Chapter 22
ERIN
They sat on the side of the road outside the service station for over half an hour before Erin began to worry no one was coming back for them.
She hadn’t got her coat and the warmth from the bus had long gone, leaving her core becoming chilly.
She wrapped her arms around herself, drew her cardigan closer.
To start with, every time she could see headlights in the distance, she jumped up in anticipation of the bus pulling up, but after the first thirty minutes slipped closer to an hour she stopped. There wasn’t much traffic anyway, it was the middle of the night.
They established they had no money, no food and no way of contacting anyone.
‘We could go into the service station and use their phone,’ Erin had suggested quickly but Sam had just shaken his head.
‘Who are you going to call?’ he asked.
‘Ghostbusters?’ Erin had said with a smile because this had been only two minutes into her ordeal.
Now, fifty-nine minutes in, she had no stomach for humour.
They had agreed they couldn’t call the police because it was hardly an emergency.
They talked about a taxi with the promise to pay when they’d caught up with the others in Winnipeg but what if the bus had turned around?
They would be in a very difficult position in Winnipeg with no money.
‘We should have been given emergency numbers,’ Sam had said crossly and he kicked a stone with the tip of his trainer which skittered across the dusty car park.
‘We both had trackers, though. They’re designed to know where we are at all times and with the ability for us to be able to contact the production team in an emergency,’ Erin said.
‘Shame both of our partners felt the need to control everything.’
‘Martha was about to relinquish that control but she got ill and forgot. God, I hope she’s okay.’
‘Harrison will look after her,’ Sam said as if there were no question about it.
‘She hates him, though.’
‘Well, she might just have to get over it.’ He let his stare stay on Erin for a moment.
‘Men,’ she muttered.
And then there was nothing between them for a few minutes and absolutely no vehicles went past in either direction.
‘Surely Noah will realise and maybe send the car back for us if the bus can’t turn around,’ Erin said and stood up. It was uncomfortable on the ground with her knees drawn up to her chin.
‘Yeah, but he can’t because before I came back for you, he was getting in the car with your producer.’
‘Well, your guy then. What’s his name?’
‘Gaz, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope for him. He wasn’t feeling well either and had been nodding off a lot during the journey.’
‘So, what you’re saying is, if Martha or Harrison or Gaz don’t wake up until Winnipeg, we’re stuffed?’
Erin started pacing then, back and forth in front of Sam, her heart rate rising with every stride until he got up and took hold of her arm.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We will work out what to do.’
She shivered then and he offered her his jumper but when he took it off she could see he only had a T-shirt underneath and she wasn’t about to let him freeze to death.
‘I’m fine,’ she said but he ignored her and placed the jumper around her shoulders. She let it sit there for just a moment, taking in the warmth, the smell of him on the fabric and then reluctantly handed it back, buttoning up her cardigan. ‘I am grateful and thank you, but honestly, I’m okay.’
And that was when an old man in a small truck pulled in for fuel. While he was filling up, Sam walked over to him. Erin watched them talking but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Sam almost skipped back to her, his eyes alight with something that Erin hoped was a resolution to their problem.
‘Chuck has offered to take us to Winnipeg with him. He says he’s going anyway; he’s going home and would be happy to help us out. How amazing is that?’
‘But we’d have to commit to not staying here and waiting, though,’ Erin said. ‘What happens if they turn around and come back for us?’
‘I don’t think that’s going to happen. We can hopefully catch them up. His truck looks like it would go faster than that shitty old bus.’
‘Okay,’ Erin said slowly, not completely convinced it was the right thing to do.
‘Look, we’re in a race. All we’ve been doing is begging rides and help from strangers. It’s just more of that.’
‘I know, but this is slightly different without cameras on us. As much as I get a bit fed up with Noah in my face all the time, I suppose there’s a kind of safety in it.’
‘Chuck is a sweet old guy and listen, Erin, I’m with you. Nothing will happen.’
‘Okay, then. It will be good to feel as if we’re doing something, I suppose.’
Chuck was indeed a sweet old guy and Erin settled in the back of his truck with Sam in the front. They talked about their race so far and the places they’d seen.
‘So how long have you two been sweethearts?’ he asked them and Sam chuckled. Erin was about to correct him but Sam got in there first.
‘Since school,’ he said. ‘I first saw her over the coloured pencils in the classroom and knew she was the one.’
Erin snorted with laughter in the back but couldn’t stop the smile appearing. She was glad Sam couldn’t see her in the dark.
‘That’s sweet,’ Chuck said. ‘I met my wife at school too. So, are you guys married?’
‘No,’ Sam said quickly. ‘I keep asking but she hasn’t forgiven me yet for a stupid thing I did.’
‘Not with another woman?’ Chuck sounded shocked.
