Desert Gift (27 page)

When he finished, he pressed his hand to his mouth. Visions of Jill came to mind. Injured? Scared? Going into shock?

Dying?

He was a physician. He handled emergencies. He stopped bleeding and stitched skin back together. He fixed bones.

But Jill had always handled Connor’s gushing wounds and bruised knees. Connor had even bandaged Jill’s cut finger once. He was five years old. Jack had watched, silently nauseous.

“Jack, don’t go there.”

“What?” He saw Sophie again.

She stood. “Don’t go to the worst. Try to call her. If Marty talked to Viv . . .” She shrugged. “Connor needs to hear from you too. I’ll go cancel the rest of your day.” She walked out the door.

He’d never wished his wife harm. Never wished her off the face of the earth.

He’d only wanted not to be with her.

He reached for his cell phone.

Chapter 36

Red Gulch Canyon

Jill huddled in row five, seat one, reclined position, left side of the bus, wrapped in a blanket, a cold pack pressed to her forehead.

In row five, right side, Viv lay across both seats, her legs propped on pillows and dangling into the aisle.

In row one, left side, both seats in full recline position, the body of Agnes Smith lay under a blanket. From head to toe.

It was the only thing they could do.

The six other women of the Casitas Pack sat scattered about. Martha, Iris, Ruthie, Cynthia, Yolanda, and Lila had made her and Viv comfortable. Martha had strapped Viv’s arm to a board to immobilize it. They somehow managed to lift Agnes onto the seat and then prayed, different traditions meshing to honor the dead. Now they sang and kept up spirited conversation, mostly stories about Agnes.

“Viv.” Jill’s head pounded with the talking effort but she wanted to keep checking on her sister, even if the others were also. Her sister was in the worst shape.

“Mm.”

“If I were stranded on a desert island and could choose six others to be with me, this is them.”

“You didn’t count me.”

“Nope. You have wimped out on us. No one else even has a bruise. Not counting my bump.”

“What were you doing out of your seat?” Viv had already asked that twice. Either the shock was dulling her mind or she just could not believe her sister would do such a stupid thing.

“Going after Agnes.” They had all talked about the woman’s odd words, which of course the pack did not find odd in the least. “Great timing on your part, braking and swerving right at the moment she stood up.” The teasing did not quite come across. “You know I’m joking.”

“Mm.”

“Keep talking please.”

“Can’t.”

Jill caught Martha’s eye. The woman reached over the back of Viv’s seat and laid a hand on her forehead and murmured. From what Jill had observed over the past two hours, she was praying for the shock to recede, for medics to arrive soon.

Viv had hung in as long as she could. Hers was the only phone with a signal and she used it to call Marty. Jill had groaned when she overheard Viv talking to him and not an emergency operator. But after listening to her incoherent screeching, she figured it was for the best. Her phone lost its signal then. It never came back.

But Marty could be counted on.

Jack was . . . far away.

Outside, the storm was long gone. It was their nature. Blow in, blow through, blow out. Wreak havoc, pitch every loose bit of rock and dirt and plant against whatever was in the path. Screaming meemy winds deafened and then went quiet.

But the women were not going anywhere. The bus had come to rest wedged between boulders as tall as the turtle top Viv loved so much. The driver’s door would not open. The window of the back exit door was completely covered with dirt and rock. From the size of the rocks, the debris was not simply dust stuck to the window. There was a pile of it against the door. Cynthia and Lila confirmed that when they were unable to budge it.

A younger woman might have kicked out the windshield. Jill did not volunteer. It would mean hiking up to the highway—and who knew how far that was?—and waiting there instead of here. Her entire body ached from being thrown about.

And besides, Marty knew where they were. Unglued as she had been, Viv read him the coordinates from the GPS. Even if the bus were not visible from the highway, he knew their exact location and would have immediately notified Sweetwater Springs emergency.

Jack was . . . far away.

Jill closed her eyes. What was she going to do without Agnes?

* * *

They found them.

