Holiday Homecoming

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 front 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?”