‘God no, nothing like that. I just made a bit of a blunder when we first met. Said something stupid. I regretted it instantly.’
‘That’s a long time to hold onto a grudge, missy. I don’t get you young folk these days. You overcomplicate things. He loves you, I’ll bet you love him, so just get on with it and don’t waste time on silly stuff.’
Erin was silent in the back and Sam seemed to have shut up in the front too.
‘That’s good advice, Chuck,’ Sam said finally, but all traces of joking had disappeared from his voice.
They covered a lot of ground fairly quickly and Erin began to relax a little in the hope that Sam was right, they might catch the others up in Winnipeg and could continue on with their race.
Erin must have nodded off because a shout, a sudden sharp movement of the car and then the bang of her head hitting the side window woke her up. Somehow they were off the road, down a bank of grass, and had come to a stop near a clump of trees.
‘Erin, are you okay?’ Sam’s voice came from out of the darkness. He sounded urgent but shaken.
‘Fine,’ she said quickly, although her head hurt and when she touched her fingertips to her forehead she found a little blood there.
‘Chuck?’
Sam was untangling himself from his seat belt and leaning across to where Chuck was slumped over the steering wheel.
‘Oh my God!’ Erin said. ‘Is he? I mean is he…?’
A groan came from the old man then and Sam helped him to sit upright. From the glow of the dashboard, Erin could see he was clutching his arm and it looked to be hanging low at an odd angle.
‘It looks like you may have dislocated your shoulder,’ Sam said. ‘Do you have a phone? I need to call for help.’
Chuck did have a phone in the glove compartment and he got Sam to ring his son who he said would come and get him, take him to the ER.
Sam moved Chuck’s seat back to give him some more room and placed his jumper rolled up under Chuck’s elbow to support his arm. With the internal light now on in the truck, the old man looked grey.
Erin got out and said she was going to stand by the edge of the road, conscious that they might be hidden by the trees. Sam grabbed her arm as she went past him.
‘You’ve hurt your head,’ he said, concern etched on his face. ‘You said you were fine.’
‘I am, it’s nothing,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’
‘What actually happened?’ Erin said. ‘I think I fell asleep.’
‘A deer just appeared in front of the truck,’ Sam said. ‘It literally came from out of nowhere. Chuck swerved and we ended up down here. I think he hit his shoulder on the door. Look, are you sure you’re okay?’
He reached out his fingers and touched the side of the cut on her forehead and even though she wasn’t sure how the gesture was supposed to help, she liked how it felt and how close he now was and…
‘I’m going to look out for Chuck’s son,’ she said and walked the few paces out of the trees to the side of the road.
It took him half an hour to get to them and when he did, Erin waved frantically until he came to a stop in front of her.
He was a tall man in his forties and drove a truck similar to his dad’s apart from the fact it looked brand new.
Erin explained everything to him: how they came to be in his car, what happened to have them off the road and exactly what his dad’s situation was.
And then they helped Chuck into his son’s truck and for the first time, Erin began to worry what they were supposed to do now.
‘I’m so glad you were both with him,’ Chuck’s son said.
‘If this had happened and Dad had been on his own, I don’t even want to think about the outcome.
It’s why I’m always telling him to have his cell in reach.
Look, so you guys need to get to Winnipeg and so does Dad’s truck. Do you think you can drive it?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Sam said. ‘We didn’t actually crash. I’m sure I can reverse it back up the bank.’
‘Well, if you can drive it and if I give you his address just outside the city, can you leave it there with my ma? I’d be so grateful.’
‘Yes,’ Sam said. ‘Absolutely no problem at all.’
‘Keep Dad’s cell and you can use it to navigate. Just leave that with Ma too.’
Erin began to say that they weren’t really supposed to be using mobile phones but Sam cut her off with one look. And then they were gone and Sam had to get Chuck’s truck up the bank and back onto the road.
‘I’d call these extenuating circumstances,’ Sam said when Erin raised the phone thing again. ‘And if it’s brought up, then we counter with their ineptitude at leaving us at a service station.’
Then he slid his arm around her shoulders and Erin wasn’t sure why until she could feel her lip wobble.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s just that I’m not very good on my own,’ Erin said and sniffed back potential tears.
‘You’re not on your own, though, are you?
’ he said and then gently walked her back towards the truck.
‘Now, I’m going to get us down to Winnipeg and you can be reunited with your grandmother.
And on the next stage of this race, I suggest we both take control of those bloody trackers.
The olds are proving themselves useless. ’
Sam helped Erin into the truck and clipped her seat belt in for her.
She surprised herself by letting him. It was a gesture that was so ridiculously clichéd.
But as she sat in that seat and he leaned across her to make sure she was strapped in, she realised two things: how much she liked this man, and also that he’d only ever get away with doing this once because the next time he tried she would probably laugh at him.