Page 57 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
His arms slid around me, and he drew me in for one of those wordless hugs of understanding that I needed, even though we were sticky with rain and perspiration. He knew I had a soft spot for the female children, each one reminding me of the daughter I’d lost.
I steeled myself for the familiar ache in my heart, the yearning to hold my baby even though she’d been stillborn. The longing to see her face. Phillip had told the doctors to take her away and spare me thatpain. With each year that passed, I hated him all the more for that. Peace was hard won on most days.
On an evening like tonight, it was all but impossible.
Russell grabbed an umbrella from the floorboards and circled round to my side of the station wagon. Together, we walked toward the van, only the headlights of our two vehicles offering relief from the blanket of darkness.
The side door of the van slid open, and a figure swaddled in dark clothing stepped out—black jeans and a baggy shirt, with leather bracelets and a spiked choker. Probably no more than five feet tall and ninety pounds soaking wet, the teen eyed us with disdain as thick as her eyeliner. Her hair was shaved short on one side, the rest gathered into a ponytail, dyed coal black like her clothes.
My knee-jerk reaction shouted not to let this girl near our house. Could she be trusted not to lead someone back to us someday? Russell’s shoulders tensed, and his set face indicated he had the same reservations. More, even.
But I also knew, odds were that the girl’s hostile appearance was honed from the long practice of distancing herself from people determined to harm her.
So I stepped out into the rain, water plastering my hair, and called, “Come on, young lady. There are snacks in the car, and we have a place ready for you until we can arrange the next leg of your journey.”
Russell wasn’t happy with me.
He didn’t outright scowl, but he held the steering wheel in a death grip that went beyond just careful driving in a thunderstorm. The tic in the corner of his eye had broadcast his frustration since the moment I’d ignored our decision to trust our instincts and had invited this troubled teen to stay in his grandmother’s cabin. The place where he wanted tomake a home for us, wearing his grandparents’ wedding bands. My heart squeezed at the prospect.
Rain drummed on the roof in time to the Fleetwood Mac eight-track. I hated that we had two disagreements at once hanging between us—the proposal and the teen’s lodging. Although now I wondered if I’d suggested the cabin to avoid having to discuss the other. If so, that wasn’t fair of me. Russell deserved a more honest and up-front response.
Later, though. I would apologize, but first things first.
The cabin was our best—truly our only—option for the teen’s temporary lodging. Even if we could locate Libby, I couldn’t ask her to take in this girl, not with Keith under the same roof. And Thea lived in a one-bedroom efficiency apartment, although she spent more nights than not with her new boyfriend.
I glanced over my shoulder to check on our passenger. Sheappearedto be sleeping, slouched with her arms crossed, except her jaw kept flexing and her breathing was too rapid. She was alert underneath all that attitude.
This didn’t seem to be the right time to tell her she’d already broken the number one rule two mile markers ago by telling us her real name—Destiny Nelson, from Atlanta, Georgia.
Although she wouldn’t have a new name until her final destination, she still should have been warned to maintain her anonymity. For heaven’s sake, I hadn’t even told Libby my real name, just as she’d never shared hers or Keith’s. Only Russell knew who I was before Bent Oak. But I reminded myself this girl was young—not even a fully formed adult and already on the run.
As Russell turned into the driveway leading to the cabin, the station wagon jostled and skidded in the muddy potholes, water sluicing off to the side.
Destiny shifted in the back seat. “This is it? Looks like the kinda place where that guy fromFriday the 13thjumps out of the woods with a chain saw.”
I stifled a twinge of irritation, reminding myself the attitude was a shield. “Well, then lucky for you he won’t be able to see you with all your black clothes.”
The kid would likely reject sympathy, but it still made me sad to think how she wouldn’t be here—in thisFriday the 13thplace—at all unless she was running from something much worse. I started to apologize for my comment, then saw her smirk in the rearview mirror.
Only a few more minutes, twenty tops, and we would have her settled. Then Russell and I could have a sit-down discussion, the kind of mutual exchange I’d never experienced with Phillip.
As the station wagon bounced along another pothole, I saw a thin light piercing the darkness from Russell’s apartment over the barn. Strange, since Russell was always a stickler about not running up his power bill. Another of those idiosyncrasies I’d learned over the years about the man I loved, like how he preferred his coffee with two sugars and that he put the milk jug back on the refrigerator shelf even when empty. Yet there was still so much of myself I couldn’t give to him.
Because I always had to be careful and never forget the people who’d been angered by my relocations. “Russell, did you happen to leave a lamp on?”
Frowning, he squinted into the murky night. “And pay for the lights when nobody’s home? Nope. I turned everything off.”
In the back seat, Destiny stretched upward until I saw her face in the rearview mirror, like an apparition, given all that goth hair and makeup. “Is something wrong? You two screwed up, didn’t you. I knew this was too good to be true. I’m gonna file a complaint with whoever runs this rinky-dink operation.”
I ground my teeth. Destiny and I were going to have a serious conversation about manners and the importance of safety soon—once we solved the lamp issue.
Russell slammed on the brakes as the headlights swept over a rusty pickup. “Were you expecting anyone to meet up with us here after we finished?”
My skin prickled with anxiety. I could just barely make out Tennessee plates on the muddy truck. “No. I would have told you.”
And he would have told me.
Russell threw the station wagon into reverse, swinging the vehicle around. The back end fishtailed until he righted the car again, powering forward. I knelt on the seat, twisting to check Destiny and look back to make sure we weren’t being followed.
