giant teddy bear here.” Definite humor in his voice now.

I glanced down and realized I’d wrapped
my right arm across his waist at some point in my sleep.

I sat up straight.
“Sorry!”

He chuckled.
“It’s all right. Actually, it was kind of nice. Made me feel all soft and squishy, and a little furry too…”

I
lightly swatted his arm, grinning in embarrassment. “Yeah, yeah, enough with the Teddy jokes. I haven’t slept with him in years.” This was what I got for oversharing with Hayden when we were kids. He would never let me live it down now.

“
Well, since you’re up now, Sleeping Beauty, why don’t you take a look outside?”

T
he weather must have gotten even colder the further north we’d traveled, because white flakes began to fall. Growing up in East Texas, we saw snow maybe once or twice a year at best.

“
It’s snowing!” It was hard to keep my voice down, especially with the way the flakes were pelting the windshield as we drove straight into the wind. “Oh wow, that is beautiful. Look how huge those flakes are. They look like chicken feathers.”

Hayden’s left hand jerked on the wheel, and I felt the back end of the truck get squirrelly.
His whole body tensed up as he grabbed the wheel with both hands and hissed out a curse. The truck righted itself as he let off of the gas a little.

“
Sorry. Road’s getting slick,” he muttered. “Better warn Bud. We’ll have to slow down till the roads clear up.”

If they cleared up.
After all, we were headed almost straight north in December. The weather and the roads might both get worse from here on out.

I grabbed the walkie talkie and warned Bud.

“Can you also check to be sure they’re all belted in back there?” he asked, nodding towards the backseat.

“
Sure.” Twisting, I leaned over the seat to help get Kristina and her mother belted in.

Beside me, Pamela stirred, yawned then frowned.
“What’s going on? Is Kristina okay?”

“
She’s fine,” I told her over my shoulder. “Just belting them in since the roads are getting bad.”

“
Thanks,” Hayden told me when I was done. “Don’t forget to put your belt back on too.”

Twisting back around to face the front again, I followed orders then gave him a snarky salute with a grin
to try and keep the tension in the cab down. “Aye aye captain. Copilot secured.”

“
Are you sassing me?” he said, trying to joke but completely failing to hide the tightness in his tone as the wheel jerked beneath his hands again. He let our speed drop to ten miles under the limit.

The back end of the truck slid sideways again.
Hayden whispered another curse then winced as we heard a small voice cry out from the back seat, “Mommy?”

“
Shh, honey, it’s okay,” Pamela murmured, turning to look over the seat at her patient.

But Kristina wasn’t soothed.
She wanted her mother and fought to sit up despite Pamela’s murmured pleas for her to stay down.

“
Mommy, I’m scared,” Kristina whimpered, wrapping her arms around her mother.

One of her mother’s hands drifted up to stroke her daughter’s arm.
Then the woman began to hum something. It took me a half minute to recognize the song as “
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
”. Kristina must have heard it a lot; she managed to stop crying and stumbled through singing along with her mother.

Hayden glanced at me, his eyes wide as he realized Kristina’s mother was finally starting to come out of her zombie-like state.
Then he had to refocus on the road as the gathering ice pellets turned the interstate into an endless hockey rink with our too light ended truck trying its hardest to be the puck.

By the time we had to merge onto I-229, Hayden’s knuckles had turned white and his jaw muscles had knotted.

Then we spotted the cop cars blocking the road up ahead, their lights flashing.

I swallowed hard, praying Hayden was right about his father not turning him in and tracking us down. If he was wrong and Senator Shepherd had called in the locals to help intercept us…

But before we reached the cops, other lights brightened the night…large, electronic road signs warning that I-229 was closed due to icy conditions and all traffic was to detour onto
Minnesota Ave. I sighed in relief as Hayden took the exit I could now see the cops directing everyone towards.

“
Can you reroute the GPS and find us a new way to Grandma Letty’s?” he said.

I fiddled with the GPS for a minute.
“Okay, it looks like we can take 14th Street to Phillips, and then to 10th Street and cut across that way.”

But
10th Street was where it got confusing. Just as Hayden was about to take a right onto it, I shrieked, “Stop, it’s a one way!”

Hayden hit the brakes, muttering a curse.

From the backseat, we heard, “Ooo, Mommy, he said a bad word!”

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing at him.

“Keep going straight,” I said.

When the light turned green, Hayden headed straight.
“Okay, now what?”

I zoomed out on the map.
“Um, just keep going straight. I’m trying to find a place for us to turn around.”

So we kept going straight as building after building of rose
-colored stone passed by. White Christmas lights wrapped around old fashioned street lamps would have made the drive a nice one, if we weren’t lost and tired and hiding from the law. Not to mention the ice pellets still pelting the windshield and making it tough to read the street signs.

“
Tarah? Got a new route yet?” Hayden grumbled.

“
Working on it,” I snapped. “Just keep going straight. There’s a place to turn around up ahead.”

The buildings ended, and we drove beneath a metal arch.
I could barely make out the words “Sioux Falls Park.”

The ice pellets stopped falling just as we headed underneath a metal railroad bridge.
As the road curved sharply to the left, the view ahead burst into life with countless numbers of Christmas lights.

“
Turn right here,” I whispered.

We’d reached the waterfalls for which the city had been named.

As we viewed the area, lit up by display after display of
animated lights in white and gold and green and red, I suddenly realized. It was almost Christmas.

“
Look, Momma,” Kristina whispered in the backseat.

I didn’t trust myself to speak, afraid my voice would come out all choked up.
After everything our group had gone through, the combined sight of the snow-covered grounds all lit up like a winter wonderland, falling away into the icy waterfalls, was almost too much to believe. It was like waking from a too long nightmare into a fantasy fairytale.

“
Good detour?” I asked.

“
Yeah. Good detour.” Hayden returned my smile with one of his own.

Behind us, the bus rocked a little, probably from everyone rushing over to look out the right side windows at the falls.

“Hey, Hayden, everything all right up there?” Bud asked through the walkie talkie.

“
Yeah,” Hayden said, clearing his throat as his voice came out in a croak. “Don’t let anyone out. We won’t be here long enough for that. We’re just turning around. But let’s give them a couple more minutes.”

Hayden reclipped the walkie talkie onto his belt then leaned back, staring out the windows at the sight before us.
Without looking at me, his hand slid over to hold mine. Surprised at the gesture and a little confused by it too, I wanted to look down at our hands laced together on my thigh but was afraid doing so might break the moment. So I simply squeezed his hand and kept staring at the color changing lights that turned the ice draped waterfalls red then green then blue, grateful to be here in this moment with him.

Something tightened so hard in my chest that it was almost a struggle to breathe.
I wanted to memorize every detail of this moment so I would never forget it. I tried to remember what Jeremy had said about using all five senses so I could be a good reporter. But all I could see was the surreal beauty of the winter wonderland, and all I could feel was that strong hand, so large compared to my own, heating up my skin everywhere we made contact.

After another few minutes, Hayden sighed
, eased his hand from mine and reached for the walkie talkie again. “Okay, Bud, let’s get going.”