Every Waking Moment
She didn’t. “Are you okay?”
He’d broken into a cold sweat when the emotions had overwhelmed him. He struggled to pull himself together, but he couldn’t erase the images emblazoned on his mind: Dallas soaking the sheets with a raging fever. Christy’s whispered prayers and constant pleading. Vince’s odd behavior. And, at the end, six-year-old Dallas lying innocently in his coffin, stiff and cold and gone forever.
Emma and Max made his loss jagged, new. Every emotional wound he had that was connected to the past two years felt like it had just burst open.
He reached for the side of the van to steady himself.
“Is it the cigarettes?” he heard Max whisper to Emma.
“Why don’t you find another rock, okay, buddy?” she said. “But search on the other side of the van, away from the road.”
Now that Max had permission to dig in the dirt, he seemed unwilling to leave. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’ll be all right. Go ahead.”
Max finally did as he was told. Except for the occasional car shooting past them on the highway, the silent stillness of the desert settled around them, almost as stifling as the heat.
“Are you ill?” Emma asked.
Preston breathed deeply, summoning the strength and willpower to avoid the jaws of the dark depression that sometimes gaped after him. He knew it came from the betrayal and the rage and the guilt. In a sense, he’d been as much of a victim as Dallas. But he wouldn’t remain a victim. “No.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He thought of the gun, and the promise that sustained him. It’d all be over soon….
“Give me the keys,” she said. “I’ll drive for a few hours.”
He looked up to find that she was still staring at him. “No.” He was feeling better, back in control.
“Why not take a break while I’m here to help?”
A semi honked as it passed, and the subsequent blast of hot wind blew her long, silky hair across her face. “Because I don’t need a break. I’m fine.”
He’d used his gruffest voice, but she didn’t seem to notice. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ears. “Come on, you can worry about being a tough guy tomorrow. You’ll have two more days of driving to manage on your own.”
A tough guy? He wished he was tough. He wished he were as tough as Christy and could have resumed his life the way she had. All through Dallas’s ordeal, Preston hadn’t been able to shed one tear. He still hadn’t released the pain buried inside him. Christy, on the other hand, had sobbed from the beginning. And now she was remarried. The invitation to her wedding had included a picture of her smiling brightly at the side of a man who used to be their neighbor.
You have to forget and move on, she’d told him only months after Dallas’s death. For our sake. For the sake of our future. Let Dallas go, Preston. Please. Let him go so I can, too….
But Preston couldn’t let go. Not then; not now. So Christy had moved on without him.
He had to admire her survival skills. She certainly wasn’t as fragile as he’d once thought.
“Hello?” Emma prompted when he didn’t answer right away.
“I can drive.” It wasn’t easy to accept kindness from someone he was so reluctant to help.
Her eyes appraised him coolly, almost mutinously. “You need a break.”
Preston almost got in. But…if she was going to be so stubborn about it, he didn’t see how it could hurt to let her drive.
Without another word, he tossed her the keys and stalked around to the other side. Since his divorce, he’d never been a passenger in his own vehicle. He doubted he’d managed to sleep, even if he wasn’t driving. Since Dallas’s death, it seemed he could never shut down completely. He feared too many things—that Vince would slip through his fingers. That he’d crumble and never be able to put the pieces together again.
But twenty miles down the road, Max nodded off. And the thrumming of the tires, combined with the movement of the car, slowly eased the tension knotting Preston’s muscles. Soon, his eyelids felt so heavy he could scarcely lift them.
“Quit fighting it,” Emma said softly. “Nothing bad will happen if you close your eyes for a few minutes.”
That’s what she thinks, he told himself. She didn’t know any better.
He tried to shake off the sleepiness so he could take over at the wheel. But a merciful darkness drew near, buffeting him like a gentle current. And then, finally, there was nothing.
MAX AND PRESTON SLEPT through the next hour. With a blues CD playing in the background—something Emma was surprised to find in Preston’s odd assortment of music—she relaxed for the first time since leaving San Diego. Manuel would never expect her to be traveling in a brown minivan with a man. It didn’t hurt that the color of Max’s hair and eyes was so similar to Preston’s. The three of them weren’t likely to raise any eyebrows—they looked like a little family.
