A little after midnight I heard rustling from within the room. I quietly left the truck and stood beside the door to listen.
“I’m hungry,” Aden said.
“We can’t wake her unless it’s an emergency,” Liam said sleepily. “Do you want to watch TV or draw?”
Good kids. I moved away from the door to look up and down the street as my stomach empathized with Aden. We hadn’t stopped for anything until we’d reached the motel, and lunch was long gone. A block away, I saw a fast food place.
Giving the motel door one last glance, I took off at a run. It was dark and the traffic light. As long as I stuck to the shadows, no one would notice a man running way too fast. I’d be a blur out of the corner of an observer’s eye and back before the kids’ stomachs could growl twice.
A twenty-four-hour drugstore had me stopping before I reached my destination. I hesitated on the sidewalk. I didn’t want to be absent any longer than necessary. But, I’d emptied their car. They had nothing with them. No clothes, no toiletries, nothing. It would only take me a few minutes, I told myself as I walked inside. Still, as I hunted down supplies for them, I worried they would look for me and find me missing.
After the drugstore, I went straight to the restaurant. I ordered two coffees and a mess of breakfast sandwiches. I used a burst of speed to get back to the motel in less than a minute.
Aden and Liam were still quietly entertaining themselves inside the room when I knocked. A second later, Liam’s little face peeked out the curtained window beside the door.
I winked at him and lifted the food bag. He glanced at the bag then behind him and let the curtain fall back into place. I listened to him try to wake Michelle. He called her Mimi, so close to “Mommy.” She’d mentioned their father, her stepfather, dying. But where were her Mom and Dad?
After his third attempt, I heard her move. Their conversation was equally easy to hear in the still of the night.
“I’m up,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Emmitt’s knocking on the door,” Liam said. “I looked out the window and saw it was him.”
The rustle of covers told me she was getting out of bed. I watched the peephole as she leaned against the door. A second later, she pulled the door open and motioned for me to enter. The dark circles under her eyes looked even more pronounced despite her increased alertness. She needed more sleep.
I stepped in, taking my time to pass by her so I could inhale her scent. The fear was lighter now. Not gone, as I would have liked.
Liam and Aden watched me closely as I set the food on the table.
“There’s a fast food place nearby. Since everything’s been quiet, I made a quick run.” I held out the plastic shopping bag. “I noticed you didn’t have much, so I also picked up a few things.”
She took the bag and stared at the contents. It wasn’t much. Toothbrushes, paste. Some clean socks.
“Thank you,” she said softly, not looking up.
Her gratitude was real, but not strong enough to wipe out her doubt and suspicion.
The boys watched us, waiting to see what Michelle would do. She closed the bag and waved them toward the bathroom. Aden looked back at the food, but dutifully listened to his sister. He reminded me of Jim, and I couldn’t wait to get home with them.
While they brushed their teeth, I ate three sandwiches and set the rest of the food out for them.
As soon as the boys were done in the bathroom, they came to sit at the table while Michelle sat on the bed.
She studied her hands for a minute before finally looking up at me.
“Sorry for waking you up so soon. I could hear the boys saying they were hungry,” I said, glancing at Liam and Aden. They were watching us closely as they ate hungrily.
“Slow down, you two, or you’re going to choke,” she said. She met my gaze again. “We haven’t been eating right, so it’s good that you woke me. They needed this.”
“And you need more sleep,” I said before I could stop myself.
“I’m rested enough for you to tell me who you are and why you’re helping me.”
“My name’s Emmitt Cole. I was recently discharged from the military. Now, I’m just taking my time seeing the country as I make my way home to Montana. And I’m helping you because, back at the restaurant, you looked like you could use someone on your side.” I paused, trying to think of what else I should say to help her believe my motives. “As long as it wasn’t anything illegal, I had no reason not to help.”
“I appreciate what you did. I wasn’t doing anything illegal. Those men had no right to take us back with them.”
“I figured as much from what David was saying.” The need to ask questions about the names I’d heard was there, but the distrust in her eyes stopped me. “I’m guessing you’re running. Going anywhere particular? I’d be happy to tag along to make sure you safely get to where you need to be.”
She didn’t answer right away. The hand holding her coffee started to shake enough that she had to use her other hand to steady it, and her scent changed, light traces of guilt lacing it. Something I’d just said had caused it, but what?
