Winter's Secret (25 page)

"Tell him he can see the kids tomorrow when he's sober." The woman's voice softened. "He shouldn't be out tonight, Wendy." She paused. "Please keep him there. Tell him if he stays there overnight and sobers up, he can come and see the kids as soon as the roads open."

Wendy frowned at Juanita's passing the responsibility to her. But who was she to judge? "Okay, I'll tell him. Are you okay? Do you need anything?" Kane's family lived in a double-wide trailer about a mile away.

"We're fine, and we're staying put till this storm is over. Sorry we had to bother you. I thought he'd go to his mom's. Merry Christmas, Wendy."

"Merry Christmas to you." Wendy hung up. "Kane, Juanita says you can go home in the morning if you stay here tonight and sleep it off."

Kane reared up "No, Christmas Eve—"

Rodd stepped up to the man, ready to push him back down. "No argument. If you try to go out to drive in your condition, I'll arrest you before you get out of the yard. Now give me your keys."

Kane eyed Rodd as though trying to size him up as an opponent. Kane had come from a rough family and could be unpredictable when he drank.

Wendy inched backward. She'd witnessed slugfests before and knew the best thing she could do was get out of the way so Rodd could handle it. Still, her nerves began to jump. She hated scenes like this. She'd seen too many.

Kane continued to stare at the sheriff, then slowly put his hand in his pocket.

Wendy held her breath, hoping Kane wasn't pulling out a weapon.

Kane glanced at Wendy. "Don't worry, Wendy. Don't want to hurt anyone." He handed Rodd a ring of keys. Then he put his head in his hands. "I've made a mess of everything." Kane's tone turned maudlin. Now remorse for his drinking would kick in. It was a cycle Wendy had endured with her mother's drinking for most of her childhood. Wendy felt a little sick.

Harlan had come up behind Wendy. "Kane, I have the cot set up downstairs as usual. You know where it is. Turn on the electric blanket. You'll need the extra warmth down there tonight."

Kane began to cry. "Thanks, Harlan." Kane stumbled toward the basement steps, his weeping growing louder.

"Rodd will walk you down, Kane," Harlan ordered in a no-nonsense tone. "You don't look too steady on your feet."

With a quizzical expression, Rodd trailed Kane down the steps. Within a few moments, Rodd returned to the kitchen.

Harlan motioned for Wendy and him to come back to the living room. "Kane rents and farms most of my land and has a trailer on it for his wife and kids. She won't let him in if he comes home after he's been drinking."

"He's not a bad guy. He just can't drink," Wendy explained further. "Juanita, Kane, and I went to school together. He's really trying to overcome a lot of stuff from his childhood."

Harlan shook his head. "Yes, Kane's come a long way, but he's going to have to give up drinking and go to AA or he may lose everything."

"I take it this has happened before?" Rodd asked.

"Yeah," Ma answered from the sofa. "Harlan takes in a lot of the strays around here. And Juanita's expecting again."

Wendy looked up, surprised. "So soon? Their youngest is only six months old."

Ma shrugged. "They're both young and babies happen."

Rodd moved the fire screen and added two logs to the fire. Bruno tossed in a few branches they'd chopped off the base of the tree. As the fire consumed them, it crackled and flared with golden sparks.

Breathing in the fresh pine fragrance, Wendy wondered how Juanita's fourth pregnancy in seven years had slipped by her. She usually knew the medical condition of most of Steadfast. "I'll go over this week and talk to her about getting some help with all those children."

She knew from experience that preventing abuse and neglect usually proved more effective than picking up the broken pieces. Kane and Juanita both had a backlog of childhood abuse, and now faced money problems from farming and Kane's drinking binges—heavy loads to carry.

"I'll be glad to watch her two oldest ones for one afternoon a week, let her take a nap with the baby," Ma offered as she counted stitches in her crochet pattern.

"You have such a generous heart, Lou." Bruno beamed at her.

Ma blushed for the second time that evening.