How her son could resemble a stranger more than his own father, Emma didn’t understand. Because of Max’s unusual coloring, Manuel’s mother had often intimated that he couldn’t possibly belong to Manuel. But Emma knew she could prove it with a paternity test if she wanted to. She’d never slept with anyone else.
“What are you thinking about?”
Emma blinked and glanced over to find Preston studying her from beneath his thick, gold-tipped eyelashes. “Nothing, why?”
“You were frowning.”
Manuel’s family had a tendency to bring out the worst in her. But there was no reason to go into all of that. She and Preston were sharing a ride, nothing more. He’d drop her off in Salt Lake City late this evening, and she’d never see him again. Then she’d have to plot her next move—with no luggage, no car and little money—from the valley at the base of the Wasatch Mountains where she and Manuel had once attended the Winter Olympics.
“We’re only forty minutes or so outside Eureka,” she said, instead of responding to his comment about her expression.
“Have you ever been to Eureka?” he asked.
“I’ve been to Eureka, California, but not Eureka, Nevada. I’ve never traveled this road before.”
He gazed out at the scenery. “They call this the Loneliest Road in America.”
“Really?”
“Interstate 80 has more traffic.”
“So why’d you choose Highway 50?”
“I don’t like crowds.”
“I’ve noticed.” She purposely spoke in a biting tone. “I’ve never met anyone who hates children as much as you do. You remind me of Ebenezer Scrooge.”
She thought she saw him wince, but she could feel little real sympathy for someone who didn’t like Max.
“You’re getting your stories screwed up,” he said. “Scrooge hated Christmas.”
“I don’t have anything screwed up. He was a miserly old man who hated everyone, especially children.”
“I could’ve left you in Fallon,” he pointed out.
Emma had to concede that was true. Maybe he was helping them grudgingly, but at least he was helping them. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t say anything. He kept his face averted but she could see his reflection in the glass: the marked angle of his cheekbone, the squareness of his stubbly jaw, the slight cleft in his chin.
“Have you been on this road a lot?” she asked.
His focus didn’t change from the desert surrounding them. “I’ve been all over Nevada in the past seven months, although I’ve mostly stayed in Fallon.”
“But you didn’t get a job or buy a house there?”
Finally he looked over at her. “No, I usually stayed at Maude’s.”
From the appearance of his van, he’d been living in motels for quite some time. She wanted to ask what had happened to him, why he didn’t seem to have any roots. But she knew he wouldn’t take kindly to the question, so she resorted to something less personal. “The towns along this road look sad to me, like they’re dying.”
“The mines have closed down, but the people out here are tough,” he said. “They’ll make it.”
She considered him against the backdrop of the monotonous landscape. “I didn’t think so when I first saw you, but…you seem to fit in here.”
“I look like the miner type to you?”
“Not at all.”
“So what’s the connection?”
When she didn’t answer right away, he grimaced. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“I’m Scrooge, remember? You think my soul’s as barren as the land around us—or something equally flattering.”
“No. Actually, I think you and the desert possess a sort of…stark beauty,” she said.
His eyebrows lifted. “Beauty?”
She chuckled. “Does that offend your masculinity?”
“It surprises me.”
“Why?”
“You have to ask? I haven’t shaved for a couple days. I can’t even remember the last time I had a haircut.”
“I’m not talking about your hair.” She made a point of eyeing his T-shirt and holey jeans. “Or your fashion sense.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Your face. Your body.”
Even Emma heard the frank admiration in her voice. Their eyes met, and she wished she’d been a little less honest. A few seconds earlier she’d somehow hurt him, and had overcorrected. That was all. But the intensity of his gaze reminded her that she didn’t know him very well and, except for her sleeping son, they were alone in the middle of nowhere.
“I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” she said, making a point of counting the yellow dash marks flying toward them. “I—I wasn’t coming on to you or anything.”
He didn’t speak for several minutes. When he looked at her again, the flicker of interest in his eyes was gone. “Is the man who left that burn on your hand Max’s father?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You called him your boyfriend.”
“We were never married.”
“Why not?”
“His family objected.”
“And he gave in? In this day and age?”
“He has a close-knit family.”
“I still find that hard to believe. How long were you with him?”
