The Map Home (Collier’s Creek Christmas)

Chapter 1

ONE

Dakota

Summer, eleven years ago.

A flash of lightning illuminated the tiny space for less than a single heartbeat, a blinding juxtaposition to the dark it briefly displaced. The light almost hurt, and he squinted against it even after it was gone. For the briefest of moments, the cobwebs and ancient wooden storage boxes stacked against one wall had been visible, but now he was in the black again, shivering as he blinked away the fading tracers.

With no discernible pause, the trailing thunder cracked so loud and close that Dakota figured the massive storm must be right overhead and aiming its roiling clouds of anger directly at him. The sharp yet oddly clean scent of ozone wafted into his hideout. He wrapped his arms around himself and wished he had a better jacket, or at least a coat that fit.

He wasn’t scared, he told himself. It was just a storm. It would pass. Tad said no one ever came out here, that his parents wouldn’t find Dakota. That they’d have time to figure something out.

The almost ever-present Wyoming wind was blowing the storm and clouds east, out over the plains of the Midwest. Even though he was cold and maybe a bit scared—a lot scared—Dakota hitched up onto his knees to better watch what he could see of the storm out the window of the hut. There was no windowpane—the only protection Dakota had from the wind and rain was the flimsy rotting roof over his head and a few boards that passed for walls.

Lightning flashed again, throwing the landscape into weird contrast, creating monsters where logically he knew there were none. The distant stand of evergreens seemed to be crawling down the mountainside to take back the land that had been theirs eons before. It reminded him of a painting he’d seen in a book once, and Dakota shuddered again.

“Dakota, are you in there?”

Dakota jumped but managed to stifle his gasp—it was only Tad.

He squeezed his eyes shut once more, as if the act might make him invisible to the human eye. To Tad’s eye. Trying not to make a sound that would be heard over the wind and rain, he moved away from the window and considered not answering. Maybe Tad would think he’d finally got up the courage to leave. Tad thought he could stay on the ranch, but Dakota knew the Gillespies would never let him hang around. No one wanted a kid like him.

He was tall for his age. Maybe someone would think Dakota was eighteen and he could get a no-questions-asked job mucking out stalls somewhere. At a different ranch, where they didn’t know a mother had left her son behind.

Over the past week, it had become abundantly clear that his mother wasn’t planning to return to her job as a cook for the G- Bar Ranch. Once they’d figured that out, Tad had taken Dakota to an unused shed far from the house, and he’d been hiding here until he got up the guts to leave.

Eighteen was the magic number. Just four years and he’d be an adult. He had no family—or at least none his mother had told him about—and foster care was not an option. He knew how it worked—no family would want a kid his age. He’d be shuffled around until he was considered an adult and then released into the wild left to fend for himself, so why not just start now?

So yeah. No foster care for him.

At least Ana had left some food behind when she’d gone to meet up with a “friend,” but his stash of bread and peanut butter was getting dangerously low. He should have known when she threw a small duffle bag in the back of her car and gave him a hug before climbing into the driver’s seat that she wasn’t coming back.

Growing up, Dakota sometimes had wondered if she was glad she had a son. He figured he knew the answer now.

“Dakota, I know you’re in there,” Tad whispered, louder this time, poking his head inside the open window frame.

“If you know I’m still in here, why are you asking me if I’m here?” Dakota rose to his feet, automatically wiping the dirt and old straw off his ass.

“It’s the polite thing to do. Like warning someone in case you scare them.”

“You scared me anyway,” Dakota informed him.

“I didn’t mean to. Um, hang on, this pack is heavy.” Tad shrugged a large weather-beaten backpack off his shoulders. “Mom made lasagna. Don’t worry, she’ll think Boone ate it all. She’s always going on about his appetite.”

Dakota’s stomach clenched with hunger as his mouth automatically started to water. He was hungry, and peanut butter and white bread were no match for Mrs. Gillespie’s lasagna.

Only a few weeks ago, Tad had invited Dakota to dinner at the big house with the rest of his family. At first, he’d felt weird sitting at the dining room table with Tad’s parents and older brother, but Tad’s parents had seemed okay and Boone and Dakota had pretty much ignored each other.

“I should just go,” Dakota said before Tad once again started to try and convince him to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie. Telling his stomach it wouldn’t be getting lasagna, he bent down to grab his backpack. Aside from the peanut butter and bread, he’d stuffed some of his clothes inside, along with a spiral notebook. He was one of the only kids he knew with no cell phone or tablet. He always had to use what the school offered and had gotten used to writing stuff down. And printing things out, like the bus schedule he’d tucked into his backpack.

“ Dakota ,” Tad said a third time.

“What?” Dakota replied, exasperated now. “I’m leaving.” He hitched the pack onto his shoulder.

“No! You can’t go! We have a pact.” Tad moved around the nearly nonexistent wall and almost inside the hut, partially blocking the door.

Lightning sparked again, farther away, but it was easy to imagine he saw odd shadows in the distance. Dakota shook off the thought; no one but Tad would be out in this weather.

“You can’t go,” Tad said again.

“I can’t keep staying here. Your parents or someone else will figure it out. I’ll just walk into town and catch a bus somewhere.”

Thunder grumbled, far away now, and a bolt of lightning illuminated distant hills. Again Dakota thought he saw something but couldn’t make out what it might be. Probably a tree.

“Stay here,” Tad said fiercely. “I’ll figure out a way to ask my parents if you can stay with us.”

