Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) (30 page)

Mary’s words assured him, even though he heard a tremor in her voice.

“Dakota’s a prepper. She will have food, water, extra blankets. If they got lost, she’ll park the car and wait to be found.”

Night had fallen again, the snow let up right before the sun went down. They’d checked the roads about the house and didn’t find anything. There were plenty of turnoffs, old campgrounds, a few abandoned houses.

Not that a lack of the sun was going to stop Walt’s search. He and Larry were bundled and ready for another trip up the mountain. The police used the house as a base camp, plows would pick one of them up as they continued on up the road.

“I’m going to find her,” Walt assured Mary.

“Of course you are. Trent and Glen are flying in tonight, so long as the weather holds. By noon tomorrow you’ll be sipping hot chocolate and laughing.” Mary choked on a cry.

“Have you called her parents?”

“I have. They’re booking flights. I’ll let your sister know when to expect all of us. We’ll get to you, don’t think about us.”

“I don’t have room in my head to.”

“Dr. Eddy?” One of the officers waved him over.

“I’ve gotta go.”

“Go find her.”

“I will.”

Walt climbed into another plow and watched as light sparkled off the snow. Instead of traveling the main road, they took the back one.

Even though the plow could chomp through the snow and ice like a teenager did pizza, they moved slowly and shed light on the side roads as they went. “C’mon, Dakota. Where are you?”

With the open skies, the temperature dropped below zero, or so the outside temperature gauge on the car said when they cranked the engine to heat the inside.

The gas in the car was still reading a quarter of a tank.

Dakota ran the flashers and honked the horn several times when she could. The fear of running out of gas and heat was a larger concern than food at this point. JoAnne was the one who suggested they move to the backseat and huddle together to stay warm.

Using the flashlight to keep a light in the car on, Dakota propped it against the front seat and helped JoAnne into the back. They bundled close, used the blankets to contain as much heat as they could.

“First thing I’m doing when we get home is filling a tub with scalding hot water.”

Dakota agreed. “With scented bubbles. Rose or lilac.”

JoAnne offered a dry laugh. “We do stink.”

“I’ll pack air deodorant in the emergency kit next time.”

“Bite your tongue, young lady. We most certainly are not doing
this
again.”

Dakota smiled, closed her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

They were both quiet for a while, yet neither of them slept.

“I’m scared, Dakota.”

Dakota reached for JoAnne’s hand, squeezed it. “We won’t run out of water, we can survive for several days without food.”

“What about freezing to—”

“Don’t! We’re cold, not frozen. We’re fine.”

“But—”

“JoAnne, I just started to like you. Don’t go blowing it with
buts
and death talk.”

Dakota felt JoAnne’s hand squeeze hers. “You’re a pushy one.”

“Damn right. A trait you’ll learn to love.”

JoAnne leaned her head against Dakota’s and her breathing evened out.

Dakota shook herself awake sometime later, noticed ice forming on the inside of the window. Easing out from under JoAnne’s sleeping head, Dakota uncurled from the heat of the blankets and wiggled into the front seat. She turned the engine over, panicked a little when it took a moment to start.

“So cold.” She heard JoAnne mumble in the back.

“Heat is coming.” Dakota blew the horn, signaled SOS, and checked the time. After three. According to the temperature gauge, it was minus five degrees.

She would never again curse Southern California for all the windy, hot weather it provided.

She hit the horn again, followed it with a flash of the headlights. Once the chill was out of the air, she cut the engine.

They only had one-eighth of a tank left.

Tomorrow she’d have to figure out how to keep them warm without the use of the engine.

Walt’s plow met up with Larry’s. “Anything?” Larry yelled from the cab.

“Nothing. You?”

“We thought we saw tracks leading farther north. Didn’t want to risk the road alone.”

“Let’s go,” Chance, his driver, said.

They found the tracks, or what Larry thought were tracks. Looked more like big circle. Like maybe kids got out there and did doughnuts in the snow before it really hit hard. The road from here led off in three directions, the one they came in on, and two others.

“Do you know where we are?” Walt asked his driver.

He peered out the window. “Think we’re at an old summer camp site.”

That would explain the open road and several turns. “Any idea where it dumps out?”