“We were together for six years. We lived in the same house for five.”
“You moved in together after Max was born?”
“Yes.”
“And when did you leave him?”
Emma couldn’t believe she was divulging so much. But talking seemed the quickest way to ease the sudden tension that had sprung up between them. “Two days ago.”
There was another pause. Thinking the conversation had come to an end, she reached over to turn up the music. But Preston caught her hand. “Are you on the run, Emma?”
It was the first time he’d used her new name. Called her by any name…. Conscious of the smooth baritone of his voice and his strong, warm fingers clasping her wrist, Emma drew a deep breath. “What do you think?”
“I think a woman doesn’t plead with a complete stranger to take her and her son across the country unless she has no other choice.”
Emma didn’t respond. What could she say? He was right.
“Do you suppose he’s following you?” he asked.
She knew Manuel would try. But she didn’t want to spook Preston any more than she already had. “I hope not.”
He turned her arm over and ran his thumb very lightly across the raw, red burn. “A man doesn’t give up a woman like you, or a son like Max, unless he has to.”
Emma wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to himself, but for her own peace of mind, she wanted to answer. “He has to,” she said simply. “I’ll do absolutely anything to make sure we never go back.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MANUEL STOOD at the window of his Sacramento hotel, gazing down at the busy street below. Where was she? If he didn’t catch Vanessa soon, he might never find her.
Contemplating life without her made it difficult to breathe. He couldn’t believe she’d gotten away from him; he still hadn’t completely dealt with the shock of it. But he told himself he wouldn’t have to. He’d eventually figure out what she had planned, where she was going. He wouldn’t allow her to humiliate him in front of his whole family.
I told you she couldn’t be trusted. I told you to quit thinking with your dick, his mother had said. You should’ve taken Dominick and moved on years ago.
His brothers had clucked their tongues and acted smug, knowing full well that their own wives would never have the courage to defy them. She doesn’t know her place, José had said, the comment an obvious suggestion that Manuel should teach her.
It was high time he did, Manuel thought. Once he found Vanessa, he’d give her a lesson she’d never forget. She wouldn’t even be able to brush her teeth without permission. He’d prove to his family that he could handle her, that he could handle any woman.
But first he had to find her, and reporting the car stolen had netted him only one lead. He knew Vanessa had been pulled over while traveling north on Highway 5. That piece of information had led him to Sacramento, but he didn’t know where to go from here.
Pinching his neck, he turned to the phone. He’d already contacted Vanessa’s family and all her old friends. They claimed not to have heard from her and sounded so genuinely surprised by his call that he believed them. He probably shouldn’t have wasted the time. After what had happened before, the odds weren’t good she’d go back to them again.
Should he call the police and report that Vanessa had kidnapped their son? That she’d been kidnapped herself? He wanted to—but he couldn’t. There was always the chance that Vanessa had learned more about his business than he realized. If she aroused suspicion and the police launched an investigation, it would put his whole family in jeopardy. His mother said there was no need to invite trouble, to forget about Vanessa.
But that was easy for his mother to say. She’d never liked Vanessa, wanted to be rid of her. She didn’t understand that he’d never met anyone who could arouse him the way Vanessa could.
Maybe he should fly to Arizona, just in case she decided to break her silence long enough to—
The telephone rang.
Crossing the floor in four strides, he snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“It’s Richard. I’ve got news.”
Manuel’s heart began to pound. “You’ve found her?”
“No. But the police called. They’ve located the car.”
“Where?”
“Fallon, Nevada.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Was it abandoned or something?”
“They found it in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart. They waited for the driver to come out, but no one ever showed.”
“Damn it!” he said, and kicked the desk chair across the room.
Richard remained silent.
Manuel rubbed his face, grappling for control. Don’t let the panic win. Calm down. Think. Nevada…
Quickly, he spread out the map he’d purchased and searched the state to the east of California. Fallon…Fallon…
Finally he pinpointed the town. It was on Highway 50, not far from the California-Nevada border. If Vanessa didn’t have a car anymore, she was probably still there. Or somewhere close.
He felt a powerful surge of hope. Now the search was narrowing.
“Manuel, are you there?” Richard asked.