They all took their places again The cozy minutes passed with gentle laughter and nutmeg-sprinkled creamy eggnog. Wendy felt the ache of being separated from her mom and sister ebb in the warm setting She'd called them earlier, afraid the storm might take the phone lines down. Mom had called Sage in from sunbathing.

Now as Wendy studied Rodd, she tried to come up with a way to speak to him privately. But the urgency had lessened. If she didn't get to talk to him tonight, there was tomorrow. Christmas Day—snowbound with Rodd.

After the ten o'clock TV news with its dire predictions of a blizzard with record-breaking snow and drifting, Ma and Bruno retired upstairs to get ready for bed. Ma and Wendy would share a room while Bruno and Harlan bunked in together. Rodd would sleep on the couch downstairs.

"What a blessing. I have a full house tonight," Harlan joked. "Basement to the rafters."

Wendy kissed his lined cheek, and then pausing on the bottom step, she turned to Rodd. For a long moment, their gazes held. The Christmas tree glow filled the room—the crackling fire, the scent of pine. Wendy gripped the smooth wooden banister to stop herself from going back to him. She longed to rest her head on his hard chest ... instead, she cleared her throat. "Did I give you enough bedding?"

"Plenty, and I think this couch is going to feel really good when I stretch out." Rodd sounded happier than he had for several days. The evening must have mellowed his spirits too. She was glad.

"Well, good night then." She started up

"Good night."

His watching her as she climbed the steps made her feel alive, attractive. Her heart fluttered. Before Rodd, she'd been able to block any man out of her mind. But not this man, not Rodd Durand.

Upstairs, while Ma finished in the bathroom, Wendy waited on the bedside rocker in her bedroom. After Ma eased into the high double bed, Wendy lingered in the rocking chair by the window, staring out at the swirling snow under the yard light. The power lines whipped around like jump ropes. She dreaded possible power outages tonight. The sound of the wild wind sharpened all her senses.

Despite her fatigue, the knowledge that Rodd slept downstairs kept her from easy sleep. She tried to analyze what was different about him from the other men she knew. How did he manage to linger in her mind and refuse to be rooted out?

Her goal tonight had been to help him put Veda's nasty letter into perspective. The letter had hit him hard—hard enough to shake his confidence seriously. Cram had irritated Rodd with his jibing editorials, but he hadn't upset Rodd as much as Veda had. Veda had revealed that damaging story from Rodd's past at just the wrong time. His confidence had already taken a beating because of the unsolved burglaries.

Oh, Lord, I've been hoping that the burglaries would just stop. But even if they do, Rodd will always feel like he's been put to the test and failed. Help him ride out this storm, and please keep Veda's barbed darts from digging deeper into his flesh.

Wendy woke with a start. She'd fallen asleep in the rocker. What woke her? She glanced out the window and saw Kane getting into his truck. Oh no! Jumping up, she raced silently down the steps to the living room.

Rodd was already at the window. "Blast it," he breathed in a low voice. "He's crazy."

"He must have had an extra key. He probably woke up and thought he'd slept it off and decided to head home." Wendy hurried to Rodd and peered out the window. "He won't get far. By now the roads will be drifted shut."

"Where's his place?"

"Just east of here. He'll stay on this road until his mailbox; then there's a short access lane to his trailer."

"It's good I didn't undress." Rodd sat down on the couch and started pulling on his boots. "I have to go after him."

She wanted to object but held her peace. Of course Rodd had to go after him. Long before he reached home, Kane would be mired in a snowdrift and stranded; he could die of exposure before morning. The thought sent a shiver through her. "You'll take your snowmobile?"

Rodd nodded, then headed for the back hall. "I've got my stuff here."

Fretting, Wendy followed him and watched him pull on his shiny black-and-white snowmobile gear, including a face mask and helmet. "I should come with you."

"If I need you, I'll call. Stay by the phone."

"Promise?" She caught his eye.

"Promise. And say a prayer for God to protect that fool from himself." As Rodd let himself out, a frigid blast of air burst in.