“Main road is five miles away. But we know they didn’t find the road.”

Walt tried yelling at Larry over the noise of the engines. “It’s an old campground.”

“That explains a lot. Think they could have gotten turned around in here?”

“Maybe.”

Something out of place sounded behind him. Walt turned toward the noise. “Did you hear that?”

Larry shook his head. “What?”

“Chance, kill the engine.”

Walt made a cutting motion with his hand to the other driver.

With the noise down to nothing but the bubbling liquid inside the engines, Walt tilted his head.

The hope that had filled him a moment before drowned as he heard nothing but silence.

“Now I’m hearing things.”

Larry cursed. “We’ll find them.”

Walt was punchy, tired, and so fucking scared he couldn’t see straight. “You circle around east, we’ll take the west, meet back here.”

“Sounds good.”

Chance started the engine again when Walt heard the noise. “Turn it off,” he yelled.

Every hair on his arms stood. A horn. Weak but clear. He caught three short honks, three long, three short.

“Holy shit,” Larry yelled.

“Where’s it coming from?” The noise bounced off the trees, making it sound like it was behind them, then in front of them.

Walt thought he saw a flash of light, only to look over his shoulder to notice the flashing lights of the plow.

He pointed behind them. “I’m going that way, circle the back side. Someone is out here.”

Larry smiled for the first time in two days.

Dakota once again huddled next JoAnne, and forced her eyes to close. Sleeping while she was mostly warm was safer than doing so while freezing.

Slumber knocked on the backs of her eyelids. She imagined the warm breeze off the ocean, the gentle waves. Didn’t Monica say she and Trent had a vacation home in Jamaica? God, that sounded really good.

The hum inside her head had been there for hours. She didn’t want to acknowledge the headache or the possibility that her blood pressure might be taking a hike on the high road.

She ignored the hum and snuggled deeper under the blankets.

The hum grew and Dakota jumped.

She peered outside the car and screeched when she noticed a distant fading light.

“Oh, God.” She jumped over the seat, sent JoAnne flying.

She hit the horn, let it blare. When she turned on the lights, they faded.

“What is it?”

“Help.” Dakota pointed out the window. “They can’t hear us. Grab the flashlight.”

JoAnne scrambled out from the covers, grasped the flashlight, and waved it out the window.

Dakota opened the door, ignored the biting cold, and ran to the back of the car.

The lights connected to the hum moved farther away.

She dug in her bag, found the flare, and flinched when she sparked it to life.

With the red glow sloshed in three feet of snow, waving it. “Here! Hey!”

JoAnne laid a palm into the horn.

“Oh, God, no.”

The vehicle moved away from them.

Dakota screamed.

She tried to run, fell flat on her face and nearly doused the light of the flare.

The horn lost its power but that didn’t stop JoAnne from yelling out the window.

Dakota turned to look at the car, noticed a second light.

Changing her focus, she waved at the second set of lights, the ones moving closer. “Look!” she yelled and pointed.

JoAnne turned, flashed the light in a new direction.

The lights on the plow turned off and then on again.

They see us.

Dakota moved to JoAnne’s side. They hugged each other. “They found us.”

“They did.”

The plow stopped feet from the car, and someone from the passenger seat swung down from the cab.

“Dakota? Mom?”

“Walt!”

“Walter.”

They crawled over the snow and met somewhere in the middle. Bundled and hardly recognizable, Walt pulled them both into his arms.

“Thank God.”

Joy came in the way of heat as it spread all over her limbs. Tears, the good kind, fell down her cheeks.

JoAnne was laughing with nerves. “About time you found us.”

Walt laughed and soon Dakota joined in.

He pulled away and looked in her eyes. “Are you OK?”

“I am now.”

He kissed her, as if she were a lifeline and he was on his last breath. He stopped long enough to hug them both again, then ushered them inside to the warmth of the plow.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Calls were made long before they arrived at the house. Walt didn’t let go of Dakota’s gloved hand the entire trip down the hill.

His mother’s story kept him from needing to ask anything.

“It’s my fault really. I shouldn’t have distracted Dakota. We got turned around. I thought I could get us back to the house the back way.”

“We looked there.”