Suddenly tired, Dakota slumped against a rickety wall. “They’re not going to say yes. You know that.”

“No, I don’t. I know you think they’re like—like other people, but they’re not. Move out of my way and let me get inside.”

Reluctantly, Dakota moved aside, realizing he’d been the one blocking the door, not Tad. He was tired and scared and hungry. It was literally the dark of the night and Dakota had nowhere to go. If it hadn’t been for Tad, he would probably have been on a bus to Cheyenne by now or somewhere else far from the ranch. But Tad had made him promise he wouldn’t just leave without saying goodbye, and as scared as he was, Dakota wouldn’t go back on his word.

The shadows moved. He knew he hadn’t imagined anything. There was someone or someones out there, and they were approaching the decrepit shepherd’s hut.

“Tad, what did you do?” Dakota demanded, his nostrils flaring. “Did you tell your parents?”

Panic rose quickly, overwhelming him. He had to get out of there now. He should have known better than to trust a rich ranch kid who had everything and never worried where he was going to sleep at night or if his mother was coming home.

Shoving Tad out of his way, Dakota stumbled out into the night, his only thought to get far away from the hut and the Gillespie family. However, before he made it ten feet, a strong hand gripped his arm, forcing him to a stop.

“Son,” Mr. Gillespie said, keeping a tight hold on Dakota.

He thrashed but couldn’t break free. Waylon Gillespie was a big, strong man used to holding down livestock and splitting cords of wood. Dakota was a too-skinny kid, hungry and tired from hiding out in the rover’s hut.

“Let me go!” His face was wet, and not just from the rain. He tasted salt from his tears as they dripped into his mouth. “No! I won’t go to a home, I won’t,” he shouted. “I’ll run away!”

“Dakota”—another voice, this one Penny Gillespie’s—“we’re not calling anyone. We promise.”

“Promise is just a stupid word, doesn’t mean shit. Everyone makes promises,” Dakota cried, struggling even harder. The stupid tears streaming down his face mixed with the snot running from his nose as he fought to drag in big panting gulps of air. “Let go, get away from me!”

Mr. Gillespie released his arm and in a swift movement wrapped his strong arms around Dakota instead, making it even more impossible for him to escape. He tried anyway, thrashing back and forth as hard as he could, yelling at the top of his lungs. A roaring in Dakota’s ears blocked out all sound. He’d become pure reaction, a shooting star falling to the earth.

He needed to get away, to escape, to explode.

“Dakota, Dakota, stop.” Tad’s panicked agitation broke through the roaring. “They’re saying they won’t tell anyone. They mean it, right, Dad?” Tad had so much hope in his voice. “You can stay. Mom says she can figure it out.”

It had to be a trick.

“It doesn’t work like that!” Dakota shouted, trying again to break free from Mr. Gillespie’s bear hug. He was soaked to the skin—they all were. The freezing rain poured down in relentless sheets. Somewhere in the valley, a river was reaching maximum capacity. Just like Dakota.

“Son,” Mr. Gillespie repeated, his tone gentle but firm in Dakota’s ear, “please calm down. Tad didn’t tell us anything. You’re not going anywhere. We’ve got your back.”

Dakota automatically kept struggling for a moment before the words made their way into his brain and reassembled into something that made sense. Not going anywhere?

“What?” He stopped trying to pull away. He was breathing heavily and his heart was pounding against his ribs. “How did you figure out that I was here, then?”

When Ana had left, she’d told Dakota to make himself scarce until she got back as she wasn’t supposed to leave him behind. But she also hadn’t made arrangements for him to be anywhere else. He and Tad thought his parents assumed he’d gone with her.

“We noticed food was missing—not a problem.” Mr. Gillespie released him. “If you’re hungry, you need to eat. But Penny assumed it was Boone and when she asked him about it, he told us he’d seen Tad sneaking off. We put two and two together.”

Mr. Gillespie glanced over at his anxious-looking son. “You should have come to us in the beginning, Tad. There was no need to hide this from us. But we understand why you did. Come on, Dakota, let’s get you back home, somewhere warm.” Mr. Gillespie wrinkled his nose. “And maybe showered and cleaned up a bit. Then we’ll all sit down together and find out what’s going on from your perspective.”

Dakota was doing his best to believe what he was hearing, but at the same time, he was pissed off that it had been Boone who’d given him away.

Fucking Boone.

“A hot meal first,” added Mrs. Gillespie, interrupting Dakota’s thoughts.

“A hot meal first,” Mr. Gillespie agreed. “And a shower. Then we’ll can talk about how we might solve this little problem.”

Dakota wasn’t so sheltered that he didn’t know the Gillespies were supposed to report an abandoned minor. He was Ana’s kid, after all, not their own. So why would they want to help him? They had two kids of their own and a massive ranch to keep in order.

“You can trust them. They promised they won’t call anyone,” Tad added pathetically.

“How about it?” said Mr. Gillespie. “Penny has more lasagna in the oven, smells delicious.”

The mention of food that wasn’t peanut butter made Dakota’s stomach rumble so loudly they all heard it in the brief silence between cracks of thunder.

“Please, Dakota?”

Even in the dark, Dakota knew Tad was staring at him, his eyes wide, anxious, practically begging him to agree.

“Okay, I guess. For now.”

He made a promise to himself then and there that he’d take off if things went sideways. He’d keep his go-bag packed and ready to go, keep updating the bus schedules in his notebook.

Dakota Green would never take anything for granted again.