you, Mrs. McGann.”
“Laura. Call me Laura. And thank you for staying with Johnny until the police arrived. Until I arrived.”
“Of course.”
After making sure the police didn’t want her to remain for any more questioning and taking their card and giving them her cell number, Jen poured herself a large cup of coffee. She laced it with plenty of milk and sugar, took two of the glazed doughnuts, paid for her purchases over Johnny’s protests and walked outside to her Mustang.
The sage-scented desert air stung her nostrils as she breathed in deeply, and for one long moment she thought she was going to cry. There had been that moment, inside the store and on the floor, when she’d thought she’d never take another breath, and it felt so wonderful to still be alive. The sky, the air, the coffee—everything felt unbearably new, almost shimmering with life.
I’ll never take it for granted again.
Though little more than an hour had passed since she’d first entered the convenience store, Jen felt as if she were entering another lifetime. Though she was profoundly grateful to be alive, something crucial had been lost.
She’d realized how easy and inconsequential it was for some people to take a life, and that dark knowledge made her exhausted to her bones, to the depths of her soul.
And afraid.
As she unlocked her car, she thought of the man who had come to their rescue. He’d been tall and strong, and those blue eyes had been so intense when he’d silently ordered her behind the counter. And she’d obeyed, recognizing his strength and responding to it.
He’d been a hero in the true sense of the word. He’d acted in a heroic way with no thought for his own safety. He hadn’t had to come into the convenience store; he could have driven on or even considered himself a Good Samaritan by calling the police on his cell.
But he’d been a hero—her hero. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him; her memories of this man were so incredibly vivid. She felt as if they’d been etched on her soul, she’d been so touched by his selfless actions.
Jen knew she was being unreasonable, thinking of this man, spinning thoughts about him, wondering if…Most likely he had a family, a wife and a couple of children. She wondered if they all knew how lucky they were to have a man like that in their lives to protect them.
For an instant, as she slid into the driver’s seat and put her coffee and doughnuts down, she wished he was with her. She had a feeling if she could just lean on him for a few minutes, feel his arms around her, she wouldn’t feel so afraid.
But that was impossible.
CODY KNEW HE HAD TO LEAVE the parking lot, but he couldn’t seem to get his body in gear.
He was worn out. Perhaps weary was a better word. Soul sick, as his father would have said. He hadn’t had a whole lot of energy when he’d started out this morning, and the robbery had finished him off.
But he knew he had to get to work, so he set himself a limit of ten more minutes. Then he opened the van’s sliding side door and sat on the van’s floor, facing outside with his booted feet on the cement. He took in deep breaths of the cool, morning desert air. It felt fresh and open. Vast and timeless.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt glad to be alive.
JEN PULLED OUT OF THE PARKING lot, tried to take a sip of her coffee and found that she couldn’t. Her hands were shaking that badly.
Setting the takeout cup in the Mustang’s drink holder, she concentrated on driving through the small town, passing the first shopping center, driving by businesses and smaller, outlying houses surrounded by cacti and rock gardens. Trying to keep her attention on the road when her eyes were rapidly filling with frightened tears.
Aftershock. The shock was wearing off and she was starting to feel. And she didn’t want to. At least not while she was driving.
She was in no shape to be on the road.
The motel she finally spotted was on the far side of town, a small, pale pink stucco affair with a tiled roof. The neon sign, complete with a cactus, was turned off. But all Jen cared about was the black-and-white Vacancy sign prominently displayed.
She pulled into the parking lot, went into the main office and got a room, then drove a few more spaces down so she was parked in front of door number seventeen. Taking her coffee, the doughnuts and her overnight bag, she locked her car, then unlocked the motel room’s door and let herself in.
It was no resort, but the small room was pleasant. The queen-size bed had a clean, colorful green-and-cream-striped spread, and the room smelled fresh.
Locking the front door behind her, she dragged a ladder-back chair from the small table in front of the window and wedged it beneath the doorknob.
She knew this wasn’t normal behavior on her part, but she found herself suddenly scared, wanting to make the room secure, not wanting to be caught off guard. And she also knew exactly where those fears were coming from and that they were very normal after what she’d just experienced.
Jen sat on the bed. She forced herself to sip her warm coffee, then take bites of the doughnuts, chew and swallow. Automatically. Again and again, even though she didn’t really taste anything. She knew she had to go through these simple motions of living until she felt better again. Or at least until she got her blood sugar up.
The only thing she could compare the robbery to was a car accident she’d been in when she was sixteen. Her girlfriend had been driving when the car in front of them had gone completely out of control, smashing into the cement center divider. They’d plowed into the back of the runaway car. It had been over six months before she’d felt at ease in a car, either driving or as a passenger.
Now Jen knew it would take a while before she felt safe out in the world.
She stopped eating when the doughnuts and coffee threatened to come right back up, then walked into the motel bathroom. After a brief inspection of the small, utilitarian facilities, she turned on the shower, stripped off her clothing and reached for the wrapped bar of guest soap. It smelled of lemon.
If she closed her eyes, she could see the robber’s expression, the way he’d looked at her as she’d slowly taken off her pink sweater.
More than anything, more than even wanting to feel safe again, she wanted to feel clean.
CODY KNEW HE’D BE LATE TO THE set if he didn’t get it in gear. But his thoughts kept returning to the woman in the pink sweater. He wondered if she’d gotten to where she was going, if she had family waiting for her, a boyfriend or parents nearby. He wondered how she’d felt while being questioned by the police. He wondered if when she closed those extraordinary blue-gray eyes she saw the same images he did.
Forcing himself to finish the last of the lukewarm black coffee, he stretched, took a few deep breaths, then got into the van’s driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.
He drove through the desert town, intent on making good time until he passed a small, pink stucco motel and glimpsed that familiar candy-apple-red Mustang parked out front.
There couldn’t be two cars