“Emmitt, we could use help, but I don’t think it’d be right to accept it.” She looked at the boys. “There’s a lot going on that I can’t explain. And, I didn’t have a place in mind when I left.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
She nodded.
“Keep moving. As long as you’re awake, get further from the last place they found you. That David guy knows you’re exhausted. He’s going to count on you needing to stop. If I were him, judging from how rundown you looked, I’d bet you would crash hard, too. He’s going to start checking likely places where you might have stopped, calling and asking for you by name.”
“If he can’t find you still sleeping, he’ll at least look for a trail to follow. Switching vehicles was a good start, but they’ll have found the dealer by now and gotten a description of the new one. It’s only a matter of time… unless you can disappear.”
Her heart stuttered, and the scent of her fear grew stronger. I’d known suggesting she come home with me would scare her. Yet, it was the safest place for her. I struggled with the words to smooth away her concern.
“What exactly do you mean?” she asked.
“I live on a big spread. No neighbors close by. Plenty of room for you to lay low without feeling like you’re being locked away.”
She looked up and studied me.
“What’s in it for you?”
She was killing me with her mistrust.
“Haven’t you ever had anyone help you just to help?”
She sighed and set her coffee to the side.
“May I see your wallet?”
Though the question surprised me, I immediately took out my wallet. She could have anything in it. I’d give her anything and everything if it helped her feel safe with me.
She studied the contents, staring at my library card then the empty donor circle on my driver’s license. After that, she pulled out the only three pictures I had.
“Family?” she asked.
“My mom, brother, and dad.” I moved away from the door and looked at the pictures in her hand. They were several years old and well-worn. Being away from my family had been hard in the beginning. I’d gotten used to it, but I still missed them.
Michelle set the pictures aside and continued searching my wallet. There wasn’t much else, just a piece of paper with phone numbers but no names.
“What are these?” She held up the paper.
When she looked up at me, something happened. Her scent changed ever so subtly. A wisp of something sweet and fragile, there and gone again, had me wondering if I’d imagined it. The way she immediately dropped her gaze had me wondering what she’d just felt. What had caused her scent to change like that? I knew better than to ask, and focused on the paper.
“The first one is compliments of my mom. It’s the number for a friend of the family close to where I was stationed, in case I ran into trouble. The next one is my brother’s number. I left just after he and I moved down here from Canada. I wasn’t sure I’d remember the number.”
“How can you be from Canada but in the U. S. military?”
Her immediate suspicion and accusing tone warned me to answer carefully. Her brothers had finished eating and were watching us warily.
“My mom’s from the U. S. and insisted both Jim and I be born here. It drove my dad crazy because she didn’t want to leave home until the last minute. He swore it was her sheer determination that kept us from being born on the ‘wrong’ side of the border.” I smiled, remembering my dad’s expression every time that story was retold. Mom had worried the hell out of him.
Michelle nodded to her brothers, and they moved off to the bathroom to wash up.
“The last number?” she asked.
“My parents. I figured if something ever happened to me, those three numbers would be good emergency information.”
She slowly put everything back in its place. As she did so, I could see she was lost in thought.
“Is it so hard to trust?” I asked, sad for her.
“You have no idea,” she said softly. “Tell me more about this big spread.”
She was considering it. I smiled widely. They were going to love it there. I was going to love her there.
“It’s been awhile since I’ve been back. It’s an old three-story with wrap-around porches. Before I left, my brother and I talked about dividing it into six apartments. From what he’s told me, he’s done the dividing and now just needs to complete the finishing work in three more apartments. It also has a huge backyard that’s a pain to mow, according to him.”
“Just you and your brother, then?”
“No, a friend of our parents, Winifred Lewis, who we call Nana Wini, moved in as soon as he completed the second apartment.”
She glanced at the bathroom, worry pulling at her face. Then she dropped her head into both hands.
“You should know they won’t stop looking for me. Ever,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter to me. You’ll be welcome as long as you like.” I just needed to get her there. Then I could work on convincing her to stay.
She looked up as the boys walked out of the bathroom hand in hand. They watched her closely in return.
“We’ll go with you and take one day at a time,” she said, looking at me.
I grinned. One day at a time was next door to forever.