Once the driver’s door was wrangled open, Skip was the first one through, a distraught father, not a volunteer EMT. Ty came on his heels, followed by two others, medics and firemen with equipment, unprofessional worry on every face. They all knew Jill and Viv.

And then, wonder of wonders, Daisy climbed in, tears streaming down her face.

“Daisy!” Ty nearly barked. “Wait outside.”

“These are my babies. Get out of my way.”

He stepped down into the stairwell.

Skip and Daisy took turns clinging to Viv and Jill.

“I’m fine, Mom. I’m fine.”

“Look at that goose egg on your head, child.”

“Let them take care of Viv. Something’s broken. Her wrist or her arm. Move over, Pops. I’m fine.”

Everyone talked at once. From outside came digging noises and shouts. A helicopter whomped overhead. Sirens joined in. Marty showed up, barging in like a bull.

Jill wasn’t so sure the scene felt like a rescue. She preferred the earlier peace of waiting.

Ty stepped over her and sat in the window seat beside her. “You Wagner sisters and your splashy exits from Sweetwater.” He took her wrist in his glove-covered hands.

“Viv needs help.”

“No worries. We got her covered.” He nodded toward her sister. “See? IV is already going. We’ll get her out first, soon as the exit’s cleared, and up to the ambulance. How you doing?”

The willow green eyes blurred. Her voice refused to work. Her body shook as if she’d been dunked in Lake Michigan on a January morning.

“Not so hot, huh? You’re the second one out. How’d you hit your head?”

She gave up and let the tears fall. She let them soak Ty’s navy blue T-shirt, let her face rest against the shoulder that had been there for her in the past.

Chapter 37

Chicago

Jack did not reach Jill until many hours later.

He called Connor to let him know. After his son’s distress over not knowing about Jack’s accident, he needed to keep their son in the loop. He was skiing in Idaho with Emma and her parents and offered to leave. Jack told him there was nothing to do yet.

Late that evening, Marty phoned him from a San Diego hospital. Viv was in surgery for a broken wrist. All six seniors were being held for observation. The bus was going to be towed to Sweetwater Springs as soon as they dug it out and taken to Skip’s former garage to determine whether it could be repaired.

And Jill?

Back at Skip and Daisy’s.

Skip and Daisy’s? After spending over a week there already?

Marty reminded him the accident happened near Sweetwater. That sense of being ignorant had filled him again.

She answered their house phone. “Hello?”

“Jill!” He exhaled a long breath of relief. “Are you all right?”

“I’m good.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Marty said you were there but the line’s been busy. You didn’t answer your cell.”

“I was talking with Connor. He was checking on Grandpops, the famous Sweetwater EMT, and found me. Maybe he can find my phone too. It must be on the bus, which is still knee-deep in rock and dirt.”

The way she was running off at the mouth she must have been shaken up. “You’re really okay?”

“You’re really worried.”

“Of course I’m really worried. Why wouldn’t I be sick with worry? You’re riding in a bus that goes off a cliff in the middle of nowhere and a woman gets killed.”

“Jack, relax. I’m fine. Well, except for this bump on my forehead. I guess I fell down and broke my crown too. I didn’t know Jill broke her crown, did you? Here I always thought it was only Jack.”

“How could that happen? Marty said everybody had seat belts on because Viv insisted on it.”

“She does that. But Agnes got up . . . Oh, that’s another story. Anyway, I undid my belt to help her and then . . . then I don’t know. We went off the side of the road and bounced around and my whole body bounced around.”

“Were you knocked unconscious?”

“Do people remember that sort of thing? I don’t remember it.”

Déjà vu.
“Jill! You need tests. You should be in a hospital. You may have a concussion. Internal bleeding. All kinds of things! Why aren’t you at the hospital with everyone else?”

“The ambulances had to transport Agnes and Viv. Poor Viv. Her wrist was broken. Did you know that? She had to lie there on that bus for hours with a broken bone. And—and where was I?”

“Are you on pain meds?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a little loopier than normal.”

She giggled.

He grinned. Jill had a silly side that produced the same effect. “So if you’re on meds, you’ve seen a doctor. Right?”

“Righto.”

“But you didn’t go with the others to San Diego?”