“Call Hector and everyone else. Tell them to get their asses to Fallon.”
“Don’t you want to go there yourself?”
“I’m on my way. But Fallon’s not very big. If she’s there, it shouldn’t be hard to find her. What we have to do is set up an outside perimeter. How far could she have traveled from Fallon if she left around the time the cops found her car? We’ll mark that on a map. Then some of us will stay in Fallon and the rest will fly to the outer line of that perimeter and slowly move in toward the center.”
“Sounds smart,” Richard said.
It was smart. Finding that car was the lucky break he’d been waiting for.
AT EUREKA, Preston took over the driving. The change woke Max, who wasn’t too happy about having to get back in the van after their brief stop. But Preston was glad to trade seats with Emma. The nap had revived him, and he felt more comfortable behind the wheel. Soon they’d reach Ely, then Wendover. Beyond Wendover, they’d have a final two-hour stretch across the salt flats, then they’d arrive in Salt Lake City.
“When can we eat?” Max asked.
Preston could see Emma fighting sleep. At the sound of her son’s voice, she jerked her drooping eyelids open and looked at Preston. “Do you think we could get some dinner in Ely?”
He nodded, wanting to tell her she could go ahead and relax. A normal person, a person with any compassion, would do that. But Max was wide-awake and talkative, and Preston didn’t want to be left alone with him. The memories crowded too close.
“We’ll stop soon,” she told her son.
“When?” Max asked.
“In about an hour.”
“An hour! That’s too long.”
Preston felt the same way. Glaring down at the odometer, he willed the miles to pass more quickly.
“Hey, Mom. There’s a rabbit!”
Max’s squeal of excitement startled Emma, who’d been about to nod off again. “What, honey? What did you say?”
“Did you see it? Huh, Mom? Did you see it?”
She covered a yawn. “See what?”
“The rabbit,” Preston muttered.
The exasperation in his voice acted like a jolt of caffeine. It also resurrected the tense expression she’d worn earlier. “Sorry,” she said, but he didn’t know if she was talking to him or to Max.
“You’re not looking,” Max complained.
“I am now,” she said.
Preston watched Emma gather whatever reserves of strength and patience she had left and turn toward the window, presumably in search of wildlife. But he couldn’t expect her to continue acting as a buffer between him and her son. He couldn’t be that much of a jerk. He didn’t know her whole history, but he was beginning to understand that her life hadn’t gone much better than his. If he was going to drop her off in Salt Lake, the least he could do was let her get some sleep along the way.
Still, he cringed at the thought of dealing directly with Max.
He put off what his conscience dictated, hoping the guilt would recede. But it didn’t, so he finally reached out and squeezed her shoulder.
When he touched her, she gaped at him in astonishment.
“Go to sleep,” he said briskly.
She shook her head. “I’m getting my second wind.”
“Bullshit. You’re exhausted.”
“Did you say the ‘s’ word?” Max asked.
“Max, it’s none of your business,” Emma warned.
“He said the ‘s’ word, Mom. I heard him.”
“That’s okay,” she replied. “It’s not up to us to tell Mr. Holman how to speak, especially in his own car.”
“Can I say the ‘s’ word?”
“Absolutely not.”
“He did.”
“I’m bigger than you,” Preston chimed in. “When you’re my age, you can decide what words to use.”
Max seemed satisfied with this answer, but not thirty seconds later Preston heard him murmuring, “Shit…shit, shit, shit.”
Evidently, Emma heard him, too, because she twisted in her seat. “Max! What do you think you’re doing?”
Preston adjusted the rearview mirror to see Max’s eyes widen. “Practicing,” he said innocently.
Emma shook her head, and Preston couldn’t help laughing. “Rest,” he told her. “You can worry about cleaning up his language later.”
“You’re smiling,” she said as though she was amazed that he could.
Preston instantly sobered. “Just get some sleep.”
“If my son says shit one more time, you’re going to have to take us all the way to Iowa.”
“Do you really have family there?”
With a yawn, she laid her head back. “No.”
EMMA CLOSED HER EYES but refused to relax completely. She had to remain cognizant of what went on in the car. Although she was beginning to doubt that Preston was really as unfeeling as he wanted her to believe, he made no secret about his dislike of children. She’d seen the way he looked at her son, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of him, and had no intention of letting Preston say or do anything unkind to Max while she slept.
