Chapter 10
Sam
Iexplained my unexpected passenger to Myra and fixed the loose wire on her radio for the hundredth time before wandering back into the main shop.
Max had Katie back on the move, and we still had some daylight left.
With any luck, we’d be in Vancouver in the next two-and-a-half hours or so.
AJ could find a hotel. I could go home and sleep, and tomorrow, I would wake up and do it all over again.
I had lost track of where the kids were and headed in the direction of the main shop.
My mood lifted immediately when I walked around the corner to find two happy kids and a beautiful woman with food and coffee waiting for me.
AJ was a much more caring person than she gave herself credit for.
It must kill her to pretend that the crap her coworkers say doesn’t bother her.
And for no one to have her back when she so easily had mine now?
It wasn’t right. I could get used to her thinking about me, but I knew I shouldn’t.
I had a hard time keeping my eyes off AJ as I tossed back my coffee. Seeing Ms. Business Suit dressed down in ass-hugging sweats had immediately caught the attention of every cell of my body. I could think of a few uses for the braid in her hair as well.
Myra poked her head around the corner. “Are you two going to get your butts going or what?” Her voice was louder than necessary, and as usual, it invited no argument.
I smirked. “I guess that is our cue.” I drained my coffee cup and rinsed it in the sink.
“Jack is on the way, and the highway is open. You better hit the road while you have the chance.”
“Thanks, Myra. Kids, can I have a hug? Uncle Sam has to get going.” I knelt down, and the two kids nearly knocked me over with the weight of their hugs.
They smelled like peanut butter sandwiches and strawberry shampoo.
I missed them already. I grabbed a napkin from the table and wiped the crumbs from Oliver’s cheek before kissing both of their heads. “Love you two. Be good for Myra.”
Myra held out her hand toward the kids and they ran to her.
“Bye, AJ. Love you, Uncle Sam,” Emma said.
“Bye bye,” Oliver said, his eyes still on his game.
AJ gave them a little wave and turned her attention to me. She was standing close enough that her chest brushed my arm as she turned, leaving a little tingle of electricity behind.
“Ready to go?” she asked. Her voice was soft, and her eyes were bright.
All traces of the stiff-spined woman I had met had been melted out of her by the charms of Katie, Oliver, and Emma, and who knows, maybe even by me.
Something told me I was seeing the real AJ.
I had gotten glimpses of her over the past few hours, but this was the first time the entire mask had slipped.
The sharp suits, the severe hair style, the twenty-four-seven grind?
That wasn’t AJ. That was Mrs. Stephen Asshole.
She said it herself. Creativity was her passion. The rest was just obligation.
“You need a coat.” I reluctantly stepped away and grabbed the spare I had lent her in the truck from where it laid on the bench.
It was a men’s extra-large and hopelessly stained with grease, but it was better than freezing.
I held it out for her, and she pushed her arms through the sleeves, allowing me to pull it up her back and over her shoulders.
She turned to face me. “How does it look?” The coat enveloped her from neck to mid-thigh, covering her fingertips and draping around her like a tent.
“Beautiful.” I adjusted the collar where it stood up on one side of her neck and used it to pull her closer. She came willingly, only stopping when the tips of her boots met mine. “Thank you, AJ.”
She shrugged in her giant coat. “I enjoyed the kids.”
“Not for taking care of the kids. For taking care of me.” I slid my hands from her collar to the sides of her neck, and she leaned into my touch.
I moved closer so we were chest to chest, heart to heart.
She licked her lips, eyes locked on mine.
She fisted her hands in my jacket and gave a gentle tug.
I breathed in sharply through my nose, taking in her scent.
Any trace of expensive perfume was gone, replaced by the smell of peanut butter and axel grease and something else that was all AJ—the person who is always in a hurry but had time to teach Emma and to take care of me.
The woman I was starting to think was what I had always wanted, and the one I knew I couldn’t keep.
She wanted me to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her.
We barely knew each other, but in that moment, it felt like the only logical thing to do.
I moved in for the kiss, barely even having to hunch over since she was almost as tall as I was.
“Sam, your truck’s blocking the pumps,” Max bellowed from somewhere on the other side of the garage. My lips froze barely an inch from hers, and she opened her eyes to meet mine.
“I guess we have to go?” It came out as a question. A question I wish I could say hell no to.
I cleared my throat and nodded, stepping back to grab her suitcase and head for the door. The magic of the moment was broken, but her spell on me remained.
******
As the road climbed in elevation, the snow fell with greater force.
Sure, the delicate white flakes looked pretty on a Christmas card, but when it’s collecting on your windshield faster than the wipers can get rid of it, even the most seasoned trucker’s hands will be gripping the wheel.
Progress was slow, and daylight faded away.
Now, with the sun setting and no asphalt visible beneath the blanket of snow, I sat up straighter in my seat.
We crawled forward for a very tense hour.
AJ seemed to understand I needed to concentrate and was content to just watch the snow fall.
I wanted to talk to her about our almost kiss and what it meant to her, but this wasn’t the time.
Every instinct in my gut was telling me we shouldn’t be out here right now, and I had already ignored that once today.
A dark green sign poking out from a thick layer of snow caught my eye: one kilometer to the rest stop.
Calling the place a rest stop was being generous.
It was a small parking lot with a squat gray building with bathrooms inside.