Her arms folded, Wendy stepped to the back-door window and, on tiptoe, watched Rodd enter the metal machine shed and lift the overhead door. He barreled out on his snowmobile. The snow surged in white veils around him. She began praying.

While she waited, she stoked the low fire in the hearth to warm up the chilled living room. Then she stood by the front windows, looking down the lane to the country road in front of her grandfather's house. As the frenzied storm rampaged over the sleeping landscape, the snow swirled into higher and higher drifts like ocean waves. Shivering, she paced in front of the window.

The phone rang. She ran to it, lifting it on the second ring, not wanting to wake anyone else.

"Wendy!" Rodd's voice came through heavy static. "Kane wrapped his truck around a telephone pole."

Shock tingled through her. "How bad is he?"

"He's breathing. His nose is pouring out blood. Must be broken. I need you to come and see if I can move him back to Harlan's. I called the ambulance, but they can't get out. The roads are closed till morning."

Her heart pounded. "Where are you?"

"About a mile down the road east."

"I'll be right there."

"Be careful. I'd come back for you, but I'm afraid he might do something stupid like try to get out of the truck and wander off."

"I'm on my way." Wendy hung up and ran to the back hall to pull on her navy blue snowmobile suit. She hurried outside. The frigid night tried to suck the warmth from her. Icy snow flung itself into her eyes. The wind buffeted her, trying to sweep her off her feet. She fought her way to her grandfather's large machine shed, rattling metallically in the gale. Inside, she swept off the tarp over her grandfather's machine. She straddled the snowmobile and slid in the key. The motor vroomed to life. She eased it around the pickup and out into the snowy night. Her first time out on the snowmobile this year, she took it easy as she skirted the pasture fence.

She kept her mind focused on the snow under her machine. She didn't want to hit a low spot and kill her engine. Rodd and Kane needed her--now. In the raging snow, it took all her concentration to keep the snowmobile on track, following the fence line. Finally, up ahead, she glimpsed Kane's red truck smashed into a pole. She pulled up and cut her engine next to Rodd's snowmobile.

Rodd turned to meet her as she plunged through the knee-deep snow. He motioned her to the open door of the pickup. "He'd have killed himself if the snowdrift hadn't slowed him down!" Rodd shouted above the frenzy of the wind.

Wendy peeled off her insulated gloves and pushed in between Rodd and Kane within the shelter of the open truck door. With Rodd shielding her back with his body, she quickly examined Kane's nose, opened his drowsy eyes, checked his pulse, slipped her hand into his fleece-lined jacket to check his chest for broken ribs, then slid her hands down his frame checking for broken legs and ankles. "Kane!" she shouted. "Can you feel your feet?"

"Yeeaaah."

"Do you think you can walk?" she demanded.

Kane flapped his head in a sluggish nod. "Need help."

She turned to Rodd and shouted close to his face, "We've got to get him back to my grandfather's. I don't think he has any broken ribs or has injured his spine. He may have internal injuries, but we can't get him to the clinic in this." She stepped out of the way. "Get him out and onto your machine."

She slogged over to her grandfather's 'bile and uncoiled the length of nylon rope he always kept wound around the seat. She returned to Rodd, who was helping Kane straddle the snowmobile. She motioned Rodd to get on behind Kane; then she looped the rope in a large slipknot under both their arms and cinched it in front, giving Rodd the knotted end. "That should help. Kane, hold on tight! Sheriff, I'll follow you."

"Get on your machine. I won't leave till you're on your way!" Rodd shouted.

"Don't worry!" She climbed through the shifting snow to her seat and piloted the snowmobile around toward home. Her winter gear was holding in her body heat, but the oppressive cold enveloped her, a life-threatening force. Keeping an eye on her patient, she raced off after the sheriff, the snow sliding under and whooshing up behind her like a tail.

She sped through the gray black night. The frigid wind beat against her, nearly stealing her breath away. She huddled behind the shelter of the windshield and breathed in through her nose, warming her air. She clung to the snowmobile as if her life depended on it. Because it did.