“No. There was a van, but the Casitas Pack and all their luggage filled it up. Mom and Pops came, did you hear? But they were absolutely no help. Hold on, Jack. Sorry, Mom. I meant medicalwise. Your hugs were a huge help.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“Anyway,” she said, “Ty said I could just go home with them if I promised to stop by the ER. Which I did, Dr. Galloway. And Pops will wake me up in the night. Meanwhile Mom keeps feeding me and tucking blankets around me on the couch. She makes the best hot cocoa.”

“Ty?”

“Tyler Wilkins. He’s the one who bought Pops’s place, remember?”

The high school boyfriend. Standoffish guy.

“He’s an EMT too.” She yawned.

“Jill, how are you really? Please talk to me.”

“You want me to talk?”

Jack winced. Yesterday he would have said no. “Yes. Tell me what happened with Agnes.”

She sniffed. “Oh, Jack, I’ve never met such a warm, wise woman. I want to be like her when I grow up.”

He smiled. Jill was always meeting women she wanted to emulate, as if she herself weren’t a model of warmth and wisdom. “What made Agnes so special?”

And then she talked for a long time.

“I’m so sorry, Jill.”

“Thank you for listening. Mom and Pops are getting tired of hearing it.”

“I’m sure they’re not. You’re in good hands. Do you have any idea when you’ll be home?”

“Uh, no. I haven’t thought about that at all.”

“Of course not. Okay. Well, you need some recovery time. Connor won’t be here for a while, so don’t worry about it. Do you need me out there?”

She didn’t reply.

And he knew he had flubbed. Somehow, something he had said offended her.

He waited for her instruction.

A tide of resentment grew and then he berated himself. Circumstances were not typical. She was under incredible stress, on meds, thousands of miles from home. Perhaps he wasn’t in the doghouse.

At last she said, “No. No thanks. I don’t
need
you. Thanks for calling. I should go. Mom’s favorite cop show is starting and she wants me to watch it with her.”

“Sure. Talk to you later.”

“Bye. Love you.” The line went dead.

“Love you,” he said to his kitchen.

What was going on? The last thing on earth he would have imagined Jill doing was extending her time in Sweetwater and watching television with Daisy.

But she had bumped her head.

He bumped his head and wanted a divorce.

She said she did not need him. Did she mean she did not need him to go out there?

Or that she did not need him . . . at all?

Chapter 38

Sweetwater Springs

“Jillian.” Daisy spoke harshly from the recliner. “Why didn’t you tell your husband to come out here and get you?”

“Your show’s on. Unmute the volume.” Jill rearranged the pillow under her head on the couch.

“You are still the most stubborn girl I have ever met.” Daisy turned on the volume, increasing it as she continued to talk over the program, explaining the story line to Jill.

During the first commercial break, Daisy scooted to the kitchen and nuked popcorn for them. At the next pause she fetched Jill’s pain medication. Another time she retucked the comforter around her, murmuring about what a special person Agnes was.

Deep inside, Jill mourned the loss of her new friend. She would carry the woman in her heart forever. She had a gazillion new lessons gleaned that she could share. The most significant one was how Agnes brought about a healing between Jill and Daisy.

Agnes would want her to soak in this time.

And so Jill soaked it in. She was lulled into a most wondrous mommy moment. She had known daddy times, but this side of her mother soothed like warm oil, softening old protective calluses.

When the show ended, Daisy sat on the edge of the couch. Jill looked at a wizened face that would no doubt be hers one day and she smiled.

“Jillian, I have to ask you something and I am dead serious. Are you taking up with Ty?”

She grinned. “No way, José. He is just an old friend.”

“You thought about it though, didn’t you?”

“It crossed my mind and kept on going.”

“You’re a good girl.”

“I’m your daughter.”

“Why didn’t you tell Jack that you
want
him to come out?”

“Because I’ve been telling him what to do for twenty-five years.”

Daisy harrumphed and gave a quick nod. “Time he figured things out for himself then.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Could take some time.”

That was the scary part. Jill prayed it would not be a lifetime.