“We obviously didn’t get there. We drove in circles until Dakota put her foot down and we stopped.”

Walt kissed Dakota’s forehead.

“She’d filled the car with water and food. Such a smart girl you have here, Walter.”

Dakota glanced over Walt’s shoulder at his mother. “We bonded.”

“It seems that way.”

His mom laughed. “I suggest a spa weekend if we need more bonding. I think it might be time for your father and I to find a second home in Arizona. Do they call that snowbirds? Living in one place during the summer and a warm place in the winter?”

Walt couldn’t remember another time when his mother rambled so much.

“Yes. That’s what they call it.”

“Besides, Arizona is closer to you two. Once the baby comes I’m sure your father and I will want to be more involved than just holidays.”

Walt placed a hand on his mother’s head, peered closer. “Did you hit your head?”

She shooed his hand away. “Don’t play doctor with me. I’m just fine.”

Beside him, Dakota laughed and his mother joined in.

His mom placed a finger in front of her lips. “Shh!”

Dakota winked and made a zipping motion over her lips.

“Secrets? You two have secrets?”

“What happens in snowbound cars, stays in snowbound cars.”

His mom took a deep breath, blew it out. “How is your father?”

“Restless. We told him you were both snowed in at the house and waiting to get down the hill. I don’t think he bought the lack of phone service, but he was too tired to argue that much.”

They arrived at the house with a rush of activity. Brenda grabbed a hold of her mom and didn’t let go.

The police took a statement and eventually left.

Walt forced Dakota to sit through a simple blood pressure and blood sugar test before he allowed the EMTs to leave.

They shed their coats and shoes before the massive fire in the fireplace and sighed.

Walt took their coats, placed them on a drying rack.

Brenda was already warming up hot soup, and Larry was calling family.

Walt turned to see Dakota rubbing her hands over his mother’s. “Let’s not do that again, OK?”

His mom grasped her hands and held them. “Thanks for keeping me sane.”

Dakota smiled and they both looked down at their hands.

His mom patted her hand, and that’s when Walt noticed the shine coming from Dakota’s ring finger.

“I think I’ll find that bubble bath before I eat.”

JoAnne walked by his side, patted his arm, and smiled before walking away. “Brenda, honey, can you bring that to my room? I must shed these clothes.”

Walt heard the others exit the great room. He moved to Dakota’s side and took her hand in his.

The ring was perfect, and the fact that it sat on her ring finger made him smile like a kid on their sixteenth birthday. Car keys in hand.

“I thought I lost that.”

She stretched out her hand, admired the ring. “Oh, is this yours? I found it under the backseat while searching for canned tuna.”

Walt lifted her chin to meet her eyes.

“I thought I lost you.”

Dakota shook her head, slowly. “Takes more than a little snowstorm to get rid of me. Besides, I have some seriously unfinished business to take care of in this life.”

He smiled, loved that she could laugh in the face of what had to have been a harrowing experience. “What’s that?”

She searched him with a look. “I need to tell the man who bought this ring that I love him.”

The words were music, like a breathing child, like a heartbeat where there once was nothing. They filled him, she consumed him.

“I love you, Walt. I really hope this ring is our next step.”

He stepped closer, felt her body against his. “Are you ready for the next step?”

Her smile was ear-to-ear. “I need a little sleep, a long shower, and some food, but after that I’m ready.”

“So we’re getting married.”

“Oh, we’re getting married, Doc. We are
so
getting married.”

He brushed his lips against hers. On a sigh, she melted into his touch.

Their child, not quite ready to say hello to the world, kicked him.

Dakota pulled away laughing. “We’ll get your father healthy enough to wear a suit, make sure my parents and sister can be here. Fly Mary in, get Trent and Monica here . . . maybe even my agent.”

“Sounds like forever.”

“Not quite forever. I’m thinking this weekend will work. Gotta snag ya while your mom still likes me.”

Walt scooped her up, spun her around. “I love you.”

He kissed her again, felt his heart sing.

“I need food, a bath, and a bed,” she told him.

“You got it.”

She stopped him before they headed up the stairs. “Wake me in the morning with a kiss.”

“I’ll wake you every morning of our lives with a kiss.”