Chapter Seven #3
Thankfully the road is paved. The hail stops after another minute, rain already slowing.
Wes drops his window and leans out, breathing in the familiar scent of rain and dust and grass that lingers on the air.
“See? I told you we’d be fine. Done it a million times,” he says, clapping one hand on my thigh again.
I’m about to tell him to keep his hands to himself when his grip tightens sharply at the same time he slams on the brakes.
Our skid stops all of ten feet from a swiftly moving river of water where the road should be.
It’s at least fifty feet across and deep enough to touch the bottom of the speed limit sign.
Another few seconds and we’d have been swept away.
“Fuck.” Wes goes pale, his mouth a thin line. “You okay?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the water—or his hand off my leg where his fingers dig into my thigh. “Couldn’t see it until we came over the hill.”
“I’m fine.” I swallow hard, fighting the rush of adrenaline spiking in my veins. “You want to listen to me about turning around now? No way we make it through that.”
“No, not with how fast it’s moving.” Wes squeezes my thigh one more time, sending little sparks careening through my body before he moves his hand to the gear shift.
His fingers tighten around it, knuckles white, and he lets out a long breath before he looks at me.
“I’m sorry. You were right. I got caught up in the chase and should have listened earlier. That could have been…bad.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “It could have. Do it again and you’re on the first flight back to Colorado, got it?”
My heart pounds in the seconds it takes for him to answer.
It’s hard to push past the people-pleasing tendencies ingrained so deeply throughout my childhood, but with Wes, I usually don’t have that problem.
Not that it makes putting my foot down any easier.
My thoughts are already scrambling to remind me that he’s not entirely at fault—the water wasn’t visible until we crested the hill.
“That’s fair,” Wes replies, like I’m being perfectly reasonable. “I thought I saw another road a little ways back. You see it on the map?”
“I don’t think that’s a road. We’ll have to go back the way we came, but the hail should have moved far enough east by now that we could double back and then try this road”—I tap on the iPad screen, then hold it out to him—“that cuts west. Might be the same situation, though, since it runs parallel to this one.”
“Damn slow-moving storms,” Wes mutters as he begins to turn the car around. “You’re probably right. I just hate giving up.”
Frustration drips from every word, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. I’m struggling to relax too. I can only hope that he’s sincere when he says he hears me. That we’re not going to have a repeat the next time he gets too absorbed in the adrenaline of a chase.
We backtrack, try another road, and find that one flooded too.
Wes curses under his breath. We’re not the only ones in this predicament.
The world’s worst parade follows us down another road, only for everyone to execute a fifteen-point turn when we hit another flooded area and head back to the state highway yet again.
Tracy and Matt must be stuck somewhere in the line of cars too. I get a text from her after our third attempt to find dry-ish pavement.
No one told me to pack an ark this year!!
I hold my hand out the window as Wes turns us around, again, and take a short video of the temporary river running through the fields. Flooded roads 3, me 0.
Tracy’s reply comes back almost instantly. Me? Don’t you mean US?? How’s it going with Wes? Details!
It’s not the first time she’s texted me about him, but it’s obvious she’s not going to stop asking if I keep ignoring her. Rumors are more than likely already spreading thanks to the radar app. I hesitantly type out the truth.
It’s fine. He almost drowned us, but we survived.
Good to know I’m not texting with the spirit world. It’s okay, though? No detours to the airport?
Give it time.
There’s no way for Wes to know what we’re texting about, but when Tracy’s next message pops up on my screen, I have to fight the urge to throw my phone out the window all the same.
He might surprise you if you give him a chance.
I lock my phone and shove it into my pocket.
I don’t need Tracy to tell me that Wes doesn’t entirely match up with the impression I’ve been carrying around.
I’ve already realized there’s far more to him than I’ve given him credit for, but he’s also still the guy who almost drove us into five feet of water.
While Wes drives, I keep scanning the maps, searching for a road with higher elevation that might have fared better in the torrential rain.
“If you take the right up ahead, we’ll go south for a few miles, but then it connects into another state highway that runs parallel to this one.
If we follow that for another ten or so miles, that should get us where we need to be. ”
“And away from the crowd because no one wants to go south.” Wes’s frustration melts away far easier than mine. “Let’s go catch ourselves a rainbow.”