Still, when you were smack dab in the middle of nowhere, the existence of anything but trees was a luxury.
I made a split-second decision and grabbed the radio. “Any closures?”
“What are you doing?”
I glanced at her in the darkening interior of the truck but didn’t reply. Surely she could see that fighting through frozen hell wasn’t worth it for a flight.
“Traffic stopped around Dry Gulch. Over.”
The rest stop was coming up fast, and Dry Gulch was just beyond it. I would rather be stuck in the parking lot than in a potential game of bumper cars on the highway.
The rest stop appeared as we crested the hill, and I pulled in. We wouldn’t see Vancouver tonight. The road was closed, my body was running on fumes, and it just wasn’t worth the risk. I couldn’t deliver for her. “Damn it,” I cursed and blew out a breath.
AJ rounded on me in her seat as I threw the truck in park and shut off the ignition.
“Why are we stopping here? Are they closing the highway? Can they do that? How can they do that?” Her eyes were wide and had the look of a cornered animal.
“They can if they need to, and the way it’s coming down, I’m not surprised they did.”
“For how long? They can’t close it for long, can they?” Her voice was coming out in a high mouse-like squeak, further fraying my over worked nerves.
I took her hand and squeezed it. “Let’s take a little break. There is a bathroom across the parking lot. You go ahead, and I’ll get on the radio and see if I can find out how long we will be here.”
She took a long breath in to collect herself, then she nodded. “You’re lucky I have to pee.” She pointed a finger at me.
I gave her a half smile. I didn’t want to let her down, but I was out of good options. I watched her jog into the falling snow and duck into the building through the yellow light on the front.
I turned up my radio to listen to the trucker chatter and found that the highway had been closed due to dangerous conditions, no estimated time of reopening.
I leaned back against the head rest; it would be so easy to just close my eyes and sleep for a day or two.
My knee ached from where I’d hit the snowbank earlier. The rest of me was tuned into AJ.
The opening of the passenger door pulled me back.
“So, any update?” AJ asked tentatively. Her cheeks were pink from the cold.
“AJ,” I started, but her face fell, and I didn’t see the need to finish.
“So that’s it then?”
“I don’t expect to move before morning. I’m sorry. We will run the heater on and off to keep the truck somewhat warm without killing the battery. It won’t be comfortable, but it could be worse.”
“Morning?” Her voice went up an octave. “But I have a flight. You seemed pretty friendly with that police officer back there. Can’t you just, I don’t know, talk us through whatever the holdup is?”
I reached out and cupped her cheek. It felt natural to reach for her as she fell apart. “AJ, come on. You want me to talk us through a road closure four thousand feet up a mountain. And for what? So a bunch of narrow-minded suits can still treat you like shit? It’s not worth the risk.”
“You said you could do it.” She was looking down at her hands.
She was close to tears, and my heart constricted. I may not agree that the asses she works with were worth all this effort, but I understood that it was important to her, and that was enough to make me want to help.
“My job is to keep you safe. Your flight isn’t until, what, nine tomorrow morning? I’ll do my best to get you there when the road opens, but right now, it’s out of our hands.”
She nodded. “I just need a win. That’s all.” Her voice was small, so unlike AJ that it took my breath away. “I’ve been pointed at, laughed at, talked about, and dumped and replaced. It has been a shitty couple of years, and I just need a win.” Tears lined her lower lids and threatened to drop.
“Hey, today you put a smile on the face of a little girl without a mother. That was a big win.”
She turned to look at me and sniffled. “It was nothing.”
“Not to her it wasn’t, and not to me either.
” I laid my hand on her shoulder and coaxed her gaze to meet the intensity of mine.
I could feel a lump forming in my throat, but I swallowed it back.
I hated talking about Lauren. I didn’t want to see the pity in AJ’s expression.
I didn’t want her to give me a chance because my family had been through hell, but AJ deserved to hear her story.
It was the only way she could understand what her attention meant to Emma.
Besides, she needed some perspective on life right now.
“About three years ago, by brother, Jack, and Lauren, his wife, were driving on the highway not far from here. Luckily the brats were with a babysitter and not with them. A snowstorm hit fast and hard. Nothing unusual about that. Jack is a good driver, and they were prepared for it. They had four-wheel drive and winter tires. The guy driving the opposite direction didn’t.
” I took a deep breath. “The driver lost it on a corner and slammed into the passenger side of their truck. Jack was okay, just bumps and bruises, but L…”
I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut. I tried to block out the images and steady my voice before going on. “She died a few days later in the hospital.”
Her eyes were wide and pinned on me. “Oh, Sam, I am so—”
“I was the one who got the call.”
AJ brought her hand to her mouth, and I couldn’t meet her gaze.
I stared down at where my hands rested on the steering wheel, not wanting to see the horror of that day reflected in her face.
“I am used to the chaos of accident scenes. In the winter, there is always this uninterrupted blanket of snow over the trees and the side of the road, then it’s just broken by skid marks and pieces of metal.
” I rubbed at the center of my chest to ease the ache.
It never really went away. “As soon as I pulled up and saw his truck… My brother was a mess, refusing medical treatment. The kids needed to be taken care of. There was insurance and a funeral to think of.” I shook my head and turned to face her.
“I just don’t want anyone to go through that. ”