“Are we almost there?” Max asked.
Knowing this question would probably annoy Preston more than any other, because Max asked it so often, Emma tried to summon the energy to answer. But Preston responded before she could, and with far more patience than she’d expected.
“We’ve got another thirty minutes or so.”
“Thirty minutes? Is that long?”
“It’s half an hour.”
“Is half an hour long?”
Preston chuckled. “Not really.”
“Can I have some ice cream when we get there?”
Emma made an effort to bring words to her lips. She’d given Max an insulin injection when they’d stopped, but his glucose level had reached 450 mg/dL, which was very high. She didn’t want him to have any more treats until she could get his blood sugar under control. “Don’t let him have another cookie, okay?” she mumbled.
Unless she was mistaken, Preston’s voice sounded almost gentle. “You’re supposed to be sleeping, remember?”
“He’s had enough sweets.”
“I won’t give him anything. We’re about to have dinner.”
She thought she said okay, but wasn’t sure. Exhaustion made her limbs heavy, her tongue unwieldy.
“My dad’s gonna be mad if we don’t go home soon,” Max announced.
The hot sun, glaring through her window, made Emma feel warm and lazy—as though she were lying at the side of their pool. Despite that, she realized her son was attempting to enforce his will by appealing to the power his father had always held in his life, and felt guilty for dragging him so far from home. They’d had to leave Max’s aquarium behind, his comfortable bedroom, his toys. Now they were struggling to deal with his health issues on the road. And they had almost nothing.
Except the chance at a new life, she reminded herself. She conjured up the little yellow house she’d imagined so often, and smiled inside. Soon they’d be safe and free.
“Does your dad ever play ball with you?” Preston asked conversationally.
“No.”
Emma let herself relax a little more. Maybe Preston wasn’t so bad. He was even trying to entertain her son. But his question almost made Emma laugh. Manuel wanted Max to excel at baseball, yet he couldn’t be bothered to stand out in the yard and play catch. He hired a private coach to work with him twice a week. Emma threw to him every other day.
“What’s your father like?”
The answers streamed through Emma’s mind like ticker tape: Controlling, obsessive, fanatical…
“He’s tall,” Max said.
“Did you live with him?”
Unfortunately…
“I still do.”
Not anymore, Max. Never again….
“So does he know you’re gone?”
“Um…” Max seemed a little puzzled. “He’s at work right now,” he answered at last.
“What does he do when he’s at work?”
Wouldn’t we all like to know….
“He wears a suit.”
“A suit, huh? Do you see him very often?”
“When he comes home.”
“Do you like it when he’s home?”
“Yeah. Sometimes he brings me a fish for my big tank.”
The fish Manuel brought home for Max’s aquarium seemed to swim through Emma’s thoughts. Shimmering. Colorful. Resplendent. And occasionally ferocious enough to eat the other fish in the tank….
“Then he takes my mom into the bedroom,” Max added out of nowhere.
Emma imagined Preston’s surprise that this comment would come from a five-year-old. She didn’t like her son volunteering such intimate information any more than she liked the way Max must feel about those occurrences; they’d obviously made an impact. But she felt strangely disconnected from the conversation. She was drifting in and out, baking in the hot sun. Sometimes she was beside the pool. Sometimes she was cooking in the house. Sometimes she was riding in the Hummer with Manuel at the wheel….
“What do you do while they’re in the bedroom?” Preston asked.
“I watch my new fish,” Max said.
Emma’s sluggish mind slowly presented a picture of her son standing in front of his aquarium while his father dragged her into the bedroom and locked the door. It never concerned Manuel, even when he hadn’t seen Max for a couple of weeks, and the boy was starved for his attention. Nor did Manuel care about the fact that Emma felt awkward and self-conscious with their child only a few feet from the door when he insisted on having sex with her. More often than not, Manuel went so far as to fasten her hands to the headboard. He liked bondage, but he rarely tied her feet. He wanted her to struggle. He relished having the power to subdue her while she tried to resist. Of course, if Max was awake in the other room, she had to do it silently, which Manuel enjoyed even more.